After playing Ms. Harleen Quinzel – aka Harley Quinn – in Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, and The Suicide Squad – Margot Robbie will pass Harley’s baseball bat to Lady Gaga. Gaga, 36, will portray Harley opposite Joaquin Phoenix‘s Joker in Joker: Folie à Deux, and Margot, 32, is ready for it. “I think she’s going to do an amazing job,” Margo said of Gaga taking on the role when talking with Entertainment Tonight ahead of the Los Angeles premiere of Babylon. I’m so excited; it’s all I could’ve ever hoped for Harley was that she would become one of those characters, kind of like Batman or Hamlet, that gets handed from actor to actor, [and] everyone gets a go at playing them.”
“So, I think it’s just credit to her as a character that people want to see her in multiple iterations. I’m excited,” she added. Gaga becomes the latest big star to play Quinn. In addition to Robbie, Gillian Jacobs voiced the character in the 2021 animated movie, Injustice. Kaley Cuoco continues to voice Harley on the HBO Max series Harley Quinn. Melissa Rauch, who starred opposite Kaley in The Big Bang Theory, voiced Harley Quinn for 2017’s animated film Batman and Harley Quinn. Mia Sara played the character in the Birds of Prey series, while Hyden Walch voiced her in The Batman series.
Iconic voice actress Tara Strong voiced Harley in Batman: Arkham City and in the Injustice games. She took over for Arleen Sorkin, who originated the character (opposite the late Kevin Conroy) on Batman: The Animated Series.
Gaga confirmed her involvement in the sequel to 2019’s Joker in August 2022. Gaga shared a quick snippet of a video where silhouettes of Phoenix’s Joker and (presumably) Gaga’s Quinn float against a red background while Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek” plays. She shared the title – Madness for Two in French – and that the film has an Oct. 24, 2024, release date.
Joker: Folie à Deux
10.04.24 pic.twitter.com/obp7T9lBFL— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 4, 2022
Director Todd Phillips gave fans a first look at the film on Dec. 10, posting a picture of Joaquin’s Arthur Fleck getting a shave. “Day 1. Our boy. #joker” commented the director.
The reports of this Joker movie being a musical has divided a few fans, but Zazie Beetz – who is reprising her role as Sophie Dumond in the film – thinks this move “makes wonderful sense,” per The Hollywood Reporter.
“I wasn’t really surprised by that,” she said. “Todd [Phillips] has always had a creative approach to the character. I love musicals, and I think of them as the characters are feeling and experiencing so much that they can only sing and dance about it, whether in sorrow or in joy. And I can actually see that within myself as well, because singing and dancing is quite a cathartic experience for me. I was going through a really, really difficult time at one point in my life, and I just started dancing and crying by myself. And that was an expression that matched where I was at that moment. And so I can see Arthur [Fleck], who is feeling and experiencing so much, dancing and singing about it. He’s the Joker, so I think it makes sense to me.”