Lady Gaga asked the Joker 2 cast and crew to call her by a very specific name on set
It seems like Lady Gaga has gone full method actor again.
The 'Poker Face' singer is playing Harley Quinn in the new Joker sequel Folie à Deux.
In a recent podcast interview, the film's cinematographer, Lawrence Sher, said Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, only wanted to be referred to by a specific name on set.
“I didn’t know Stefani at all,” he said.
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"Strangely, I felt like I never even met her, even during the makeup/hair tests.
"Because again, maybe it was my philosophy of not trying to get in their space. And then I remember for a week, being like, god, I feel like we are disconnecting. Not even connecting. We are like on opposites."
He added: "And I would say to my crew, ‘Jesus, I can’t, like, crack it. She either hates me or we hate each other. There’s something weird going on here'.
"I barely said anything, except I would say, ‘Stefani, this is where your second team was, minor little things', and then the AD at one point said, ‘Oh you know, Stef would like if you just called her Lee on set'.
"And I was like, oh, 100 per cent, and I literally said, the next thing I said, was something ‘Lee,’ and it was like everything changed.
"From that point on, it was like she was… our whole connection changed. I was like, alright, cool."
Who knows who this mysterious 'Lee' is, perhaps it's short for Harley Quinn? As in Har-Lee Quinn.
This, of course, is not the first time our good friend Lady Gaga has really immersed herself in a role.
The singer spoke in a Northern Italian accent for nine months - all day every day - so she could 'authentically' portray Patrizia Reggiani in 2021's House of Gucci.
"It is three years since I started working on it," she told British Vogue at the time.
"And I will be fully honest and transparent: I lived as her [Reggiani] for a year and a half. And I spoke with an accent for nine months of that."
She also dyed her hair dark because it was 'nearly impossible for me to speak in the accent as a blonde'.
Gaga also told the publication that in the end she had a hard time distinguishing between herself and the character.
"I had some psychological difficulty at one point towards the end of filming," she said.
"I was either in my hotel room, living and speaking as Reggiani, or I was on set, living and speaking as her. I remember I went out into Italy one day with a hat on to take a walk. I hadn't taken a walk in about two months and I panicked."
Also, after she starred as Ally Maine in Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born in 2018, she stayed in character for years.
Yes, years.
We don't have much information about the plot of Joker: Folie à Deux yet but we do know Joaquin Phoenix is reprising the titular role alongside... Lee and the film is set to hit cinemas in 2024.
Keryn Donnelly