I was up late on Wednesday night and channel-surfed through about two minutes of David Letterman’s attempt at interviewing Joaquin Phoenix. I found it tiresome, as I’m sure Letterman did.
On Thursday, I see here and there that people are wondering, “What’s wrong with Joaquin?”
Maybe not much. He may be involved in a bit of anti-marketing, Joaquin doing his best Andy Kaufman.
It makes sense. Kaufman could be tiresome, too. But he attracted attention.
Phoenix’s occasional involuntary smirks–in response to Leterman’s funny crack about the Unabomber, for example–seem to betray an actor trying to stay “in character.” Or an actor trying to send the message, “I don’t want to do publicity tours.”
On the other hand, Phoenix may really be that troubled.
Either way, he’ll sell some tickets to his newest movie.
But the video below is painful.
[This was posted earlier at my personal blog.]