Fade To Black

As a troubled, lovelorn Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, Joaquin Phoenix proves he's an actor who can completely disappear into another person. If only he could find his way back out ...

As an interview subject, Joaquin Phoenix is like a 1940s high school basketball team: after a few minutes, he gives up trying to score and starts running out the clock. Phoenix is most comfortable discussing his approach to acting--a tortuous, self-invented method that involves avoiding people or things that remind him he is not the character he is trying to play. Eventually, having exhausted his favorite subject and parried the introduction of any other, he announces that time's up. The defensive victory is his. At least he's a good sport. During a moment alone with the tape recorder, knowing he will...

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