Joaquin Phoenix, who stars in the upcoming film "Beau Is Afraid," revealed how he shed the nerves ahead of a scene on set.
During a podcast conversation with A24, Director Ari Aster and Phoenix recalled the moment. Aster wanted to shoot the scene in one take, which made Phoenix feel anxious and like he needed to let go of control.
“I’m a little reluctant to say this, because it sounds so fucking stupid and just like actor shit, but I remember… what I did before was I did the scene, but I wasn’t really volatile. I was still nervous. I was still… In some way, I was controlling a little bit. I was controlling what people thought about me. I didn’t want to let people down. And it was like new crew were early on set. And I remember just realizing I had to do something that was fucking stupid, and I just so didn’t want to do it, but I just knew.”
Before the second take, Phoenix screamed in intense pain to humiliate himself and release any tension he was feeling.
“I just started screaming, just the most intense guttural pain scream that I could before we were shooting, sitting there, because I had to just fully humiliate myself,” Phoenix said.
“And then just go like, okay, well once that’s happened, you can’t look any more stupid than you do now. And it just let go of everything, right? I don’t know why, but I just was overcome with this need to do that. And I think it probably made you uncomfortable. We weren’t in the same room. You were on the monitor, but I have a feeling that you got very uncomfortable.”
While Aster thought it was a good thing for the energy in the room, Phoenix admits he felt uncomfortable doing it.
"Beau Is Afraid" is a surreal black comedy horror film about a man on a journey home to visit his mother. It also stars Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, and Patti Lupone. The film had a successful opening weekend in limited release and will be released nationwide on April 21.