Like many moviegoers, Brendan Gleeson was a big fan of Todd Phillips’ 2019 film The Joker. So when he heard a sequel was in the offing – with music central to the story and characters – he was excited and intrigued.
Now the Irish actor is starring opposite Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in one of the year’s most-anticipated movies – and he even gets to whistle and sing his way through a couple of scenes himself.
“It’s an alien element in the machinery, and that’s why it felt so exhilarating, because how the hell are they going to get away with that?” says Gleeson of Phillips’ bold decision to bring some classic songs to the dark comic adaptation. “Not only do they get away with it – it enhances everything that’s going on. It’s part of the narrative in a way.
“I knew it was going to be an element of the characters. My own character, for example, likes to whistle and sing a little bit. I didn’t understand how much it was going to be part of how the narrative works, how the emotional journey is, how you’re wrenched from one place into another. The need and the loneliness and the beauty and the potential for love and the need for love… I found some of those scenes very moving.”
Joker: Folie à Deux finds Arthur Fleck institutionalised at Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for his crimes following the events of the first film. While there, he crosses paths with Gaga’s Harley Quinn and the two quickly become infatuated with each other. Gleeson is Jackie Sullivan, a warden in charge of Fleck – and a bit of a showman himself.
“He likes his kingdom. His fiefdom is his own,” says Gleeson of his character. “He keeps control over it, and he looks for respect, and then extends the hand of: ‘We can get along as long as you understand there’s only one boss in this place’. Then this guy [Fleck/Joker] is exciting because he’s famous. Like anybody else, he’s open to the yearning for fame and being associated with it and just touching the hem of the garment and all that stuff.”
Having impressed with his rendition of The Unfortunate Lad in the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Gleeson again gets to hold a tune here.
“Delving into all those songs was great craic,” smiles the Dubliner, a keen traditional musician in his own life. The film’s soundtrack includes classics from the likes of Frank Sinatra and The Carpenters. “I don’t listen to Sinatra very much but when you go back in, particularly with specific songs, and you go tracing the emotional range that was was possible in that music, his delivery of it, and then how that’s kind of transformed into particularly Joaquin and Gaga, or Stefani, her interpretation of what was going on, it was brilliant. And all that writing, all those lyrics are absolutely heartbreaking.”
The role gave Gleeson the opportunity to work closely with Phoenix, who won Best Actor at the Oscars for his performance in the first film. The two had previously worked together on M Night Shyamalan’s 2004 film The Village, but in this instance they share many key scenes.
“It’s invigorating and it’s challenging because it means no two takes are the same, and not because it’s just a random quest for variety. It’s about trying to unearth something else underneath a stone that you haven’t lifted yet,” says Gleeson of working with his co-star.
“There’s always this relentless search for an aspect of something so there’s a kind of a curiosity involved in how the next moment is going to happen. There’s no falling back into the tried and tested. It’s whatever instinct takes him that way. It’s pretty amazing to watch, but also you have to slightly step up to the plate yourself and react to what’s happening, rather than what you had in your mind might happen.”
The Irish actor feels the performance feeds into the iconic character of The Joker in ways that fascinated him. “There’s a very undermining, anarchic aspect to Joker that means that if you smile and expect a smile back, you have no idea what’s going to come back.
“It could be a smile. It could be completely ignoring you. It could be anything. The way that people inter-react is a kind of power game. But with Joker, it’s sometimes that, sometimes not. You’re never quite sure, is he taking the piss or is he just in a different space? So you’re watching this happen, and you have to react in real time to how you negotiate that as a character. It’s really, really exciting.”
Gleeson shot Joker: Folie à Deux in the US at around the same time that he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Banshees of Inisherin. Now he’s back in Los Angeles, working with Nicolas Cage on Spider-Noir, a new series about a down-on-his-luck detective in 1930s New York, who grapples with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero.
“It’ll be interesting, because it brings me back to The General a lot. It’s noir, it’s set in the 1930s, gumshoes and all that stuff.”
The movie fantasy world at that time is really interesting.
“I just saw some of the stills, and they’re like the old glamour shots of all the old stars. It’s going to be an interesting kind of a thing. Being in Hollywood and to be working on something like the Joker, which basically has the profundity of an art house film, and a huge franchise. And then come and film in black and white, 1933, with private investigators and all that noir stuff. It’s kind of great!”
He has also signed up for the forthcoming H is For Hawk, based on Helen MacDonald’s memoir of the same name. The screenplay is being written by Irish author and screenwriter Emma Donoghue (Room). Starring Claire Foy, it centres on a woman who has lost her beloved father and develops a connection with a hawk.
“The book itself was inspired in part by a book called The Goshawk, which was given to me by a late friend of mine about 10 years ago, about trying to tame a hawk,” says Gleeson. “It’s fascinating, and the novel is beautiful. The father is a benign influence and a good influence, and is missed horribly, and I’m playing the dad. This particular project is just a very beautiful testament to somebody who missed their dad an awful lot.”
- Joker: Folie à Deux is in cinemas from Friday, October 4
