Joaquin, Are You Okay?
Everyone seems to think Joaquin Phoenix’s recent bizarre behavior is an act, a publicity stunt that’s part of a documentary being filmed by Casey Affleck, his brother-in-law.
But I’m not so sure it’s a hoax. According to James Gray in People magazine:
But the director, who has cast Phoenix in three of his films, embraces the intensity. “For all the [craziness] that you deal with – the rapping and the look of him now – I work with him because he has very deep reservoirs of emotion, and he’s a serious person, believe it or not ”
On the Lovers set, “I would get to work at 6 a.m. and his call time would be 9, and he would be [there] in tears. And I’d say, ‘What are you doing? Is everything all right?’ He’d say, ‘I’m getting ready for the day.’ ”
Adds Gray: “He’s been doing it for 30 years. I think he ran out of juice. I just think he’s exhausted.”
Something seems off there. Other clues have me worried about him. From The Independent:
Indeed, having been nominated for two Oscars playing emotionally fragile public figures – the incestuous Roman emperor’s son Commodus in Gladiator, and Johnny Cash in Walk the Line – Phoenix’s recent behaviour suggests he may be losing contact with his own marbles.
The previously stylish 34-year-old has ballooned in weight, say fans, and begun dressing like a native of Skid Row. He is rarely seen out without sunglasses, and has cultivated his beard to the extent that one supermarket magazine recently compared him to “Jim Morrison’s ghost”.
Phoenix has always been prone to eccentricity (he once famously asked a red-carpet journalist: “Do I have a large frog in my hair? Something’s crawling out of my scalp.”) But it has been almost a year now since fans have seen him conducting what one might call a normal conversation.
It’s a particularly worrying fact given his previous personal struggles – he endured a spell in rehab for alcohol addiction in 2005. Tom O’Neill, who writes the Envelope website for the Los Angeles Times, noted yesterday that he had appeared “quite out of it” on the red carpet recently.
“It’s entirely possible that this latest ‘hoax’ line is being floated by Phoenix’s close pals, trying to give a rational explanation for the latest bizarre antics of a wacky celebrity,” O’Neill said.
The manner in which Phoenix announced his retirement from acting also raised eyebrows.
It happened in October, when he appeared at a theatre to perform in a charity fundraiser looking dishevelled, slurring his words, and fidgeting nervously.
Here he falls off the stage after a hip-hop performance. Everyone seemed to think this was planned too.
Given that his behavior might not be a hoax, I thought it was really uncool of Ben Stiller to make fun of him at the Oscars:
Maybe Stiller has some inside dope on this whole thing, but if not, I’m disappointed. I’ll have more on this story as it develops.
liz | 11:13 AM | celebrities
I dunno — the performance on Letterman and the rap act is very similar to the late Andy Kaufman’s work. I think Stiller is in on it, and perhaps Letterman as well.
“perhaps Letterman as well”
Totally. Youtube the Crispin Glover-Letterman appearance to see what Dave looks like and how he acts when he’s not in on the joke.
I hope it’s some sort of performance art. But this is a young man who came from a seriously dysfunctional family, who watched at a young age his older brother–the emotional linchpin of that family–die of cocaine-induced convulsions on a sidewalk in front of him and who has been experiencing whatever pressures a major Hollywood star lives under for many years, almost literally stepping into his extremely talented brother’s shoes. So I’m not betting on this being a joke.
If it’s not, David Letterman was incredibly cruel in encouraging his audience to laugh at a young man who has given a lot to those of us in the audience who’ve enjoyed his work. If so, shame on him.
He looks much happier in his concert. There’s a lot of energy there that I’ll bet no one gets on a movie set.
It seems to me to be either a problem with some drug or another, or an affectation. It’s so hard to tell with celebrities, isn’t it?
Either way, this is the coin of the realm in comedy today, same as it was on the playground when we were kids. Find the weak, the sickly, find anything different, and ridicule it. Bully it into the ground. I’m still not in a forgiving mood with the media since the Britney Spears gang assault a year or more ago. I’m never disappointed by the Western media’s hostility towards the mentally and emotionally ill.
if he IS such an eccentric person, why is he doing it CONSTANTLY?!
it looks like to me like he’s having a tough time telling real life from dream life, possibly becoming delousional. (sorry i can’t spell well!)
plus, you don’t just decided to ’slob it’ & change your physical appearance unless you’ve got something wrong with you.
but you’re right, it must have been hard living the life he had from a young age, sometimes those sort of memories can come back to haunt someone in the worst possible way, at the worst possible time in their life.
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