Joaquin Phoenix’s bizarre self-humiliating method acting for ‘Beau Is Afraid’
Joaquin Phoenix has revealed the bizarre self-humiliating method acting tactic that he employed to get into character during the filming of his new movie Beau Is Afraid.
The Oscar-winning actor said that to get into the downbeat state of mind of the titular character, he would start screaming at himself before filming specific scenes. He confessed: “I’m a little reluctant to say this, because it sounds do fucking stupid.”
Speaking on the A24 podcast, he said that his method sounds “just like actor shit” but for the scenes that director Ari Aster wanted to film in a single take, Phoenix recalled: “I just started screaming, just the most intense guttural pain scream that I could before we were shooting, sitting there, because I had to just fully humiliate myself. And then just go like, OK, well once that’s happened, you can’t look any more stupid than you do now.”
Adding: “And it just let go of everything, right? I don’t know why, but I was just overcome with this need to do that. And I think it probably made you [Aster] uncomfortable. We weren’t in the same room. You were on the monitor, but I have a feeling that you got very uncomfortable.”
Aster affirmed the validity of the technique when he commented: “It was shocking in a way that was exciting, I think, because it did jar everybody. And I felt like it was good because the energy in the room did suddenly become both alert and disturbed.”
Beau Is Afraid is set for release in UK cinemas on May 19th, 2023
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