How Kiss Inspired the New ‘Joker’ Movie

Joker: Folie a Deux star Joaquin Phoenix drew inspiration from a different group of musical clowns as he prepared to reprise his role as the titular supervillain: Kiss.

The follow-up to 2019's Joker stars Phoenix as the Joker (nee Arthur Fleck) and singer and actor Lady Gaga as his love interest, Harley Quinn. Folie a Deux takes place two years after Joker, by which point Arthur has been arrested and is in custody at Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for a series of murders.

Phoenix and director Todd Phillips were determined not to make a straightforward sequel to the $1 billion-grossing Joker, instead putting a twisted love story at the musical's core. "We didn't want to just carry on from the first film like, he's the Joker now, so now we're going to see him out there robbing banks," Phoenix told USA Today. "There wasn't going to be any of that."

READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Kiss Album

How Did Kiss Inspire 'Joker: Folie a Deux'?

By the time the events of Joker: Folie a Deux transpire, Arthur has become disillusioned with his Joker persona — which is where the Kiss inspiration came into play.

"Did you ever think, how about Gene Simmons from Kiss? Where 20-year-olds are painting their faces, putting on platform shoes, all rock 'n' roll," Phoenix said. "But what happens when you're in your 40s and like, 'I don't want to put the makeup on anymore'? I just started laughing about that. Todd and I were like, maybe that's the beginning of something."

Kiss technically got sick of applying their signature makeup long before their 40s. The theatrical rockers famously ditched their face paint in 1983, only to reapply it in 1996 for a massive reunion tour — at which point Simmons was just shy of 47. Kiss continued to tour for the next 25-plus years, playing their final show in December 2023. Simmons was 75; his longtime bandmate Paul Stanley was 71.

Simmons has since been touring with a solo band, and he insists the physical Kiss is done for good (making way for the eventual avatar Kiss). "No more makeup for me," he said in March. "But we're the luckiest people in the world."

24. 'Peter Criss' (1978)

It's tempting to leave Criss' solo project out of these Kiss album rankings altogether. After all, he was clearly running as far from the band's hard rock sound as possible. Instead, the voice behind "Beth" and "Hard Luck Woman" leans heavily on ballads and the R&B sound of his previous groups. Even considering that, he simply doesn't have the songwriting talent or charisma to front an entire album.

23. 'Crazy Nights' (1987)

Kiss have been guilty of changing too much to fit in with current trends several times in their career – disco in the late '70s, grunge in the '90s. But there's never been a worse fit for them than the gloppy layers of pop-metal keyboards that dominate this instantly dated album.

22. 'Hot in the Shade' (1989)

While the keyboards and poppy production of 'Crazy Nights' are happily left behind, things get a bit too primitive here. Despite some strong moments – "Rise to It," "Little Ceaser" – there's entirely too much filler on this overlong 15-track collection. Happily, the band reconnected with their '70s live mojo on the supporting tour, and their studio renaissance was coming up soon.

21. 'Music From 'The Elder'' (1981)

With their career on the brink of total failure, Kiss started out here with every intention of making a back-to-basics album, and somehow got talked into swinging for the fences with a bizarre concept album set in medieval times. There are more successful experiments here than you'd believe, but even those are a "cult midnight movie" kind of triumph, for the most devoted fans only.

20. 'Carnival of Souls' (1997)

After successfully going hard and heavy with 1992's triumphant 'Revenge,' Kiss apparently decided to try and top themselves on the follow-up. There's plenty of great riffs here, but overall things veer a bit too far into gloomy grunge / Black Sabbath territory. The album was largely abandoned when the group's classic makeup lineup reunited in 1996, but fans of Gene Simmons in full Demon mode will find some keepers here.

19. 'Sonic Boom' (2009)

Kiss went more than a decade after 'Psycho Circus' without making a new studio album. When they returned to the studio, Paul Stanley firmly took control, insisting that he produce, that the band play together in the studio and that the ballads got left on the cutting-room floor. These seemingly simple rules yielded unsurprisingly pleasurable results, particularly with their best single in years, "Modern Day Delilah."

18. 'Monster' (2012)

Sticking with the formula that made 2009's 'Sonic Boom' a welcome return, Kiss come up with a slightly more diverse and stronger set of songs here. Highlights include the trippy "Long Way Down" and the admittedly juvenile "Take Me Down Below," which finds Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley gleefully trading sex boasts over a stomping AC/DC-inspired track.

17. 'Dynasty' (1979)

We're not going to go on an anti-disco rant. "I Was Made for Lovin' You" is a really catchy song, if a bit of a shock to traditionalists – and "Sure Know Something" is even better. But after tasting individual freedom during the making of their 1978 solo albums, it sounds like Kiss were too fractured and scattered to come back together as a team again here.

16. 'Gene Simmons' (1978)

Gene Simmons clearly made the most of the freedom he was allowed while recording his 1978 solo album – trading his bass for guitar, bringing in a ton of A-list guest stars and, most famously, closing with an unironic, string-enhanced cover of "When You Wish Upon a Star." You wouldn't have wanted this to be the next Kiss album, but there's plenty of fun to be had here.

15. 'Psycho Circus' (1997)

Hailed as the first album by the original lineup in almost 20 years, and hot on the heels of its sold-out reunion tour, 'Psycho Circus' turned out to be the definitive proof that these four guys simply couldn't work together anymore, as Ace Frehley and Peter Criss hardly contributed at all. That said, this album has several bright points - including "Within," "We Are One" and the lurching, Frehley-fronted "Into the Void."

14. 'Animalize' (1984)

With the only other remaining founding member of Kiss (Gene Simmons) off chasing a movie career, Paul Stanley was largely left to cement Kiss' early '80s comeback by himself with this album. "Heaven's on Fire" accomplished that mission handily, but without Simmons' full involvement, the rest of the album is a bit one-dimensional.

13. 'Asylum' (1985)

This underrated album finds Kiss keeping one foot in the commercial '80s sound that would earn them crucial MTV airplay on tracks like "Tears Are Falling." But Gene Simmons seems fully re-engaged here, and there's also a welcome shift back to a '70s sensibility on songs such as "Radar for Love" and "Any Way You Slice It."

12. 'Paul Stanley' (1978)

While Peter Criss explored his musical past and Gene Simmons got wild and a bit weird on their solo albums, Stanley basically set out to prove that he could make a Kiss album all by himself. Songs like "Tonight You Belong to Me" and "Move On" demonstrated that he was pretty much exactly right.

11. 'Unmasked' (1980)

This is the most under-appreciated record in the entire Kiss catalog. Granted, the slick, polished power-pop sound is miles from "Deuce" or "Strutter," but the songwriting is consistent and catchy as all hell. Paul Stanley's gift for hooks has never been on better display than on tracks like "Shandi," "Tomorrow" and "What Makes the World Go Around," and Ace Frehley's loopy trio of songs are worth the price of admission alone.

10. 'Lick it Up' (1983)

The removal of their famous makeup dominated all the headlines about this album, but the real story is how well new guitarist Vinnie Vincent clicked with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons as a songwriting partner. Turns out he was (allegedly) too much of a wingnut to last for even one more album, but songs like "Lick It Up" and "All Hell's Breaking Loose" broke the band out of a long commercial slump.

9. 'Revenge' (1992)

Teaming up with noted 'Destroyer' (yes, and 'Elder') producer Bob Ezrin helped Kiss deliver exactly the uncompromising, trend-free album their fans had been waiting on for more than a decade. In his finest hour with the group, Bruce Kulick unleashes an endless stack of great riffs, and both Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley recapture their over-sized personas on the strength of the band's best songwriting since 'Creatures of the Night.'

8. 'Dressed to Kill' (1975)

Amazingly, Kiss released their first three albums in a little more than one year. Besides being home to eventual career-igniting anthem "Rock and Roll All Nite," 'Dressed to Kill' finds the band getting more sophisticated and powerful on songs like "She" and "Rock Bottom."

7. 'Rock and Roll Over' (1976)

Apparently feeling things got a bit too ornate on their previous LP, 'Destroyer,' Kiss stripped things down for their second album of 1976, recording the record in an empty concert hall. This tougher sound combined with their well-honed songwriting skills to fantastic effect on instant classics such as "I Want You," "Makin' Love' and 'Calling Dr. Love."

6. 'Love Gun' (1977)

The last of the six "classic-era" Kiss albums finds the original band at full strength for the last time. The title track has proven to be Paul Stanley's defining composition, "Christine Sixteen" finds Gene Simmons in peak creep over an insistent piano riff and Ace Frehley gets over his shyness to deliver his first lead vocal on "Shock Me."

5. 'Ace Frehley' (1978)

Ace Frehley delivered a stunningly consistent, catchy set of hard rock songs on his debut solo album – clearly the strongest of the band's four jointly released efforts. His emergence as a songwriter and performer would soon throw the band into chaos and lead to his 1982 departure from the group ... but it just might have been worth it.

4. 'Hotter Than Hell' (1974)

Kiss broadened and darkened their sound just a bit on their sophomore album. The murky – ahh, let's just admit it, crappy – production can't hide the power of catchy Stanley tracks like "Got to Choose" or "Comin' Home." Simmons delivers his sludgiest bit of evil ever in "Goin' Blind," and Frehley lets his buddy Peter Criss sing on the borderline psychedelic closer "Strange Ways."

3. 'Kiss' (1974)

These are the songs on which the empire was built – "Deuce," "Black Diamond," "Cold Gin" and many more. Admittedly, they'd all sound much better the following year as part of 'Alive!,' but it was clear from this primitive start that Kiss had the songs to back up their outrageous imaging.

2. 'Creatures of the Night' (1982)

This seething monster of an album easily could have topped this list. With their career in tatters, the remaining original half of Kiss (Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons) cut the crap and told their real story, angrily dispatching Ace Frehley in "Saint and Sinner," chronicling their place in the rock world with the unflinching "Rock and Roll Hell" and re-declaring their love of the genre with the "I Love It Loud" battle cry.

1. 'Destroyer' (1976)

'Alive!' made them stars, but Kiss still needed to prove they had a future in the recording studio. So they hired Bob Ezrin, who used drill-sergeant methods to get the group to add subtlety and dynamics to their bulldozer sound on arena classics like "Detroit Rock City," 'God of Thunder" and "Shout It Out Loud."

Next: 15 Farewell Tours That Weren't Actually Goodbye