Joaquin Phoenix Had To ‘Humiliate’ Himself And Look ‘F*cking Stupid’ For A ‘Beau Is Afraid’ Scene

Beau is afraid, but Joaquin Phoenix isn’t afraid of looking “f*cking stupid.”

While appearing on The A24 Podcast with Beau Is Afraid writer and director Ari Aster, the Joker star discussed how he prepared himself for a scene.

“It got me spinning in a panic,” Phoenix told Aster. “[I’m a] little reluctant to say this, but because it sounds so f*cking stupid and just like actor sh*t, but I remember, and I was thinking, what I did before was I did a scene, but I wasn’t really volatile. I didn’t really put myself out there. I was still nervous. 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.”

Phoenix remembers “realizing I had to do something that was f*cking stupid, and I just so didn’t want to do it, but I just knew. And 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.” That’s when he realized that he couldn’t “look any more stupid than you do now.”

You can listen to the podcast below.

Beau Is Afraid is out in theaters now.

(Via IndieWire)