Joaquin Phoenix chooses music over film?
While we thought we were crazy for blogging about music 24/7, Joaquin Phoenix just took it to a whole new level. The 33-year-old award-winning actor, who is perhaps best known for his role as Johnny Cash in Walk The Line, has chosen to leave a flourishing film career in order to pursue his own musical aspirations. Talk about one-upping Scarlett Johansson!
During an interview with Extra at a Paul Newman benefit this past Monday, Phoenix revealed his intentions to retire from action starting immediately:
“I want to take this opportunity… also to give you the exclusive and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor… I’m not doing films anymore.”
The whole thing seems a bit odd, especially when you add picture to the words. Between the stunned Extra reporter to Phoenix’s nonchalant attitude, I’m not sure whether this is a long lost episode from Punk’d or the real McCoy.
To be fair, the Puerto Rican born actor does have a history with music and, given the current circumstances of his his band, The Lady is a Tramp, Phoenix could in fact be telling the truth. Last year, as reported by Prefix Mag, the outfit composed of Phoenix and Antony Langdon was said to be in the finishing stages of a debut album. Could the actor’s retirement coincide with the release of The Lady is a Tramp’s debut?
Well, on top of everything else I noted, two other things don’t really make much sense. One, as pointed out by Spin, Alan McGee, the man supposedly behind the album’s mixing, announced his own retirement just this week. Then there’s the issue of Phoenix’s bandmate, Antony Langdon. If you’re familiar with the name that’s because the Leeds native is also a member of Spacehog, and while the New York based rock band hasn’t released a new album since 2001’s The Hogyssey, drummer Jonny Cragg recently posted a message on the band’s MySpace proclaiming a reunion is in the works.
So what gives? Will Langdon be splitting time between what will surely be two pretty high-profile projects? Or is Phoenix just pulling or chain? Maybe Joaquin Phoenix isn’t quite willing to leave his previous career just yet. After all, this whole thing is like something out of a movie.
Jan 29th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
[...] Joaquin Phoenix, star of Walk the Line and Gladiator, announced back in October that he was done with acting and going to focus exclusively on music. The news was a bit shocking, [...]