Can This Phoenix Rise Again?

Anyone else here a fan of the very talented Joaquin Phoenix?

I certainly am. For those who have watched Gladiator (which happens to be one of my favourite films of all time), I'm sure you hated the character portrayed by Phoenix in the film, and that's the treacherous Emperor Commodus. Without giving too much of the storyline away, for the benefit of those who still haven't watched it yet, Maximus (Russell Crowe) was a persistent thorn in the Emperor's side throughout the story. Commodus duly challenged Maximus to to a sword duel at the Roman Colosseum. Despite being vastly inferior to the ex-general in strength Commodus, being the evil bugger that he is, handicapped Maximus (I'm not telling you how) for the fight but ultimately met his death in the resulting combat at the hands of Maximus. I hated Commodus in the film so much that I felt so jubilant at the time of his death. It was because of Joaquin Phoenix's sheer talent in bringing out such evil in a movie villain that made me first realise of his skill.

Of course, who could forget his epic role in the the Johnny Cash biography - Walk the Line?

I'm not usually a fan of biopics but this one totally blew me away, mainly because of his chemistry with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash and also because of how he managed to portray the country music legend's success, struggles, dilemmas and comebacks so well. His performance wasn't exactly over-the-top-mindblowingly-brilliant, but what makes it tick was that he made the character in the film so believable. And not many actors can do that. Mind you, he was nominated for a Grammy that year for Best Lead Actor, but he didn't win it, unforunately.


He's got a new movie out this year called Two Lovers co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and the movie critics are already waxing lyrical about it. In February he was invited onto the David Letterman show to have a chat-chit (yeah, I flipped it on purpose) about the movie. So he showed up, but something's different now. He's like a completely douchebag. He's sporting a massive beard, perpetually has these unnecessary shades on, was murmuring monosyllabic answers throughout the entire interview that even Letterman himself was feeling a little awkward. He was just downright.... queer.


Yeah, that's his new look. See what I mean? WTF! What on earth has happened to him? If you watch videos of the interview online (just search for "Joaquin Phoenix on David Letterman" on YouTube, I'm not putting it here... lazy...), you'll see that his behaviour just doesn't concur with that of the social norm.

Prior to that, he had announced that his dumping his acting career to pursue a new one in hip-hop/rapping.

......Hip-hop? Rap? You'd think that if he were to pursue a career in music, he'd be doing country since he was so good at it in Walk the Line.

No shit.... and he's dead serious about it. It's no hoax. During the Letterman show, a reporter asked him whether all this was a put-on and he had an awfully disdainful look on his face. He looked as if someone had slapped him. He wanted his hip-hop aspirations to be taken seriously. Here's what he has to say about it:

"Might I be ridiculous? Might my career in music be laughable? Yeah, that's possible, but that's certainly not my intention."

Apparently his buddy Casey Affleck is filming a documentary of him turning into a hip-hop star, so he's probably doing all this just to "get into the character" just like how Heath Ledger did to become The Joker. So it could be a giant hoax and could well be his own way of telling the media that "you don't know a thing about Joaquin Phoenix".

You know what? We really don't. But I do know that someone as talented and accomplished an actor like he shouldn't let his acting skills go to waste. I'm sure he'll be back in the future.

I'm sure that this Phoenix will rise from the ashes again.