Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga Bring Gotham to Venice, Electrify Fest With Ambitious ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’

Joaquin Phoenix‘s Joker returned to Venice Wednesday night for the long-awaited world premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux with his Harley Quinn, Lady Gaga, on his arm.

The duo, together with director Todd Phillips — who last appeared on the lido with Joker five years ago, winning the fest’s prestigious Golden Lion — were congratulated by an electrified theater audience at the Sala Grande, racking up an impressive 10.5-minute standing ovation. Throughout the ovation, the crowd periodically erupted into chants of “Ga-ga, Ga-ga, Ga-ga!” During breaks in the chants, others shouted, “Gaga, we love you!” The actor-singer thanked and blew kisses to fans when she wasn’t being made to giggle by her co-star throughout the applause.

Phillips and his two stars appeared to successfully recreate the magic of the first film’s reception in an uneven but vibrant second outing, per The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic David Rooney, with a myriad of splashy, romantic musical numbers (led by a seasoned professional in Gaga) coloring the gritty Gotham landscape.

It’s safe to say it has big shoes to fill. The first installment earned over $1 billion at the worldwide box office and bagged Phoenix a best actor Oscar. Phillips told a packed press conference ahead of the premiere that “it feels correct” to be back in Venice debuting his sequel, but he conceded that making the follow-up made him “more nervous.”

“It’s a lot easier to come into something as an insurgent than it is as the incumbent,” he said. “There’s definitely a sense of more nervousness with this second one.”

Gaga appears as Lee, who would later become Harley Quinn, a patient at Arkham State Hospital, the psych institution where Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck is a maximum-security prisoner. They soon form a romantic connection when Arthur, awaiting trial for the murder of five people, joins a music therapy group. Lee sees the Joker in Arthur, and seeks to bring the alter-ego back out of him.

Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz), Arthur’s neighbor in Joker, makes a brief appearance when the character is brought in as a witness for the prosecution team led by young assistant district attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) before his villainous alter ego Two-Face shows up.

Phillips and Phoenix had agreed, they said in Venice, that if they did return for a follow-up, “it had to feel audacious and like we were really swinging for the fences,” according to the director. They asked themselves: “Could we make something unexpected like the first one even though it’s a sequel?”

Gaga and Phoenix, who turn up the heat for Folie à Deux, were nothing but complimentary of each other, with the mega-successful pop star describing working with her fellow actor as “a breeze.” She told reporters: “I actually really enjoyed it, and it was a completely different experience than I’ve ever had with another actor. He’s incredibly loose and free.”

When asked about their weight loss for the film, Phoenix declined to say exactly how many pounds he lost. “It felt a bit more difficult, but it is safe. But you’re right, I’m now 49, I probably shouldn’t do this again. This is probably it for me,” before saying to his co-star: “We did rehearsals, and we left for a month and came backm and you’d lost a lot of weight, it was really impressive.” Gaga added: “We fed [Joaquin] blueberries when he was hungry.”

Joker: Folie à Deux releases in North America on Oct. 4.