“Inherent Vice” will be out in theaters on February 20

Jan 24, 2015 08:36 GMT  ·  By

Joaquin Phoenix has had a very un-Hollywood career in film so far, even though the movie that put him on the map is a Hollywood classic and even landed him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, “Gladiator.”

To this day, Phoenix’s trajectory in showbiz remains surprising, unpredictable, but his latest interview with The Guardian, promoting the Wes Anderson film “Inherent Vice,” which came very close to getting him another Oscar nod, this time for Best Actor, sheds some light into his choices so far.

He simply doesn’t do big budget movies because his goal isn’t to make money for the studios or please wide audiences, but to work with directors he respects and that challenge him, and thus deliver a performance he can be proud of.

Big movies leave no room for that.

A story worth telling trumps wanting a big box office return

Phoenix doesn’t hate on big budget movies or the actors who appear in them. Considering how many so-called “serious” actors have been lured today into starring in superhero films, that would mean he’d have to hate half his peers.

In fact, he admits, he loves all the Iron Man movies and he might even be tempted to star in a superhero movie himself, but only if the director was one he’d love to work with, if the story was right and possibly if there was no pressure on the film being a hit.

What Phoenix would want from a superhero film, in other words, is that it be an indie production, because a studio production, especially a superhero one, has a huge budget these days – and that means pressure. This pressure also includes doing promotion for the film, and it’s a known fact that Phoenix doesn’t hate anything more than doing press rounds because he doesn’t want to come across as disingenuous.

“I try not to have any restrictions. I’m just interested in the film-maker and the character, and something that feels new and exciting. Whether that’s a big studio movie or an independent movie doesn’t really matter to me,” he says.

On second thought, strike that last part. “Obviously the more money at stake, the more expectations there are to make that back, right? So you start lowering your standards. You try to appeal to as wide a market as possible. I think that’s why typically I haven’t done bigger movies,” he adds.

A different kind of superhero film

Phoenix also has an idea of the kind of superhero film he’d like to star in: a retelling of the best-known story in the world, in which Jesus Christ would be tempted by an angel to come down from the cross and lead a normal life, perhaps even start a family too.

He doesn’t say which character he’d love to play, but he’s probably thinking of Jesus because he would be the superhero in this situation, struggling between his calling and his secret dream of normalcy.

“In a superhero movie it’s typically good guy and bad guy, and bad guy attacks. Well, in real life evil seduces,” Phoenix muses.

However, don’t expect to see him in such a film anytime soon. As Joaquin makes it very clear in the interview, he has a lot of ideas of this kind, but he doesn’t put them into practice. He is an actor and an actor acts, he says, stressing that the concept that it’s an actor who makes a movie great is nothing short of a Hollywood myth: if an actor is great in a great movie, that’s always the credit of the director.

Phoenix’s ideas, he laughs, are always messed up, dead ends.

The full interview is available at the link in the second paragraph. If you’re a fan of Phoenix’s work, it’s a must-read, no doubt.