Lady Gaga Shares Her Creative Process Behind Joker and Harlequin

You good? Yes.

[Crew Member 1] Okay.

[Crew Member 2] Slate one, take one.

[slate clacks]

[Interviewer] How are you feeling right now?

I just feel so excited,

I feel so grateful.

[gentle staccato music]

I just came from the London premiere

of Joker: Folie a Deux,

and I got to see at least 800

to a couple thousand fans or something.

It was just like this really special, exciting experience,

delivering the movie to the world.

Now I'm here talking to you,

and after we talk, I'm going to go

to the first listening party of Harlequin,

which is a companion album that I made

to go with the film, Joker,

and there, Little Monsters will hear the album

for the very first time.

[pensive music]

Sharing the film with a new audience is exciting

and a little nerve wracking,

but it's so much of a shared vision

with the director and your fellow actors,

and Harlequin is all my own.

My interpretation of all the music from the film,

as well as a couple originals.

A little bit of a different feeling.

It's much more scary, I think.

I get really kind of nervous, and I feel super fragile,

which is probably unreasonable and silly,

but, yeah, that's how I feel.

Hi, Gaga. Gaga!

This is custom Celine by Hedi Slimane.

We have known each other for a long time,

and he photographed me for the cover

of my album, The Fame Monster.

I actually realized tonight,

my hair is actually very similar

to the album cover that he shot.

Different outfits, also strong shoulders.

Tonight was like a really special evening,

meant to be kind of elegant and a little bit rebellious.

Two things I like.

Arianne Phillips and I worked on styling this film together.

We had this tall order, because there's an idea

that people have about Harley Quinn,

and we wanted to create something completely new.

That was a challenge, but we really focused

on what would be true to her.

The clothes were kind of immature,

indicative of, like, a younger mind.

In that way, I think we were honing in

on this kind of uncomfortable, young quality in her,

even though she's in her 30s.

And we also talked a lot about feminism and prairie dresses,

and what that kind of, you know, domestic garb meant

at an earlier point in time,

and how it was subverted to become feminist

in the right sort of context of styling,

and I think that some of the reason that we did that, too,

was because Lee is obsessed with a man.

That subversion created a authenticity

and vulnerability and uniqueness to her

that was maybe also a little provocative.

Developing Lee was really private

and, you know, something that I will always remember,

and when I watched the film back, I noticed, right away,

some things that I shared through her that are something

that only people really close to me would know.

I think that there's some, like, stigmas,

actors like, not leaving their roles,

but for me, it has more to do with all of the things

that you learn when you are being creative

or developing a project or a character.

That's why I made Harlequin,

because I wanted to keep going.

My fiance, Michael, and I co-executive produced this album.

We went through this really special experience

making Joker together.

We were able to have this really deep conversation

about Lee and Arthur and Harley and Joker,

and in what ways does Harley fantasize

about harnessing all of Joker's fame,

and in what ways would she fantasize

about some kind of revenge on him

for all the ways that he may break her heart?

I just wasn't really done with Lee

when I was done filming the movie.

We decided it could be just like,

a really imaginative experience with music

to take all the complexities of her as a character

and translate them into an album.

Harlequin is a woman that decides who she is

when she wants to,

and is completely unapologetic, unpredictable, rebellious,

loud and soft, pure and tainted.

She's the embodiment of, you know,

everything I believe women deserve

to have in terms of freedom.

It's like this incredibly unique experience

to be in love with somebody that you can also create with.

There's a song that's really special to me

called Happy Mistake,

and that song is a very, very personal look

at the human being that played Lee,

and my relationship with

playing broken women

throughout my career in different ways.

One of the lyrics is, A lonely disposition,

portraits of a strung out girl.

How'd I get so addicted to the love of the whole world?

It's kind of a confession of what it's like

to live dual identities.

The ultimate confessional Lady Gaga song, in a way.

I'm going to go to the first listening party of Harlequin.

This was like our brainchild together,

so it's so fun for us to deliver it to the fans.

[gentle staccato music]

I have such amazing fans,

and seeing them out in London tonight was so, so fun.

They already had printouts of the Harlequin album cover,

and they were wearing the makeup,

and that was so cool to see.

It's hard to describe almost two decades long

of a relationship with this community.

When I first came out, a lot of interviewers

all over the world wanted to ask me about my clothes.

I would often get made fun of, like, in the interview,

or there'd be a lot of, like, probing questions.

Why the stage persona, why the name, why all of it?

My fans always felt that I wasn't really that weird.

I feel like my fans always have

kind of had a secret handshake with me

of like, you know, we've got you,

like, we know who you are.

You know, you don't have to apologize for who you are.

I still feel that way.

That's really cool to run into fans

at a movie premiere when you're 38,

and you're still like, doing hand signals

and going like, it's cool, just be yourself.

That's all, folks. [chuckles]

[gentle serene music]