While recently preparing for an interview with Joaquin Phoenix during the Los Angeles press day for his new 2025 movie Eddington, I took notice of a special aspect of his filmography. His latest film is his second time working with writer/director Ari Aster, and that fits an interesting pattern, as there is a litany of talented and high profile filmmakers with whom he has worked multiple times – the list including Ridley Scott, Paul Thomas Anderson, Gus Van Sant, James Gray, Terry George, M. Night Shyamalan, and Todd Phillips. Discovering this, I couldn’t help but think that it said something about the way that he works with directors, and I felt compelled to ask him about those relationships the following day.
It won’t surprise anybody to learn that there isn’t just one thing that he is looking for – a reflection of the complexity in how directors and actors work together. It’s part of the former’s job to personally connect with the latter in order to evoke the best performance possible, but in answering my question, Phoenix first prioritized a big picture perspective. Anybody can point a camera at a subject, so he wants to work with people who do it in ways that nobody else is considering and can’t copy. The Oscar winner explained,
I think in some ways it’s very simple with the director for me in that I just want somebody that – it seems obvious – but just has a really unique vision, right? That they do something that no one else can do, that you can’t replicate what they do; you can try, but it’s never gonna be the same. Right? And so I think that’s kind of the most important thing for me.
Ari Aster clearly felt very happy about having Joaquin Phoenix on set again, and audiences will be able to see the end result of their collaboration in theaters this weekend (courtesy of A24). Featuring a talented ensemble cast that also includes Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Micheal Ward, and Deirdre O’Connell, Eddington is a movie that has been intentionally made to be divisive, and that has most definitely been the reaction from critics in the run up to its release. It’s certainly a fascinating work, the story set during the controversy-filled summer of 2020, and one you can make up your own mind about it seeing it on the big screen starting tomorrow, July 18.