See? Three for three. Maybe it should be a daily feature.
It’s must see TV. The video is below – Joaquin Phoenix behaving like a petulant child forced to go Aunt Mabel’s house last night with Letterman.
No doubt he’s a douche. But the question this morning, on top of his recent shenanigans – the rapping, the retirement – was this just another chapter in his unfunny, ongoing F-ck You vanity project? Casey Affleck travelled with Joaquin to New York, attended the Letterman taping with him, and was seen with his camera, presumably documenting the entire awkward, embarrassing experience.
Also – was Letterman in on it?
I can’t decide. On the one hand, it’s hard to believe a person could be so audaciously insolent at someone else’s house without previously informing his host about what he was up to. If that’s the case, Letterman is a better actor than Joaquin once was.
Yes, very possible that Letterman was previously informed about the “performance” and played along.
But to me, Letterman, for all his irreverence, is not RUDE. And I’m not sure he’d be willing bring on a guest only to fake out his audience, a loyal audience that has sustained him all these years. There are moments too when Dave seems genuinely annoyed, and while he still manages to be gracious and more patient that say my father-in-law who would have lost his sh-t from the very top when Phoenix walked out in sunglasses there’s also the sense that he’s as surprised as everyone else.
Or not.
Like I said, I can’t decide. You decide.
There is however no debate about his guest. And you can quit the bleeding in your heart. Other than the fact that he’s a giant asshole, there’s nothing wrong with Joaquin Phoenix…beyond the usual celebrity sense of entitlement, of course. And the utter disregard he has for those he works with, those who support him, and those who have admired him in the past. Yeah, those are his only flaws.
Joaquin is notoriously shy. We know this. But he was there to promote Two Lovers. He agreed to the assignment. He even asked his bestie to come along and shoot it. That implies calculation. There was a plan involved. They plotted. They are plotting. You don’t get to pull the “I’m nervous” card when you start exploiting the experience. And therefore blaming his shambolic appearance on nerves totally doesn’t fly.
Two Lovers is JP’s third film for James Gray. As you can see from the video, it was a piss poor effort at promotion, letting down not only his own contribution, but that of every person who laboured on the movie. Nobody gets to do that just because they’ve become disillusioned with the business. There is no excuse on a team level for bringing down everyone else’s hard work. The only conclusion then is that Joaquin Phoenix is not a team player. He has no regard for his peers, his crew, his management, his director.
Joaquin Phoenix is all about Joaquin Phoenix. His favourite word is “I”. His second favourite word is “Me”. In this regard, Joaquin Phoenix IS Mariah Carey.
Selfish, narcissistic, inconsiderate – and he has always claimed to be otherwise. Or he’s been sold to be otherwise, perhaps that’s the disconnect. Perhaps JP has been a dickhead all along, and his truculence has just cleverly been explained away as discomfort with the press. Because he has always claimed he hates the press, is mistrustful of the media after how the death of his brother was reported. Understandable.
But publicity is part of a job. Grownups have jobs. Do you have a job? If you do have a job, do you like every part of your job? All of us, even if we love our jobs, there are certain aspects of our job that make us crazy. It could be filing. It could be data entry. When I was in fundraising I hated writing briefing notes. Tedious and boring.
But you do it because …well… you have to. You have children, you have a mortgage, you have to eat. It’s your reality.
Joaquin Phoenix’s reality?
He got rich from acting, now he has the luxury of not bathing or grooming, the freedom to spend his days not worrying about his house, and the luxury of living a hoax for the sake of “higher art”.
Feel sorry for this mother-cker? Waste of time.
Joaquin Phoenix on David Letterman
Photos from Wenn.com
