See? Gossip is comin’ at us from all over the place this year.

Page Six reported that Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix, who worked together on Her and, most recently, Mary Magdalene (he plays Jesus), “found love on the set”. They were shooting in the desert, away from the city, friends, family, life. They’re two intense people. They get caught up in their characters. They’re known for getting caught up in creative darkness and self-indulging in angsty headspace. I can see it. It makes total sense, even though Joaquin’s rep has denied it, saying “they’re just good friends”.

You know what’s interesting though? Joaquin is best friends with Casey Affleck. Casey and Rooney were also co-stars on Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. I get anonymous emails now and again about rumours that they too had a fling. Nothing that I could ever substantiate beyond a quote from Casey last year when he talked about the experience of making Manchester By The Sea and then his thoughts turned to Rooney:

“The reason that I keep [acting] is the conversations that I have early in the morning, late at night, between the scenes. And none of them were ever better than the ones that I had with Kenny [Lonergan] just talking about, Why does the character do this? What would you do? What would I do? I was thinking about this recently, but the only reason that I do movies is because I like having those conversations.

The rest of it is either a chore leading up to it or just following through on the fun part that we just had. When you're with someone like Kenny, all of those conversations make you understand yourself better, other people better, and the characters better. That's the fun part but watching [the movies] is torture unless Rooney [Mara] is in movie. Then it's a pure joy to watch [laughs].”

So she comes up there. And then he goes on to talk more about his relationships with directors. But after that, he’s asked about other actors he’s worked with, specifically Rooney – and he says this:

“I just fell in love with her and then the movie's over and then she lets you know that she was just sucking you in [laughs]. Then there's zero feeling there at the wrap party and I was devastated. I was kind of just a little fly in her web, I guess. So that was how that was like.”

Click here to listen to the conversation. (PS I hate Casey Affleck’s voice.)

A joke, obviously a joke! But it’s hard for me, after those allegations about how he and Joaquin behaved while shooting I’m Still Here, to not be tempted to look at this situation through that lens, if, that is, Joaquin and Rooney are actually together.