Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman

**buckeye_fan** · February 13th, 2009, 03:10 PM

I personally think it was all a joke, but some are saying that this was actually for real. You decide I suppose.

YouTube - Late Show - Where's Joaquin Phoenix? - 2/11/09

**steer** · February 13th, 2009, 03:38 PM

Andy Kaufman is back.... Phoenix has flown the coop

**SkoalSpitter** · February 13th, 2009, 03:49 PM

There was som evideo of him rapping and falling of the stage or something. He's been saying he is really giving up acting for rapping. I'd say he has a new movie in the future he is setting up.

**1inStripes** · February 13th, 2009, 04:29 PM

I hope this doesn't happen to everyone who portrays Johnny Cash in a movie, sort of like the Superman curse or something. Seems as though he has gotten into some stuff his late brother used to.

**burton2019** · February 13th, 2009, 05:45 PM

its a work..hes filming a "mockumentary"....casey affleck is filming it

he does have a kick ass beard though

**steer** · February 13th, 2009, 06:12 PM

here's what somebody else said on a website

There's substantial evidence that he's making a film, probably in connection with Casey Affleck, who keeps on following him around with cameras. People keep on comparing it with Andy Kaufman, but the two are entirely different. Kaufman's point was essentially that all celebrities are just personas: he viewed his fame as something fake and so tried to bring comedy (truth) to it through stunts that also damaged his status.

Phoenix is approaching it from the point where celebrity is a very real thing, and his "stunt" seems to be based on a decline within it: the absurdity seems to lie in the public/media and their reactions. Phoenix's stunt is darker and more subtle, and much more damning to society. It is both amazing and sickening how a celebrity growing a "hobo beard" can dominate public consciousness over, say, actual news.

People have compared it to Spinal Tap, but you have to remember that Phoenix must have known that the death of his brother due to drugs would be linked to his own increasingly bizarre behaviour. I think what we're seeing is a masterful performance that has more in common with Ledger's Joker, who also sought to hold a mirror up to society, than it does Borat.