Joaquin Phoenix: A Psyche Prober and Instinctual Agent of Inner Torments

Joaquin Phoenix is somewhat of an outlier in the constellation of Hollywood movie stars.

To use a better-sounding phrase, Joaquin Phoenix is in a league of his own.

He won an Oscar for his leading role in Joker, in a genre that does not usually garner Oscar attention. It’s funny that three of the four Academy Awards nominations bestowed on him so far – Gladiator (2000), Walk the Line (2005), The Master (2012) and Joker (2019) - are in commercially successful movies, which is unusual to say the least. An actor tends to snug into blockbusters for the big money and sneaks into arthouse fare for the prestige and the golden statuettes.

For much of the movie-loving public, his turn in Gladiator was a true revelation. Commodus was more or less a one-dimensional character, a type traditionally displayed with abundance of snarls and grimaces. Somehow, Phoenix was able to imbue it with multiple layers of psychological depths, not as much as words as with subtle variations of facial expressions.

No wonder he has a penchant for smaller projects with more ample room for character delineation. C’mon C’mon (2021) had a worldwide box-office gross of US$4.5 million and Beau Is Afraid (2023) did slightly better with US$11.5 million. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio would have been devastated with this kind of numbers, but they didn’t seem to bother Phoenix that much. He must have known that films of this nature do not fill millions of seats.

But for those who did turn out in the cinema for these two movies, it was a marvel to see such drastically different portrayals. One is a mild-mannered brother who is contrasted with his energetic nephew on a cross-country trip, and the other an anxiety-ridden man caught on a Kafkaesque odyssey more likely taking place inside his warped mind. Both are tour-de-force performances yet without a hint of striving. It is as if Joaquin Phoenix was born to play these roles.

Phoenix is often lauded for his uncanny ability to bring out the dark, edgy depths of his characters. Gladiator and Joker are certainly the most widely seen of his movies and therefore have left the most indelible marks on public perception. Many of his art movies are extremely dark, often to the point of discomfort for the audiences, but they serve to show off his range more effectively than the hit movies he appears in, which tend to be formulaic in narrative structure despite the effort to break away from the rut. Beau Is Afraid is essentially a one-person show that deprives the actor of any reliance on star halo or acting contrivances. It was an audacious choice for an actor of his stature.

One must not forget that not all his performances are in this category. In C’mon C’mon he plays a normal person in a web of family relationships that do not seem to require the inquisition of Freud. The movie is almost a mood piece, with little drama but much to savor. Her (2013), a better-known film and a favorite among many cineastes, seems to probe the inner recesses of the male lead. But instead, it was the female character Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, who turns out to have harbored a dark secret. Phoenix’s Theodore is the innocent one through and through. Neither of these roles are dark per se, yet Phoenix was able to give them a full-fledged roundedness. In lesser hands, they could have become bland or even boring.

Unusual Upbringing

Even with the full knowledge that actors often hail from unconventional family backgrounds, it could be surprising to learn of the degree of unusualness of the Phoenix family. For one thing, the original surname is Bottom. It was legally changed to Phoenix by his parents who were seeking a new life and adopted the name of the mythical bird for its legendary rise from ashes. Does that mean that, for a language not using the word “phoenix” for this bird, one should seriously consider not using transliteration for this name as it was clearly chosen for its connotation? For example, Chinese translate the American city of Phoenix for its meaning, but the actor’s name just for the sound, losing its charm in the process.

On top of that, all of his siblings have first names with meanings, such as River, who tragically and famously died in 1993, Rain, Liberty and Summer. Joaquin, albeit his birth name, called himself “Leaf” for much of his childhood and didn’t change it back until the age of 15.

His parents met each other while hitchhiking and, after giving birth to their second child, joined a religious cult. They quit after they got frustrated with the cult’s increasingly distorted rules. All of the Phoenix children were involved in acting because the mother had connection to an agent. That reminds one of the Gypsy Rose Lee story where the mother channels her passions and disappointments into her children’s acting careers. Whatever the similarities or differences, the Phoenix children seemed to enjoy acting for its own sake. Two of them rose to stardom, a success rate not matched by many families of child entertainers.

Offbeat? Yes. But dark? Not necessarily. I don’t see any correlation between the family dramas and Joaquin’s talent for digging deep into a character’s soul. Sure, River Phoenix’s premature death must have weighed heavily on the younger Phoenix. He recoiled into seclusion to escape the media glare. The family did not want to mourn their loss under public scrutiny.

It is not hard to detect a connection between the family upbringing and Joaquin’s love of acting. Whenever he talked about his older brother, it was River’s prodding for him to return to acting that was his point of emphasis. Unless supported with solid testimony, it is probably a bit far-fetched to imply a dark hole in his childhood that he is able to tap into for inspiration whenever he is required to play such a character.

Acting Style

On the surface, it would be easy to categorize Joaquin Phoenix as a method actor. His big idol is Robert DeNiro. He carried his prop sword with him even when he was off the set of Gladiator. His fellow colleagues use words like “eccentric” to describe him. Even he himself admits that he is difficult to be around with while working. Daniel Day-Lewis publicly praised him as “remarkable” while accepting a Screen Actors Guild Award.

However, when extreme method acting is discussed, it is usually the name of Daniel Day-Lewis who pops into most minds. Not that method acting can have only one champion at a time. There is something slightly different between Joaquin Phoenix and the other practitioners of the acting craft with complete commitment to their roles.

For one thing, Joaquin Phoenix rarely drastically alters his appearances. Sure, he mimicked Johnny Cash’s singing to the point of fooling such a discerning critic as Roger Ebert. He put rubber bands on his teeth for The Master. He lost lots of weight for Joker. His intense preparations and thorough immersion are all trademarks of method acting. There are dissenting opinions: Garth Davis, who directed him in Mary Magdalene (2018), once remarked that Phoenix does not apply method acting.

Compared with other famous method actors, Phoenix has plenty of outbursts on screen, but not many scenery-chewing scenes that could be conveniently lifted for showcasing. One has to see him in the context of the whole movie to appreciate the subtleties as well as the range. He is almost never unrecognizable in terms of appearance, but he is totally convincing in each role.

It can be said that Joaquin Phoenix does not disappear into his roles as much as embodies the roles so completely that he becomes these characters.

His biggest schtick, if it can be so called, was his year-long claim to retirement from acting and transition to a new career as a hip-hop artist. In hindsight, it was all acting - part of his mockumentary film I’m Still Here (2010). But at the time, many people thought he had gone nuts. Using another perspective, one can safely say it was a piece of performance art that culminated in a movie, rather than promotional activities for the movie. It was a manifestation of the extent he would go for his art more than a display for the range of his craft.

For that, one may need to turn to You Were Never Really Here, which won universal acclaim and earned Phoenix the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. Many deemed his performance a career high although it could hardly reach the kind of height that Joker achieved in influence.

Phoenix teamed up with his Gladiator director Ridley Scott for the upcoming epic Napolean. The press is quite divided when it comes to the movie itself, but as Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times opines, “Phoenix, you might well argue, is reason enough” for making this movie.

In an age when authenticity is often the byword for screen acting, I’m sure French actors may at least privately protest the casting of Phoenix in the role of their country’s most famous emperor. But in terms of emotional authenticity, Phoenix is often peerless. Take away all the flourishes of period drama, Napolean is probably worth seeing for the pure joy of Phoenix’s acting. Of course, one has to see it before making detailed and educated comments on it.

There is not one definition of good acting, or acting in general. Each audience member may have his or her own interpretation. For me, the ability to bare the soul of a character must count as a major feat. And Joaquin Phoenix is certainly a master at that.

By Raymond Zhou