Lady Gaga opens up about how her character in Joker: Folie à Deux influenced her latest album Harlequin

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix's upcoming film Joker: Folie à Deux is set to be released in theatres on October 4, 2024. Ahead of the film's release, Gaga spoke to Zane Lowe on Apple Music about how her character, Harley "Lee" Quinn, led her to release her latest album under the same name.

Gaga said that the character didn't "leave [her] creatively," leading her to create the album. The Bad Romance singer added that Lee had a "profound effect" on her.

"This idea of dual identities was always something that was a part of my music making. I was always creating characters in my music and when I made Lee for Joker, she just really had this profound effect on me," the singer told Zane.

Lady Gaga added that the film had "so much music in it," which helped her make Harlequin. She continued to say that the music as well as the story, dance, costumes, and makeup helped her discover Lee's character. She added that she had a "deep experience with the character."

"So I kind of had this deep experience with the character and she just didn't really leave me creatively and I decided I wanted to make a whole album inspired by her," Gaga said.

The actor-singer said that Lee was a complex character who inspired her as a "woman in music and a female producer" to create the 13-track album. Lady Gaga plays the role of Harley Quinn in the musical psychological thriller, which is a sequel to Joaquin Phoenix's 2019 film Joker. Phoenix will reprise his role as Arthur Fleck, aka the Joker in the upcoming film.

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Lady Gaga's Harlequin album hit No. 1 on iTunes

For the last few weeks, Lady Gaga had been teasing fans about a surprise project called LG 6.5 before she made an official announcement about her 13-song album. She took to Instagram on Tuesday, September 24, 2024, to announce that Harlequin will be released on Friday, September 27, 2024.

Within the first 24 hours of its release, the album has already outperformed several other new releases and rose to the number one spot on the US iTunes albums chart.

Harlequin's tracklist is a compilation of songs that are set to appear in Joker: Folie a Deux, along with original tracks and covers of old classics. It includes reimagined show tunes like Sweet Charity's If My Friends Could See Me Now and Good Morning from Singing in the Rain.

The dramatic waltz Folie a Deux and Happy Mistake are the two original songs in Harlequin. The actor-singer told Zane that she wrote the latter with Bloodpop, describing it as "the image of the character, but also kind of at the very core of her soul, which is really just me."

Here's the complete tracklist of the singer's latest album:

1. Good Morning
2. Get Happy (2024)
3. Oh, When The Saints
4. World On a String
5. If My Friends Could See Me Now
6. That's Entertainment
7. Smile
8. The Joker
9. Folie á Deux
10. Gonna Build A Mountain
11. Close To You
12. Happy Mistake
13. That's Life

The singer said that making the album was fun and freeing, adding that calling it LG6.5 wasn't "beholden to pop music or pop culture" the same way her other releases might be.

"It was completely freeing because calling it LG6.5, it's kind of not beholden to pop music or pop culture in the same way that some of my other releases might be. And it kind of gave me freedom in that way."

Zane Lowe also described Lady Gaga's album as "half Gaga and half Lee," adding that it was "really, really fun" while being "really free."

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Lady Gaga's Joker: Folie a Deux will be released in theatres across the US on Friday, October 4, 2024. It will see Gaga as Harley Quinn, the Joker's love interest. According to its synopsis on IMDb, the film will follow Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) as he is institutionalized at Arkham. He is awaiting trial for his crimes as the Joker when he meets Lee and discovers love and "the music that's always been inside him."

Scott Silver wrote the film's screenplay, while Todd Phillips directed the film, which will also feature Zazie Beetz, Harry Lawtey, and Catherine Keener, among others.