In recent months, Joaquín Phoenix was involved in controversy when it was reported that he had dropped out of a film production where he was supposed to play a homosexual man and did not feel comfortable with the artistic challenge. Amid this controversy, Ridley Scott added fuel to the fire by sharing an anecdote about Phoenix’s behavior in ‘Gladiator’.
In addition to the first reported case, many news stories began to emerge about the fact that Phoenix has been on the verge of leaving several movies at the last minute. His departure from what was going to be the new movie by Todd Haynes led to its cancellation, and brought a lot of criticism to the Joker actor.
What did Ridley Scott say about Joaquin Phoenix and his behavior on the set of Gladiator?
Taking advantage of the promotional campaign for 'Gladiator 2', Scott told The New York Times that Phoenix had doubts at the last moment, which, among other things, caused anger on the part of Russell Crowe, the protagonist.
“Joaquin was in his prince costume saying, ‘I can’t do it.’ I said, ‘What?’ And Russell said, ‘This is terribly unprofessional,’” he recounted.
As expected, the journalist then asked him about how he managed to prevent Phoenix from leaving them hanging at the last minute, to which Scott responded the following: "I can act like a big brother or father. But I am very good friends with Joaquin. 'Gladiator' was a trial by fire for both of us at the beginning."
In the end, everything turned out well for both, as ‘Gladiator’ was a huge box office success and Joaquin Phoenix also received his first Oscar nomination for bringing the despicable Commodus to life. However, it wouldn’t be the last time he caused a headache for Scott for that reason, as in ‘Napoleon’ he threatened to leave the filming unless Paul Thomas Anderson rewrote the script.