Over the course of his career, Joaquin Phoenix has established a reputation as a performer, and it’s not for taking on chill characters and projects. He has a serious dedication to his work, and that has regularly lured him to play serious and/or complicated characters in complex and/or intense films. Writer/director Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid is the latest example of this, with Phoenix playing the anxiety and fear plagued titular antagonist, and while you’d think that he’d might want a break from that kind of exhausting material, you definitely shouldn’t expect to see him in a light romantic comedy any time soon.
Joaquin Phoenix and Ari Aster took part in a virtual roundtable earlier today in advance of Beau Is Afraid hitting theaters last week, and the actor was asked during the conversation if the kind of work he’s been doing takes a toll and if he’d be interested in doing a bit of a career pivot and signing on to make a rom-com. It was an idea that Phoenix didn’t exactly embrace, saying,
