Lady Gaga once sang, “I wanna kiss you.” She channeled that energy into Joker: Folie à Deux, where her character, Harley “Lee” Quinn, shared a kiss with another woman. However, the scene ended up being nixed from the final cut.
“It had dialogue in it, and, all of a sudden, I wanted it to be more of a music and vibe moment,” director and writer Todd Phillips told Entertainment Weekly about the smooch. “For that moment to have played, it needed dialogue behind it. Meaning, the woman said something, and then Gaga stopped and did this thing, and it just kind of got in the way of the moment.”
The kiss, which was caught by the papa-paparazzi, occurred outside the Gotham courthouse where “Lee” was showing her support for Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix). Phillips also said that Gaga improvised the kiss.
Despite Gaga’s star power, a companion album, and the presence of Industry favorite Harry Lawtey, Joker: Folie à Deux had a lower-than-expected opening weekend at the domestic box office. It debuted to only $40 million compared to $96.2 million for 2019’s Oscar-winning Joker, which ended up making over $1 billion worldwide. Joker: Folie à Deux will have a hard time even getting halfway there.