Lady Gaga hosted a secret intimate ‘Harlequin‘ listening party in London following the UK premiere of Joker: Folie A Deux.
The upcoming movie is a sequel to 2019’s Joker and is set to be released in cinemas on October 4. It catches up with Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, aka the Joker, while he is a patient at a mental health facility after the events of the first film, where he falls in love with Lady Gaga’s Harleen ‘Lee’ Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn.
Last night (September 25), the pop icon and Phoenix appeared on the red carpet together in London for the UK premiere of Joker: Folie A Deux. Following the premiere, Gaga made her way to the Nomad where she hosted a secret listening for ‘Harlequin’, the film’s companion album which is set for release tomorrow (September 27).
At the party, Gaga played the album in full, whilst singing and dancing with the crowd of die hard fans. Check out the footage of the event below.
VIDEO: Lady Gaga dancing with her fans at the Harlequin listening party in London. pic.twitter.com/E99ozV7oCp
— Lady Gaga Now 🃏 (@ladygaganownet) September 25, 2024
The best night ever😭😭 love you @ladygaga ❤️ #JokerFolieADeux pic.twitter.com/LUgMwqOH51
— Caprice Lane (@capriceamylane) September 26, 2024
Lady Gaga singing Lady Gaga singing
Good Morning Good Morning
in 2017. in 2024. pic.twitter.com/SXKI59c84N— CharlotteHavock (@charlottehavock) September 26, 2024
Tonight was insane. I love you endlessly @ladygaga #JokerFolieADeux #Harlequin pic.twitter.com/JQwwQutDCQ
— Mais ✨ (@MaisieR0se) September 25, 2024
The singer and actor also previewed one of the album’s songs on Instagram last night, alongside a video shot in the Louvre in Paris. Joker: Folie à Deux has been referred to as a jukebox musical, with covers of a number of jazz standards including ‘Oh, When The Saints’, ‘Get Happy‘ and ‘That’s Life‘, along with a few original tracks, which are all set to feature on ‘Harlequin’.
The album will be Gaga’s first since 2021’s ‘Love For Sale’, a collaborative album with the late Tony Bennett – her last solo studio album was 2020’s ‘Chromatica’. She’s previously revealed plans to release a new album of original material in 2025, describing it as LG7 – her seventh album – as opposed to ‘Harlequin’, which she’s calling LG6.5.
Back in August, Gaga shared the single ‘Die With A Smile’, a duet with Bruno Mars, but this is expected to be a standalone track that won’t appear on an album.
NME gave Joker: Folie à Deux a four-star review, saying that Gaga “shines in a provocative prison musical” and: “[director Todd] Phillips and [co-writer Scott] Silver have delivered the last thing anyone expected: a socially responsible Joker movie that finds an intriguing way to explore the consequences (both on and offscreen) of the first film. Joker fans shouldn’t cry too hard though – Warner Bros. have cleverly found a way to leave the door open a little for the franchise to continue, should the need arise.“
In an interview with Vogue earlier this month, Gaga said that she drew on her own experiences when playing the character: “Harley Quinn is a character people know from the ether of pop culture. I had a different experience creating her, namely my experience with mania and chaos inside – for me, it creates a quietness. Sometimes women are labelled as these overly emotional creatures and when we are overwhelmed we are erratic or unhinged. But I wonder if when things become so broken from reality, when we get pushed too far in life, what if it makes you…quiet?”
She continued: “I would say that I worked from a sense-memory perspective: What does it feel like to walk through the world and be…braced, in an intense way. And what happens when you cover up all of the complexities beneath the surface?”
Last month, Joker director Todd Phillips suggested that Folie à Deux is likely to be the final film in the Joker franchise: “It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies, but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.”
