‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Star Harry Lawtey on Joaquin Phoenix Pranking His Mother, His Bromance With Kit Harington and Keeping Intimacy Coordinators ‘Very Busy’ on HBO’s ‘Industry’

On the set of “Joker: Folie à Deux,” Joaquin Phoenix stayed in full makeup even when the cast was workshopping a scene. That left one unsuspecting parent in full panic mode.

“Joaquin suggested, as a joke, that we FaceTime my mum and scare her,” recalls Harry Lawtey, who
plays Harvey Dent, the courtroom nemesis of the titular maniac. “My mum was in England, so it was quite late, and she was getting ready for bed. And I said, ‘Hello,’ and then I brought the phone up to my face, and Joaquin put his head on my shoulder. My mum screamed, ran away and woke up my dad.”

Terrified mums notwithstanding, Lawtey says Phoenix put on “a master class” every day that left
the 27-year-old Brit in awe.

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“To watch him do that laugh and to see the effect on him — on everyone — blew my mind,” Lawtey says. “He would be coughing after each take. It was an education to watch him move through different flavors and shades of that performance.”

The “Joker” sequel hits theaters on Oct. 4, five days after the Season 3 finale of Lawtey’s hit HBO
series “Industry,” which chronicles the debauched antics of young investment bankers in London. The series frequently finds Lawtey’s sex-crazed (but soulful) Robert in various stages of undress, which
kept the intimacy coordinators “very busy.” With the addition of Kit Harington, the Season 3 premiere grew 60% over the previous season’s bow.

“We developed a bit of a bromance,” Lawtey says of his fast friendship with Harington. “He’s such a fun guy. He doesn’t take himself seriously at all.”

In fall 2022, HBO had just renewed “Industry” when Lawtey taped an audition for “Joker 2” director Todd Phillips, expecting nothing to come of it.

“I didn’t have any information about the part,” he says. “So I just recorded a self-talk with my friend and sent it off. And then a couple of weeks later, I had a Zoom call with Todd. My team assumed it
would be kind of a note session for [a second read], but he offered me the part on that Zoom straight away.”

As he prepared for “Joker,” Lawtey avoided watching previous Harvey Dent performances from the likes of Aaron Eckhart, Billy Dee Williams and William Shatner.

“I built my own backstory and created my own through-line, so I could authentically stand in those shoes,” Lawtey notes, adding, “Todd kept on instilling in me that [Harvey] has his eyes on the prize. He spoke about how the era was the dawn of televised trials. And his notion was that Harvey is someone is willing to use that cynically to his advantage.”

Though this “Joker” is a musical, and Harvey is a courtroom showman, Lawtey doesn’t sing. And maybe that’s for the best.

“I mean not singing in front of Lady Gaga is something that I am OK with,” he says. “If there’s someone in that room who should be singing, it’s her. And getting a front-row seat for that, it was a goose-bumps moment.”