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Joaquin Phoenix is "tortured" soul: director
2007-05-25
How does one get to be an Oscar-nominated actor? Try a little torture to the soul. It evidently worked for Joaquin Phoenix. The actor who was nominated for the world's top film honor for playing troubled country singer Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line" was at the Cannes film festival on Friday for the premiere of his new movie, cop drama "We Own the Night." At a news conference, director James Gray was asked what made Phoenix such a strong actor, and Gray was ready with his answer. "Joaquin has great internal conflict on screen. He radiates torture, which is great, because what you want from actors is danger," he said. Sitting next to him, Phoenix shyly mumbled, "That's not true." Earlier, Gray was asked why he waited seven years to make the film, and he began to answer that it was because he wrote the role of a trouble cop specifically for Phoenix and had to wait until after "Walk the Line" became a hit to raise money. The actor also tried to quiet Gray's answer that time, but later in the news conference, the film's producer confirmed Gray's side of the story. "(Gray) had two conditions. The movie had to be shot in New York, and Joaquin had to be in the movie," said Mark Butan. The movie, in competition here at the world's largest film festival, stars Phoenix as one of two rival brothers -- the other is portrayed by Mark Wahlberg -- who are the sons of a New York City police chief. They both become involved with a Russian mob on opposite sides of the law. Although the basic plot of "We Own the Night" sounds like a conventional, action-packed Hollywood cop thriller, Gray chooses to focus less on action and more on the emotional turmoil felt by Phoenix's character as he deals with his family and girlfriend, portrayed by Eva Mendes. "I have an addiction to narrative," Gray said. "I'm a big fan of what Americans used to do very well, which is to tell a story elegantly with emotion and hopefully without a lot of flash."
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