He's Still Here by Martin Howden

Author:Martin Howden
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781843584308
Publisher: John Blake
Published: 2011-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Phoenix was getting steady work, and they were all interesting projects. And he would be working again very soon.

He recounted the tale: ‘I hadn’t seen my agent for a long time, so I went over to her place and we were talking about Return to Paradise, the fact that it was happening, and trying to figure out what to do following that, what would be the best move. She said, “I’d like you to do something bigger with a studio.” I said, “You know, I just want to do a good film, whatever may come along.” And we’re sitting talking and the phone rings and it’s Joel Schumacher, who she knows. And she says, “I’m sitting here with Joaquin Phoenix.” And he goes, “Well great, that’s why I’m calling. I have this script and I want him to read it and talk a little bit about it,” and he wanted to meet me. So I went over and met him.’

Talking about his character in 8MM (1998), the project Schumacher wanted to see him about, Phoenix said, ‘Nic Cage is a private detective hired when someone finds a snuff film in her husband’s safe; she wants to know if it’s real and if so who’s the girl and who are the men who killed her. So he comes to Los Angeles, where I work in a sex shop, and I become his guide to all these underground places. My character is really sad – a character in a tragic situation is sad, but one who doesn’t know it is worse.’

He continued, ‘We get in way over our heads. I think it’s great that he’s paying me money, and I’m happy for that and to be out of the sex shop; I really think I’m a big man. But I’m ridiculous – I have vinyl pants and pierced eyebrows and blue hair. He’s such a sad little punk, he wants to be a rocker, to be Jim Morrison but he’s got zero talent, he’s never going to make it, so he has to laugh about it, to make jokes. He thinks that they’re like a great team – Starsky and Hutch or Jon and Poncherello.’

Joaquin was finally earning money for himself, and not having to rely on anyone else.

‘It’s a great job and you work and it’s great. But I do put a lot of work into what I do and it consumes my thoughts for months, and recovering from that is even more terrible,’ he said.

‘I think that you are allowed to spend the ridiculous amounts of money that you make on bullshit things that don’t really matter just because you want to as long as you balance that with giving back, which I think that I do. I think about my friend who’s evicted because he can’t pay his rent in his apartment and I just tossed out $500 for a MiniDisc player because I wanted a MiniDisc player so I could record my own music. It’s bizarre. I don’t know, it’s all relative.

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