‘Hill Street Blues’: The first role that made Joaquin Phoenix feel like an actor
Joaquin Phoenix is one of the most enigmatic actors of our time, with an engulfing approach to his craft that has led to some of the most terrifying and vulnerable performances in recent years. From the heart-wrenching loneliness of Her, the unhinged insanity of Joker, and the stifling terror of You Were Never Really Here, his work has a haunting quality that burns into your memory and leaves you frantically searching for hope in the world around you.
However, the actor had an early start in the industry, coming from a family of creatives that encouraged him to start acting at a young age, with him and his brother River quickly rising to fame through roles on television shows such as The Fall Guy and Hill Street Blues. In addition to this, they would busk together on the streets and perform songs, showing a natural aptitude for performance from the very beginning. But with a smorgasbord of talents and early opportunities, Phoenix has named one role from the beginning of his career that gave him the acting bug.
Phoenix made his feature film debut in Spacecamp, directed by Harry Winer in 1986, with his first starring role in Russkies the following year. However, he first gained critical attention after his performance in Ron Howard’s Parenthood, following the Buckman family as they attempt to raise their unruly children. Phoenix made his first appearance as the angsty teenager, a role that he had found to be particularly fulfilling after his work on Hill Street Blues, a show that he recalls with fondness after one memorable acting experience.
The power of acting became clear to Phoenix in 1984, with a guest role on the popular series about an inner-city police precinct. While his part was small, it was enough to give the young actor a deeper passion for the craft and fuel his motivation for future work.
In the show, Phoenix played a teenage boy who was being briefed about his mentally unwell father by police officers, with his character then punching someone in the face and kicking and screaming while the officers tried to hold him back.
When describing the impact of this scene, Phoenix said, “After they said ‘cut,’ I remember the other people and the other actors, I could feel that they went, ‘Oof’. There was this moment and I felt it too, like my body was fucking buzzing. I’ll never forget this feeling. It’s like the first time you drink or smoke a joint or something. You’re like, holy fuck, my whole body is aware of it in a way that I’ve never been aware. It felt incredible. It was an incredible feeling, and I think the organism went, ‘Oh, well, huh, we’re tapping something”.
Any moment can act as the spark for something bigger, with some creatives accrediting far smaller moments to being the catalyst of inspiration for their careers. But for a young Joaquin Phoenix, he caught the bug while on set for a role that was fairly inconsequential within his later body of work, showing that greatness can arise from small beginnings and the power of our formative creative experiences.
