Did Joaquin Phoenix Hatch I'm Still Here In This 1998 Interview?

After the hoax-y, anticlimactic thud of I'm Still Here in theaters this fall, most observers who wondered what exactly happened to Joaquin Phoenix in his "lost year" shrugged it off to a PR stunt/acting exercise (with Casey Affleck's camera trailing). And while that's partly true by Affleck's own admission, it's an act Phoenix might have been planning a long, long time.

Phoenix had always been known to be a little... intense, even before talking to Movieline's print predecessor as an up-and-coming 23-year-old actor in 1998. But it's more than a litle uncanny to read back some of his more inflammatory points of view about Hollywood, image, failure, burnout and hypocrisy:

"Everyone's so fucking scared, because when you fail, you f*cking fail in this business." Joaquin Phoenix, dressed in Antonioni Blowup-style clothes, smacks his slim guy slacks at about thigh high as he says this, then lays a lazy grip on the steering wheel of the first car he's ever owned. It's a '72 Le Mans, yellow as a canary with hepatitis. A piece of cheap carpet on the dash keeps the sun cracks away; the bench seats are made of cloth and have the worn nap of a homeless person's dirty blanket. The interior of the car is balmy at the moment with the aroma of the green protein health shake Joaquin just consumed. He's dieting like a supermodel for a role he's about to take on, and his blood sugar level is all over the place. You can feel eagerness, procrastination and hunger waging war for his soul.

"I mean, when you fail, they murder you. It's terrible. I hate to see it happen, even to people I don't think are good. It messes you up more. You're always thinking, What's the next move-the career, the money. And it's all bullsh*t because it doesn't have anything to do with why you're doing what you do. It's completely separate from why you want to be an actor. All that should be important is, Why does a particular role affect you the way it does? [...]

"I mean, sure, you want your film to do good," Joaquin says, taking a hard right. "But I have to be honest, I don't give a sh*t what happens after the movie's out. I just love making it. The only reason why I would like to be accepted? Because if your movies don't do well, after a while you don't get to make any more movies. Simple, right? For me, anyway. But look at Tommy Lee Jones. He did The Fugitive, the lava movie, Men in Black. I didn't see these pictures, I don't know if it was great or fulfilling for him. But, BUT, I do know--or this is what I've heard and it might be untrue, but it's probably right--that he owns a theater company in Texas. I would like to think that that's very fulfilling for him. Bringing people, actors up--funding it. That's f*cking admirable, I love that.

Suddenly Joaquin hikes up his shirt and slaps his belly. "How am I gonna lose this?" After boxing trainers, monster workouts and carrying his lunch around in powder form in a margarine container, he's gained three pounds ("I look down at the face of the scale and its like, YOU LIAR!").

But then there's the other extreme:

"You can take that 'I'm an artiste' stuff to the wrong extreme, too," says Joaquin, now on a roll again. "The guy who goes around saying, 'Look at me, I do small art films, I'm the cool guy, I'm Mister Indie Boy,' that's bullsh*t too. Because you want people to know what you are and you want them to see the damn movie. Whether you think a film will affect society or it's plain entertainment, it's all excellent, it's all noble, That's the great thing about film--there's so many genres and levels to what you can do. I mean, who doesn't want to get dressed up as a cowboy and ride around on horses? F*ck, yeah! Do you want to do a movie that makes people think and effects change? Hell, yeah! If a movie like Seven Years in Tibet awakens some people that were oblivious, then that's amazing. And if it takes Brad Pitt to make that movie, so be it. He's a good actor, and hopefully some good will come from it. But he can also go and make a movie that is just plain fun for him and make money. That's good, too. You're not obligated to make a socially relevant film to have an effect on people and you're not obligated not to, either. But what do I know? I'm only 23, for Chrissake. Oh, who knows about these things? People love people, so why shouldn't we?"

Ohhhh, Joaq, don't ever change. Or... do change? Where do we stand these days?

· On the Way With Joaquin [Movieline]