OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP
On the sets of “Gladiator” and “Napoleon”, Joaquin Phoenix did not spare director Ridley Scott.
PEOPLE – Bad habits die hard for Joaquin Phoenix. In any case, this is what Ridley Scott, who directed the American on Gladiator (2000) et Napoleon (2023). And on both shoots, the actor almost gave up everything even though production had already started.
“I can’t do it” Joaquin Phoenix reportedly said while wearing his Emperor Commodus costume. “ I was confused and Russell Crowe responded : “It’s really not professional.” entrust the director in an interview with New York Times on the occasion of the release of his Gladiator II.
Asked about the method he used to decide the actor to stay, Ridley Scott assures that he can play the role “from a big brother, from a dad” on his shoots. “But I’m a good friend of Joaquin. Gladiator was a baptism of fire for both of us at first,” affirms the octogenarian who subsequently collaborated with the actor again.
A regular with stage fright
If he indeed played the character of Commodus to the end in Gladiatora performance which also earned him his first Oscar nomination for the Best Supporting Actor award, Joaquin Phoenix was only making his first attempt.
Last August, the actor stood out for the same reasons. Just before the promotion of Joker: Folie à deux, he slammed the door on the set of Todd Haynes’ next film (Dark Waters, May December) while filming was about to begin, as the specialist media then confided IndieWire.
We then learned through the Hollywood Reporterthat he had also tried to desert the filming of Napoleon (2023), by the same Ridley Scott. He then requested the arrival of Paul Thomas Anderson, with whom he had filmed The Master (2012) et Inherent Vice (2014), to rewrite the scenario.
A story which remained at the rumor stage, before being confirmed by the British director, still in this same interview for the New York Times. “Tommy was doing Licorice Pizza when he advised me how to do it Napoleon,” he admits. But the collaboration would have been much less forced than announced according to him. “It was actually a lot of fun. The three of us were in a room screaming with laughter,” he concluded, without rancor.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.fr
