Joaquin Phoenix - The Art of the Prank

December 18, 2014December 15, 2023

Joaquin Phoenix Pranks David Letterman Again

phoenixletterman When he retires from television in 2015, David Letterman will wrap a remarkable career of stunts, water-cooler bombshells, and awkward celebrity interviews.

In some cases, Letterman has been seemingly ambushed by guests who were physically combative (Crispin Glover), doped out of their gourds (Farrah Fawcett, Harmony Korine), or simply engaging in the unhinged antics that are their calling cards (Courtney Love, who inspired the host to quip, “I’m glad I have a son.”)

In others, the hosts and his guests have worked in collaboration. Witness the legendary encounter between comedian Andy Kaufman and wrestler Jerry Lawler.

More recently, actor Joaquin Phoenix used a disturbing and incoherent Letterman appearance to promote his controversial documentary I’m Still Here, for which he embarked on a half-assed hip hop career. Letterman later admitted that he was in on the gag.

Earlier this month, Phoenix returned to the show to announce that, like Alec Baldwin before him, he had decided to marry his yoga instructor. Read more here.

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June 24, 2011December 15, 2023

Tabloid Performance Art

10 Celebrities Branded “Performance Artists”
Huffington Post
June 24, 2011

“Performance artist” has become a common slur against celebrities who thrive on tastelessness. There’s no way these people could be for real, the argument goes, so it must all be an elaborate ruse. But whether it’s from James Franco, who openly admits this act, or Joaquin Phoenix, who kept it going long enough to make a documentary about it, performance art is becoming a viable career option for established entertainers.

It’s not just that these celebrities’ personas have infiltrated their lives. That’s gone on for decades, from The Beatles and Bob Dylan, who liked to manipulate and mock their interviewers, to Samuel L. Jackson, who became typecast for his enthusiastic use of profanity. But recently, with the likes of Snooki, Soulja Boy and, lest we forget, Sarah Palin, tabloid performance art has thrived. With the entertainment media’s hyper-short attention span, famous people who can continually make a spectacle of themselves can also usually make headlines. [Here’s a] slideshow… of ten celebrities who have been accused of performance art, with varying degrees of truth behind the allegations.

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September 19, 2010December 15, 2023

Joaquin Phoenix & Casey Affleck Expose Themselves

Update from news.softpedia.com, September 21, 2010: David Letterman Was In on the Joaquin Phoenix Hoax

Documentary? Better Call It Performance Art
by Michael Cieply
The New York Times
September 16, 2010

Casey Affleck wants to come clean.

South Pasadena, Calif. His new movie, “I”™m Still Here,“ was performance. Almost every bit of it. Including Joaquin Phoenix”™s disturbing appearance on David Letterman”™s late-night show in 2009, Mr. Affleck said in a candid interview at a cafe here on Thursday morning.

“It”™s a terrific performance, it”™s the performance of his career,” Mr. Affleck said. He was speaking of Mr. Phoenix”™s two-year portrayal of himself “” on screen and off “” as a bearded, drug-addled aspiring rap star, who, as Mr. Affleck tells it, put his professional life on the line to star in a bit of “gonzo filmmaking” modeled on the reality-bending journalism of Hunter S. Thompson.

“I”™m Still Here“ was released last week by Magnolia Pictures to scathing reviews by a number of critics, including Roger Ebert, who wrote that the film was “a sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin.”

“The reviews were so angry,” said Mr. Affleck, who attributed much of the hostility to his own long silence about a film that left more than a few viewers wondering what was real “” The drugs? The hookers? The childhood home-movie sequences in the beginning? “” and what was not. Continue reading “Joaquin Phoenix & Casey Affleck Expose Themselves”

May 9, 2010December 15, 2023

About Joaquin Phoenix’s New Doc: If It Walks Like a Duck…

Joaquin Phoenix documentary: Even buyers aren’t sure if it’s a prank
by John Horn
The Los Angeles Times
May 7, 2010

It”™s far from the Joaquin Phoenix you”™re used to seeing onscreen: snorting cocaine, ordering call girls, having oral sex with a publicist, treating his assistants abusively and rapping badly. And not, apparently, playing a role “” or was he?

Even after seeing the documentary “I”™m Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix” in a private screening earlier this week, film buyers still aren”™t sure of its genuineness. Was the “Walk the Line” and “Gladiator” star, who said more than a year ago that he was quitting acting to become a musician, playing a sophisticated prank, or did he really ditch his Oscar-nominated career to become a disheveled rapper?

Agents at William Morris Endeavor, the sellers of the Casey Affleck-directed film, have started showing the movie to potential distributors, and while some were apparently interested in bidding for “I”™m Still Here”™s” distribution rights, the shoppers left the screening perhaps even more mystified by Phoenix”™s behavior than when they walked in. Continue reading “About Joaquin Phoenix’s New Doc: If It Walks Like a Duck…”