(Credit: Alamy)
Tue 19 August 2025 3:30, UK
When you think about the greatest actors of all time, there are a few that spring instantly to mind. Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep. Could it be time to add Joaquin Phoenix to that list? Very definitely.
Looking at the body of work Phoenix has built up over the past two decades, it makes for impressive reading to say the least. As far back as 2000, at just the age of 25, he picked up an Oscar nomination for his performance in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator opposite Russell Crowe (who did win a golden statue), and he has been putting in work ever since that stands up to anyone who has appeared on the big screen.
After stealing the show in M Night Shyamalan’s creepy alien flick Signs, he won several awards for his portrayal of Johnny Cash in the biopic Walk the line five years later and after taking on some art house films, appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master in 2012. His performance in that acclaimed film alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman led some critics to proclaim that acting simply didn’t get any better than Phoenix had displayed.
He showed that again in the incredibly prescient Spike Jonze AI movie Her in 2013 before collecting a fifth Golden Globe nomination a year later with his role as a private investigator in Inherent Vice. In 2017 he took on a controversial part in a movie that many consider his best, but that not that many people are aware of, titled You Were Never Really Here. A difficult watch, it’s a bloody vigilante movie that critics called “Astonishing” and drew comparisons with Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver.
Then, in 2019, came the part that for a new generation, defined Phoenix as an actor, with his performance in the DC Comics movie The Joker launching a thousand memes and landing him unwanted attention as a figurehead for lonely males around the globe. It was the film that got him a long-deserved ‘Best Actor’ award at the Oscars and a full set of gongs, including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.
Given Phoenix’s complete mastery of being able to inhabit a character no matter how gregarious or flamboyant, it is perhaps surprising to note how guarded and quietly spoken he is as a person in real life. Back in 2009, he gave a famous interview to US talk show host David Letterman in which he appeared unkempt and wearing dark glasses, barely able to muster an answer to any questions, prompting Letterman to tell him, “Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t be here tonight.”
Although he later said he was simply in character, that privacy and inability to cope with certain situations were also evident in Phoenix’s dealings with the French director Leos Carax, who was casting for 2021’s Annette, his musical collaboration with pop duo Sparks. Carax, who eventually placed Star Wars’ Adam Driver in the lead male role, originally reached out to Phoenix and revealed, “I don’t like to meet actors with a script. I just wanted to see if he liked the idea,” Carax said. “But he was too shy to meet.”
Carax picked up a ‘Best Director’ award at the Cannes Film Festival for the movie but Phoenix certainly hasn’t suffered for not taking the part on, getting the lead role in Ridley Scott’s epic war drama Napoleon and working on projects with the likes of Ari Aster (in Covid-19 drama Eddington) and Rooney Mara in next year’s Polaris.
Related Topics