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Page 35: A portrait of the actor Joaquin Phoenix photo-
graphed for the Observer, February 26, 2018, London.
Photo by Richard Saker / Contour by Getty Images

Before playing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line he didn’t know how to sing,

and had never played a guitar.
When the shooting was finished, James Mangold, the director, said: “Joaquin

didn’t play Cash: he became Cash.”

In the fall of 2008, one of the most intense moments of According to the novelist Bret Easton Ellis (American
his career, Joaquin Phoenix announced that he would Psycho), the start of Joker is absolutely the best of his
not longer be an actor. He was in San Francisco, for a generation. He is definitely the least compromising.
benefit gala in honor of Paul Newman. He had just per- As opposed to the stylized rebellion of Johnny Depp
formed with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, dressed and made up like a copy of Keith Richards
Julia Roberts, and other stars, when he told the shocked of the Rolling Stones, Phoenix was brilliant in jeans
emcee from the TV show “Extra”: “I want to take this and a white shirt when he arrived at the press confer -
opportunity to say that this will be my last perfor- ence in Venice for the presentation of Joker, in front of
mance as an actor. I’m not doing films anymore.” The an audience of media people fresh off the screening,
news circled the world in a flash: the Oscar nominee for convinced that they had just seen a performance that
Gladiator and Walk the Line was leaving it all behind to would win an Academy Award. To be Hollywood’s
concentrate on rap. And he meant what he said: short- least conventional actor you don’t need a uniform—
ly thereafter he was seen in an embarrassing concert in reputation will suffice. His is based on a mixture of
Las Vegas. Invited to the “Late Show with David Letter- reticence, talent, a remarkable childhood, and un-
man,” he showed up in dark glasses, with a long beard, speakable sorrows.
mumbling and seemingly confused. Word got around Before playing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line he didn’t
that P Diddy would be producing his first hip-hop album. know how to sing, and had never played a guitar.
But none of it was true. It was all a gigantic ruse, last- When the shooting was finished, James Mangold, the
ing almost two years, to allow Casey Affleck (married director, said: “Joaquin didn’t play Cash: he became
at the time to Phoenix’s kid sister, Summer) to shoot a Cash.” Learning of the remark, the actor looked back
documentary on the actor, I’m Still Here, which is a total on the early days of his career, while still a youngster.
spoof; the drugs, the sex, Joaquin’s craziness, the fist- He began with small parts in TV series like “Murder,
fight with the audience at a rap concert, the film itself. She Wrote” and “Hill Street Blues,” but he was often
The initial scenes show the Phoenix family romping in rejected: “They wanted me to act. And I wasn’t inter-
a lake in Panama in 1981, but they were actually shot in ested in impersonating; I wanted to be someone else.”
Hawaii, with stand-ins, and artificially aged by copying Were that the case, it might be food for thought; al-
onto a videocassette of Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders. most all his most famous characters are tormented,
Pages 36–40: Joaquin Phoenix on the set of Joker. Few actors would have let themselves in for the reper- possessed by demons. Such as the enthralled student
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures 2019 cussions of such a project, the spectacle of a star lurch- who becomes a killer for Nicole Kidman in To Die
ing off the rails. For by Gus Van Sant (who directed him recently in
But there are indeed few actors like Joaquin Phoenix. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, the true story

36 Portrait Protagonist Protagonist Portrait 37