At long last, Joaquin Phoenix has made a public appearance to tell his version of what that whole hip-hop documentary mess was about. Appearing clean-shaven and back to normal on Letterman Wednesday night, Phoenix apologized to Letterman for any offense caused by his previous interview in February of 2009. In that interview, Phoenix appeared in character as a mumbling, monosyllabic drug user who had apparently given up his acting career to pursue life as a hip-hop artist. As was revealed earlier this week, it turned out the entire 19-month ruse was a stunt to promote Casey Affleck’s mockumentary about Phoenix’s invented alter-ego.
Now, the two-time Academy Award nominee says that the awkwardness of that interview should have been a tip-off, and in a thinly veiled insult he told Letterman, “I assumed that you would know the difference between a character and a real person.” Ouch.
Check out last night’s interview:
As we all suspected, the official word has finally come out: Â the whole “I’ve given up acting and I’m now a hip-hop star” weirdness from Joaquin Phoenix was all part of something he calls “performance art” and the rest of us call “being a jackass for no reason.” Â Casey Affleck, younger brother of Ben Affleck, directed the film I’m Still Here, documenting Phoenix’s alleged transformation into a king of the hip-hop lifestyle. Â The film got a lot of negative criticism, and even more people worried that Joaquin Phoenix was in need of an intervention. Â Affleck now says that he assumed people would have known the movie was a fake, but claims that it was not a hoax, it was just actors doing their job – acting. Â Joaquin Phoenix is due to be on Letterman tomorrow night, and after having shown up as his hip-hop character for a previous Letterman interview, Phoenix has quite a lot of explaining to do tomorrow.