The one role Joaquin Phoenix role wasn’t very fond of: “I don’t know that I really did like the character”
If you had to take a look at the gallery of rogues Joaquin Phoenix has played in his storied career and rank them by likeability, you’d have a good amount of work on your hands. There’s the patricidal Commodus in Gladiator, the twitchy malcontent Freddy Quell in The Master, and even his Oscar-winning turn as Arthur Fleck in Joker.
Despite a laundry list of disreputable characters on his resume, there’s one figure that Phoenix himself singled out as a person he didn’t really care for. The venerated actor said the figure he had reservations about was Joe, the enigmatic bearded bear of a man he embodied in Lynne Ramsay’s 2017 thriller You Were Never Really Here.
Detailing the exploits of a mercenary hired to rescue a politician’s daughter from a sex trafficking ring, it’s a moody and disconcerting film about a damaged man being used as a violent weapon by those who hold power over him. Although it screened as a work in progress at its Cannes Film Festival premiere, Palme d’Or nominee You Were Never Really Here was a hit, garnering Ramsay an award for ‘Best Screenplay’ and Phoenix the award for ‘Best Actor’.
It all ended well for the pair, who spoke of wanting to start work on a new project as soon as they wrapped, although Ramsay has not completed a film since. Nevertheless, Phoenix signalled he had some trepidation at the beginning of filming when it came to wrapping his head around the character.
“To be perfectly frank, I don’t know that I really did like the character that much, initially,” Phoenix said to Rolling Stone. “There were a lot of traits about the character that were really subtle that took me a while to pick up on. Or maybe it’s something that we invented after I got involved, I don’t know.”
In contrast to the classic action paradigm of washboard abs and steely grins, Phoenix appears fleshy, hirsute and taciturn as Joe – ultimately closer to his self-portrayal in 2010 mockumentary misfire I’m Still Here than any other past role.
Ramsay said the look of the character took some initial figuring out, although the beard was influenced by the fact that Phoenix was about to play Jesus opposite Rooney Mara in Mary Magdalene. Meanwhile, the star appearing in bulkier form than usual allowed Ramsay to avoid some of the usual expectations consigned to the action-thriller and avoid the “straightforward six-pack guy, the 2D action-hero type of guy.”
Phoenix showed the world that struggling to identify with or even like the character he played is no requisite for a stunning performance, with critics comparing it to the likes of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. And with Todd Phillips’ Joker coming out just a couple of years later, it wouldn’t be the first or last time that Phoenix was compared to 1970s-era De Niro.
