CB: There are 6.8 billion people on this planet and most of them don’t know who you are and don’t want to. Maybe you’ll be famous, maybe you’ll be on television, but those people will still never know the real you. At best they’ll only know the public you. They have lives to live and yours can’t be the center of their universe. You shouldn’t matter to them. What does matter is that the people closest to you understand you, unless of course, you’re an insane narcissist. I’m Still Here is the story of one such narcissist.
With any discussion about method actors, Joaquin Phoenix is never far behind. A nondescript man who seems to transform into whatever the role demands, Phoenix is always capable of delivering raw Best Actor-worthy performances. That god-given ability seems only to be topped only by the somehow crazier stories that emanate from the set. With the release of Joker, it's an excellent time to take a look at some of the craziest stories of Joaquin Phoenix going full-method on set.
NY Timeout: Is Joaquin Phoenix putting us on? After watching the terrifying, near-brilliant exposé I’m Still Here, in which the Oscar nominee’s public and private unraveling becomes a sick joke, the question doesn’t matter. Either Phoenix mistakenly let his brother-in-law, the castrato-voiced actor Casey Affleck, film him at his absolute nadir—as a bloated, Belushi-esque gasbag—and then assemble the footage into a doc capturing Hollywood’s excess at its most embarrassingly flatulent, or it’s the performance of a lifetime.
Hollywood: Much of the discussion regarding I’m Still Here, Casey Affleck’s chronicle of his brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix’s abrupt retirement from film and subsequent attempt to reinvent himself as a rapper, has until now centered on whether or not the whole ordeal was a hoax.
