The director who almost ruined Joaquin Phoenix’s career: “I don’t want to be the guy”
Joaquin Phoenix is an exceptionally enigmatic performer, constantly defying public expectations and making creative decisions that feel risky and intensely considered. From his performance in Her, You Were Never Really Here, and The Master, the actor has constantly exceeded his own work by pushing each performance to the next level, displaying an unwavering sense of commitment to his craft as he immerses himself in the interiority of each character.
But over the years, he has also evolved in many ways off-camera, with the actor becoming known for his mysterious time away from the screen and sabbatical from Hollywood, hiding out for years on end before returning to the industry with a bizarre television interview and announcement to pursue rapping. Since then, many people have speculated about what happened during his time away from the business, with one director sharing his suspicions that he had something to do with it.
Before deciding to temporarily quit acting, Phoenix starred in the 2007 film Two Lovers, directed by James Gray. Alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, the story follows a depressed young man who moves back in with his parents and accidentally falls in love with two women, unable to pick between the two. It is in many ways an exploration of indecision and the sometimes irrational decision we make in our romantic lives when blinded by love.
Phoenix’s character is incredibly erratic and unpredictable, with an unnervingly soft-spoken and sensitive nature that makes him feel both fragile and dangerous. However, when discussing this, the director James Gray shared an insight into the production process that perhaps offers a new perspective on Phoenix’s unexpected rapping career.
Gray explained: “That rap thing … in the movie it actually comes from something I played for him. I had an obsession with doing that sort of thing as a teenager. … It turns out that Joaquin is imitating me in a lot of the movie. He said, ‘I want to do that, I want to steal from that, I want to do the rap that you used to do.’ I said, ‘OK’. And now I’m seeing him do this thing, and I feel like I’ve ruined Joaquin Phoenix for the world. I don’t want to be the guy that destroyed Joaquin Phoenix’s acting career.”
Apparently, Phoenix took inspiration from Gray’s own interest with rap in the movie, with the character having a passion for this specific style of music, perhaps infusing this into his own life and sparking the beginning of his musical foray.
Despite the unexpectedness of this announcement, it doesn’t appear as though Phoenix stuck with this new interest for very long, with the actor shortly returning to his life on the silver screen, creating modern-day masterpieces such as I’m Still Here, The Joker and C’mon C’mon. While his time away from Hollywood still remains a mystery, perhaps what he did during those years is unimportant, and it is actually none of our business. People focus too much on the lives of celebrities when, in actual fact, Phoenix is just a regular person and artist who happens to enjoy more than one avenue of expressing his creativity.
