Inherent Vice star Joaquin Phoenix has a reputation as an oddball — but he has a secret side to him

ALL-ROUND oddball Joaquin Phoenix reckons he’s a “s**t” interview, but despite his reputation he appears to have another side to him.

“THIS is going to be the worst interview ever,” yells Joaquin Phoenix, animatedly, through a haze of cigarette smoke at a downtown Los Angeles hotel. “I guarantee it. And it’s not you it’s me. I’m winning in the worst interview stakes. I’m just s---.”

Indeed, Phoenix admits, sucking on another cigarette, that he’d rather be at home with his dogs than “saying the same s---” he feels he always says when he plugs a film. (He’s very polite about it, though.)

“He says stupid s---. Was he being weird or was he being normal?” asks director Paul Thomas Anderson, with a sly grin, later. “Sometimes he gets nervous and flustered.”

Despite his protestations, Phoenix, who has a reputation as being a bit erratic, sensitive and occasionally difficult, is certainly not any of these things. In fact, he’s actually really rather funny and warm. He’s also got perspective about his day job (this, people, is rare).

“People should be asking doctors and vets how tough their jobs are, not actors. I mean, it’s sooo hard for us.”

Actor Joaquin Phoenix (l) with Russell Crowe in scene from film "Gladiator". /Films/Titles/Gladiator

At 40, Phoenix has made a career out of playing difficult men. There were Oscar-nominated turns as a lily-livered emperor in Gladiator, and a close-to-the-bone performance as troubled rocker Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. He chalked up another Oscar nod for his role as a war veteran enamoured with a cult in Anderson’s The Master, which he followed with an acclaimed performance in Spike Jonze’s Her, where he played a man in love with a computer operating system.

In his latest outing, Inherent Vice, he’s lightened up a bit, playing a constantly stoned private detective embroiled in a case involving a missing real estate mogul, drug smugglers, his ex-girlfriend, and a cocaine-sniffing dentist (played by a typically outrageous Martin Short).

Based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon, and verging on a screwball comedy, the story jumps all over the place and barely makes any sense. But, according to Phoenix, that’s the whole point.

“When I first read the book, I was like, ‘Where the f--- am I?’ It’s so crazy and out there,” he says. “But then I realised, you don’t need to work it out, you just go with it. I don’t need to be trying to figure this all out.”

Joaquin Phoenix in a scene from the movie Inherent Vice.

Inherent Vice marks Phoenix’s second film with Anderson, the man behind Boogie Nights, Magnolia and There Will Be Blood.

“I’m spoiled from working with him,” says Anderson. “I feel like he’s the best in the world. When you work with somebody who’s great, you get used to certain things — he’s so committed. He’s a great partner in crime.”

The feeling, it seems, is clearly mutual.

“He’s so f---ing smart. He doesn’t impose his ideas on you,” says Phoenix of Anderson. “I’ve worked with a lot of great directors, but he’s really special. There are directors five years ago I would have worked with, but now I just go, ‘Nah,’ because I don’t think they can measure up to him.”

The first collaboration between the pair, The Master (which also starred Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams) was loosely based on the story of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and was much darker than Inherent Vice.

“We did laugh a lot during The Master,” says Phoenix. “I actually think that movie’s really funny, but it was more stressful in some ways than this one. For one, I ate whatever I wanted during Inherent Vice and that made the experience much better. You might think I’m joking, but when you’re starving yourself for a film, it’s not enjoyable.”

T.Break. PLEASE CREDIT: Roadshow. Images from the film The Master starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. Supplied by Roadshow for future use.

Inherent Vice is set in 1970 Los Angeles where the hippy, trippy peace and love of the 1960s has given way to a more menacing, Manson-esque undertone. Phoenix, who spent his formative years living on communes with his family, says his early days in LA were definitely not of the peace and love variety, either.

“I came to Los Angeles when I was five years old, and my mum immediately was a secretary at NBC,” he says, “so there’s nothing less hippy than being a secretary at NBC.”

He did start acting around the same time, though, inspired by his late brother, River.

“I remember the first job that I ever did, and it was on a show called Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, which River was a regular on,” he says.

After watching two actors “go at it” during a fake movie fight, he was hooked.

“I remember getting this rush of adrenaline that went through my body, and it was the most exciting feeling I’d had. Maybe it’s like touching danger, but knowing that you’re safe — like a highwire, but knowing there’s a net. It’s pure, raw, emotion, and there’s something really tantalising about that.”

Joaquin Phoenix during his infamous, rambling Letterman interview, which he says was a joke that people just “didn’t get”.

Phoenix admits that he likes pushing the envelope artistically. In 2010, he made a mockumentary, I’m Still Here, with his best mate Casey Affleck, in which he gave up acting, grew a long beard, mumbled and grumbled and declared he wanted to be a hip-hop artist; a particularly bizarre interview with David Letterman made the world think he’d gone, quite literally, mad. He says that people just “didn’t get the joke”.

“It was always meant to be a humorous thing, but people took it way too seriously.”

Away from work, he says his life in Los Angeles verges on “boring”.

“I interact with my friends. There are very specific places I go. There are a couple of restaurants I like to go to, and a couple of parks I like to go to,” he says. “I’m just not into socialising or interacting. I do the same things. I’m a creature of habit.”

Joaquin Phoenix in a scene from his new movie Inherent Vice.

He also reckons that his career ambitions are pretty singular. And that despite helming a few music videos, he has no plans to direct films.

“I like the idea of it, I just don’t know if I have what it takes,” he laughs. “The videos I directed are just s---! They’re terrible — they really are. You have to be a master of a number of different things, and I can say for sure that I’m not.”

When it comes to acting, though, he says he’s totally in his right wheelhouse.

“There’s something that feels so high stakes and exciting about it. It’s hard to put my finger on it but, at its best, it’s the best experience I’ve ever had of anything that I’ve ever done,” he says, eyes widening. “There’s a moment where you feel — and it sounds so f---ing corny — but it’s like being connected to something bigger than you, and there’s something very exciting about that.”

INHERENT VICE OPENS TODAY