“It just– it feels impossible to me… I don’t know, it’s– it just feels so fake.” – Joaquin Phoenix on Rehearsing
Academy Award winning actor Joaquin Phoenix has practically made not talking to the press an art form (he’s often made it through entire press conferences for his films without saying a single word). So it was a rare occasion for Phoenix to participate in a wide-ranging interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes a couple months ago. During that interview, Phoenix spoke about something else that he doesn’t care for: rehearsing with his co-stars.
Regarding not rehearsing during production of Joker, Phoenix told Cooper, “It just– it feels impossible to me… I don’t know, it’s– it just feels so fake.”
Going into detail, Phoenix points out that he would hate to miss out on using a great take because it was done during rehearsal and not when cameras were rolling. He explains, “I mean, the great thing about shooting a movie is shooting multiple takes, and you use editing and so you grab those best moments. So I’d rather discover those moments while we’re working, than in the rehearsal process, and then feel like, ‘Oh, that was really good what we did. How do we recreate that?'”
