{"id":77351,"date":"2025-08-19T08:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T08:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/77351\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T08:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T08:37:07","slug":"when-joaquin-phoenix-lost-out-on-a-role-due-to-being-too-shy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/77351\/","title":{"rendered":"When Joaquin Phoenix lost out on a role due to being too shy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joaquin<\/p>\n

(Credit: Alamy)<\/p>\n

Tue 19 August 2025 3:30, UK <\/p>\n

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<\/a> to that list? Very definitely.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s\u00a0Gladiator\u00a0opposite 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.<\/p>\n

After stealing the show in M Night Shyamalan\u2019s creepy alien flick Signs, he won several awards for his portrayal of Johnny Cash in the biopic Walk the line<\/a> five years later and after taking on some art house films, appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s The Master in 2012. His performance in that acclaimed film alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman led some critics to proclaim that acting simply didn\u2019t get any better than Phoenix had displayed.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, but that not that many people are aware of, titled You Were Never Really Here. A difficult watch, it\u2019s a bloody vigilante movie that critics called \u201cAstonishing\u201d and drew comparisons with Robert De Niro\u2019s Taxi Driver.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018Best Actor\u2019 award at the Oscars and a full set of gongs, including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.<\/p>\n

Given Phoenix\u2019s 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\u00a0famous interview to US talk show host David Letterman<\/a>\u00a0in which he appeared unkempt and wearing dark glasses, barely able to muster an answer to any questions, prompting Letterman to tell him, \u201cJoaquin, I\u2019m sorry you couldn\u2019t be here tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he later said he was simply in character, that privacy and inability to cope with certain situations were also evident in Phoenix\u2019s dealings with the French director Leos Carax, who was casting for 2021\u2019s Annette, his musical collaboration with pop duo Sparks. Carax, who eventually placed Star Wars\u2019 Adam Driver in the lead male role, originally reached out to Phoenix and revealed, \u201cI don\u2019t like to meet actors with a script. I just wanted to see if he liked the idea,\u201d Carax said. \u201cBut he was too shy to meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carax picked up a \u2018Best Director\u2019 award at the Cannes Film Festival for the movie but Phoenix certainly hasn\u2019t suffered for not taking the part on, getting the lead role in Ridley Scott\u2019s 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\u2019s Polaris.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Alamy) Tue 19 August 2025 3:30, UK When you think about the greatest actors of all time,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[25206,96,39485,39486,2839,32936,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-77351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-adam-driver","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-joaquin-phoenix","11":"tag-joker","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-ridley-scott","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}