A lot of time and inches and pixels have been devoted to wondering whether or not actor Joaquin Phoenix, who is supposedly retiring from acting to pursue a rap career, is on the up-and-up or if he’s just punkin’ y’all with an elaborate hoax (complete with film crew headed up by his BIL Casey Affleck, who showed up at Joaquin’s disastrous performance on Letterman).  I’ve seen a lot of speculation, but I ran across an article written by somebody who actually interviewed both Joaquin and Casey, and she’s convinced that this whole rap thing is no hoax:

Yesterday my online colleagues and I were gathered for the junket for Two Lovers the movie that Phoenix is ostensibly out promoting. What you saw on Letterman is essentially what we got– a shambling, mumbling cipher, masked by sunglasses and facial hair, who showed no real interest in talking about the movie he was being paid to promote. It’s unfair to accuse him of drug use, but it’s a fair guess that some were involved. Because Casey Affleck and his crew were there filming the interview for the documentary about Phoenix’s new career, we indulged him in his desire to talk about rapping, and maybe because of that, we got more out of him than Letterman did. He was talkative, almost friendly, admitting he’s planning to collaborate with Diddy and talking about his plans for dance songs, even “sexy songs,” on his rap album. He mentioned how much he hates promoting films, which we had pretty much guessed, but also trashed acting in general, saying that talking about your emotional connection to your character is just something you say “when you’re trying to get nominated.”

The only bit of that open disdain he showed Letterman– and Letterman shoved right back at him– came when one reporter dared to ask the question on everyone’s mind: basically, “Is this a put on?” Phoenix acted as if he’d been slapped, as if he hadn’t heard the question in dozens of interviews already. “It’s hard not to get offended,” he responded, as if his dedication to rap throughout his life should be enough evidence that this is all for real. And while he seemed to shrug it off, and the interview proceeded however bizarrely from there, Affleck jumped in at the end, telling the reporter she was so busy being “savvy” that she wasn’t able to accept the honesty behind it (at least, I think that’s what he was going for). I’m not sure who’s drinking the Kool-Aid and who’s serving it, but neither man seems capable of understanding the main reaction this whole rap career has gotten: total skepticism..

The junket proceeded from there, and we talked to Two Lovers director James Gray and co-star Vinessa Shaw, both of whom seemed baffled but otherwise unwilling to talk about Phoenix’s behavior. Just when we thought it was OK to go, an hour after we’d expected thanks to Phoenix’s late arrival, Casey Affleck came back in, sat us back down, and asked us to explain just why we didn’t believe that his brother-in-law Joaquin was being anything less than genuine.

Where to begin, right? Casey listened attentively as the eight or so journalists left tried to make our case, citing everything from Joaquin’s weird appearance and slurred speech to the checkered history of white rappers. But at no point did he seem to drop his position that we were the crazy ones, that people change careers all the time and Joaquin’s rap career is no less unbelievable than, say, Scarlett Johansson dropping an album. Why couldn’t we just be happy for him and let him do his thing? Haven’t we ourselves ever wanted to do something different? (To prove this point, he actually went around the room and had us list all the jobs we’ve had before, and what we really want to be doing).

But amid the genuine dismay he seemed to have at our cynical questions, Casey gave an explanation that may have cracked the case. He blamed reality TV for our conception that everything has to be 100% fake or 100% real– “there’s a million shades of gray in-between.” And that, more than anything seems to be the answer we’re looking for. Joaquin Phoenix really does want to be a rapper, but he also really wants the attention that comes from appearing to have a breakdown in public. I told Casey that I was skeptical of how publicized the whole thing is, how Joaquin announced his retirement on the red carpet, rapped in Vegas for the first time only weeks later, and now has a documentary crew following him, assuring that we’ll be hearing about MC JP or whatever for at least the next year. But given that Joaquin has willingly participated in the publicity tour for Two Lovers, all while barely talking about the movie itself, the publicity seems to be what it’s all about. If he had cut an album in the privacy of his home and told us about it six months later, that would be beside the point. It’s about the rapping, but it’s also about subverting every expectation we have of the stern-jawed, Oscar-nominated actor.

So is it a stunt, or is it for real? As Casey hinted, it’s a little bit of both. Joaquin Phoenix is never going to “break character,” or admit the rapping was all a hoax, because it’s not. Phoenix really does want to be a rapper, but who knows if it’s because that’s his lifelong artistic dream, or because it’s the last thing we would have expected. The rapping, the beard, the Casey Affleck documentary– it’s all part of a package telling us “You think you know Joaquin Phoenix, but you have no f*cking idea.”

I was exhausted at the end of the day, slightly in shock that I’d spent the last hour being grilled by Casey Affleck, and more sure than ever that, whatever else is going on, we’re not being punk’d by Joaquin Phoenix. Whether it’s drugs talking, or an actual nervous breakdown, or a Britney-esque desire to distance himself as much as possible from his matinee idol potential, Phoenix feels everything he’s doing as genuinely as we might have thought he felt his characters in his movies. Acting isn’t really him, he told us, but this– whatever this is– is real. For lack of a better option, I choose to believe him.

 Where do you start?

I realize that many actors probably do hate promoting movies.  It has always seemed to me to be one of the worst parts of the job…going to show after show after show, being asked the same questions, giving out the same answers, smiling the whole time and acting like this is the first time you’ve been asked.  But then I stop and think…uh, they’re being chauffeured to these interviews by limousines (or at least really nice cars), they have personal assistants who keep track of their every move so that they don’t have to think but just show up, they’re being pampered and coddled and treated like royalty because they look pretty and can act, they sit on a stool or in a chair and answer questions for a few minutes, and at the end of the day they can drown their sorrows in a nice expensive bottle of champagne while feasting on a delicious dinner in a four-star restaurant and go to sleep in a comfortable bed in a luxury hotel.  Wow.  I can see how that would get so depressingly difficult after a while.  All those people who do things like work factory jobs or do open heart surgery or operate on orphans or waitress tables all day need to shut up whining, this is real super hard work.  I mean,  yeah, it probably does get kind of boring and tedious after a while, but come on.  There are worse things in the world you could be doing with your day than promoting a movie.

And what is this blurb about how you talk about an emotional connection to your character when you’re trying to get nominated for awards?  He was nominated for an Oscar and won an Golden Globe for Walk The Line, portraying none other than the great Johnny Cash (who gave his nod to Joaquin to play him).  Johnny Cash would be turning over in his grave if he knew what Joaquin said about “emotional connection”:

Cash similarly established a mutual appreciation late in life with actor Joaquin Phoenix, the star of one of his favorite movies at the time. “Cash loved ‘Gladiator,’ ” Mangold recently remembered. “He knew all the lines.

“He was thrilled,” the director said of Cash’s reaction to the news that Phoenix would portray him in the biopic. “John was a very trusting man. He was very easygoing, a very cool guy. When you’ve got someone like Joaquin who, frankly, is very similar, a very cool actor, John knew that we were moving in the right direction.” [...]

“It’s helpful to go through that process with someone; you don’t feel so frightened and alone,” [Reese] Witherspoon remembered of their transformative performances. “[Joaquin] related to the character … he was very committed to the role, and he practiced really hard, and worked that guitar.”

But the Man In Black did share an emotional connection with the Unarapper, along with a few similar life experiences which helped shape them:

When Joaquin Phoenix met Johnny Cash about five years ago, the young actor had no idea that one day he’d be playing the music legend. “We were at a friend’s place in L.A.,” Phoenix says. “We went into the living room after dinner, and he comes in–his hands were shaking really bad by then–and he picks up his guitar, and the moment he touches the strings, the shake is gone.” After Cash’s wife, June, joined him, the two sang “I Stood on the Banks of Jordan” together. “It was one of the most special moments of my life,” Phoenix says. But the big thrill came later, when Phoenix learned that Cash was a fan of his Oscar-nominated performance as the evil emperor in “Gladiator.” “I’m leaving, and he says,” and here Phoenix’s voice drops an octave into Cash’s country lilt, “I really loved that ‘Gladiator.’ I really like the way you say, ‘Your wife moaned like a whore as they ravaged her again and again and again’.” Phoenix laughs: “That’s the duality of Johnny: he was very, very family-oriented, and yet he was also a s—kicker.” [...]

While “Walk the Line” is ultimately uplifting–Johnny beats his addiction, reaches a peace with his emotionally distant father and finally persuades June to tie the knot–the film is shaded by darkness. Cash was haunted by the loss of his older brother, Jack, who died from a wood-sawing accident at 14; Johnny was 12. It’s tempting to see a parallel to Phoenix’s life. His older brother, River, died of a drug overdose in 1993, when Joaquin was 19. Last year while Phoenix was filming “Walk the Line,” tabloid reports circulated that the actor had had a “breakdown” while shooting a scene related to Cash’s brother’s death. Phoenix says those reports were “bulls–t.” During a scene in which Cash is going through drug withdrawal, Phoenix banged his head on the bedpost, in an attempt to get into his character’s emotional state. He was acting, he says, not flipping out. Phoenix does share Cash’s addiction problems–he checked himself into rehab for alcohol abuse earlier this year–but, as for any other connection between his life and Cash’s, Phoenix is calm but emphatic: he doesn’t see it. “That’s not the way my brain works,” he says. “You know, the press has kind of imposed upon me the title of Mourning Brother, and because I haven’t been vocal about it, the assumption is that I’m holding onto it and all this s–t that’s just not there. I don’t need to pull from my experience for a character, and I’ve never understood why actors would, except for lack of ability, imagination or research. I had all three things, so this is a little –frustrating to me, because it denies my work and the research that I did.” He pauses. “It bothers me that this happens, because it’s slightly exploitative. Suggesting that I would use this personal part of my life for a f—ing movie… it kind of makes me sick.”

So Johnny Cash trusted that Joaquin would portray him well, was a fan of his movies, and took the time to compliment him, and then Joaquin turns around and basically slaps the Man In Black in the face with the comment:

[...] but also trashed acting in general, saying that talking about your emotional connection to your character is just something you say “when you’re trying to get nominated.”

Brilliant.  Great career move, Unarapper.  Keep this up and you’ll burn all your bridges.  Now, all of this is assuming he’s trying to jerk us around.  If he isn’t, I sincerely hope he does get help before he flushes his life down the toilet.  But…you’d think his own BIL wouldn’t be filming him if Joaquin was seriously ill, right?  Have they cooked this up behind closed doors, with Joaquin speaking full and coherent sentences?  Maybe, maybe not?  After all, people around Britney had a hard time believing she was mentally ill.

Which brings me to this:  Joaquin hates promoting movies (and, judging from his recent performance on Letterman, isn’t shy about showing it), but he’s all too happy to take the money paid to him to make those movies.  He gets all kinds of money to show up and act and to sell these movies to the ticket-buying public.  No, not everybody can act, and it is a skill honed through years of hard work, and I’m not at all putting down actors who are devoted to their craft…but top-tier actors do get paid an embarrassing amount of money.  You go out and see one of his movies or buy one of his DVDs, and you’re basically funding his Unarapper Manifesto.  If this is truly some sort of emotional breakdown, drug-related haze, or whatever sort of mental problem he might have slipped into (and don’t forget, he has been in rehab, and backsliding is not unheard of), then he needs for someone to get him some help, not film him for a documentary.  If this is truly a hoax and he’s just faking the whole thing…well, basically, he’s telling his fans, “Screw you.  But thanks for giving me a buttload of money so I can then turn around and insult you and punk y’all with this fake act.”  If I were a fan of Joaquin and Casey, and this does turn out to be a hoax, I wouldn’t be a fan for long, I can tell you that.

He’s a bad boy, he’s a bit of a hippie, he’s a free spirit, he wants to be his own man?  He wants to be a musician and not an actor?  Fine, great…you can be any or all those things and still not act like a jerk.  Only time will tell if Joaquin is truly in the throes of a breakdown, a la Britney, or if he’s just playing a huge joke on us all, a la Andy Kaufman.  I guess we’ll have to wait until he shaves his head (or his beard) or starts wrestling bears to find out.  But, by that time, will anybody care?