The one thing Joaquin Phoenix refused to do while playing Jesus: “That is a horrible introduction”
Over the years, Joaquin Phoenix has proven his dedication to the acting profession with a series of movie performances that have transcended the limits of the screen into something far beyond anyone’s expectations. Whether portraying the iconic Joker, the French military dictator Napoleon or the Roman emperor Commodus, Phoenix has persistently shown his mastery of each of his characters.
However, even with all the great lengths that Phoenix has gone to throughout his career in order to deliver some of the most memorable performances of the 21st century, there are a handful of things that even he has been unwilling to do, most notably when he was portraying Jesus Christ in the 2018 biblical drama Mary Magdalene.
The film saw a number of changes made to the source material, but one in particular came about because of Phoenix’s refusal to act out a specific Bible passage. John 9:1-12 sees Jesus healing a blind man by putting mud into his eyes, having been asked if his blindness is a cause of either his or his parent’s sins.
The belief at the time was that disabilities were a result of a person’s parents’ actions, and this scene, in particular, found its way into the 2018 film. However, the man in the Bible becomes a woman in the film, seeing as it has a strong feminist outlook. Still, when it came time to rub mud into the woman’s eyes, Phoenix was not willing to go ahead.
“I knew about that scene from the Bible, but I guess I had never really considered it,” Phoenix told CNN. “When I got there, I thought: I’m not going to rub dirt in her eyes. Who the fuck would do that? It doesn’t make any sense. That is a horrible introduction to seeing.”
Mud had sometimes been used in Biblical times to cure blindness, but Phoenix performed the scene without the substance, finding beauty in its lack of presence. He added: “That moment is not so much about a real miracle. It’s about someone who has been dismissed by society, finally being seen, embraced and encouraged to join the broader community. To me, that is a miracle. There’s something profoundly beautiful about that sentiment.”
Mary Magdalene was written by Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett and directed by Garth Davis. Rooney Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tahar Rahim starred alongside Phoenix in the movie of Biblical retelling. Check out the trailer below.
