Wanna see a video clip from the movie? CLICK HERE!! Wanna see another clip from the movie?? CLICK HERE!! 
.jpg)
Above-Ridley Scott (director) explains to Russle Crowe (Maxumis) about the scene. Wanna see another clip from the movie?? Click here!! CLICK HERE-to see a clip from the movie that they never used. 
Artical from December-2000
Slugging it out with Russell Crowe in Gladiator was nothing compared to the media onslaught when his brother died. Now the Emperor strikes back...
by Alan Morrison
Total Film UK (December, 2000)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ridley Scott told me that I have an interesting and expressive face which suggests hatred, evil and treason." Fling that pitch at some Hollywood talent and, famous helmer or not, you'd find yourself on the wrong end of a flying fist. But shoot it at Joaquin Phoenix and you might tune into his wavelength. In Scott's case, it worked: his odd brand of flattery convinced the 26-year-old to play megalomaniac Commodus in Gladiator and savour his first taste of mainstream success.
"Commodus is a bit like Ancient Rome's Al Capone," Phoenix reckons. "The best way to describe him is as a spoiled child. He's 19, but he wields an incredible amount of power, so he has all the emotions that go with being that age without having the guidance to handle that power. He's vulnerable and sad one minute, and throwing a tantrum the next."
Poignantly, turning 19 also proved a key point in Phoenix's own life: 1993 was the year he looked on helplessly as his brother, River, overdosed on a cocktail of drugs and drink outside Johnny Depp's LA club The Viper Room. Joaquin's shock and grief were then compounded by tabloid TV stations endlessly replaying his desperate 911 call.
Suddenly media attention crashed into the Phoenix family's very private world. Although River had been one of Hollywood's hottest Ones To Watch, and Joaquin himself had appeared in a clutch of movies -- including 1989's Steve Martin family-com Parenthood -- celebrity hadn't really played that huge a part in their daily lives, thanks to their ex-missionary parents.
Joaquin was born in Puerto Rico, and had busked with River on the streets of Venezuela, before moving to Florida and then LA. In an attempt to fit in with his more exotically named siblings (his sisters are called Liberty, Summer and Rain), he opted for the name of leaf at the age of four. That same year, the family changed their surnames from the prosaic Bottom to the more poetic Phoenix. And so Joaquin Raphael Bottom remained Leaf Phoenix until the early 90's, when he reverted back to his given forename.
Although the above suggests an incense heavy whiff of hippiedom, the Phoenix household wasn't weird and wacky but loving and supportive. "We were always encouraged by our parents to express ourselves." he recalls. "My brother played guitar when he was five, and my sisters all sing. I don't know what the hell I did.... I could boogie-woogie, I could shake it. When you have a close family -- siblings who are only a year-and-a-half apart - you follow in their footsteps, no matter what it is. If somebody started cycling, everybody wanted to ride a bike, and it would go all the way down to the youngest, who'd be on a tricycle following everyone else. I guess acting was just the next thing."
And, you'd have to say, the right thing. Before Gladiator, Phoenix had earned his acting spurs in To Die For, U-Turn and Inventing tThe Abbotts (which led to a three-year relationship with co-star Liv Tyler). He can currently be seen on the festival circuit in Quills, playing opposite Kate Winslet as the priest who runs a 19th century mental asylum housing Geoffrey Rush's Marquis De Sade.
First up, however, is The Yards, a brooding drama that ties together political corruption and personal loyalty. In a line-up that also boasts Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron. Phoenix excels as Willie Gutierrez, the right-hand man of crooked businessman Frank Olchin (James Caan). He's smooching with Frank's stepdaughter and best friends with Frank's nephew, but Phoenix brings something to the part that makes Willie the eternal outsider.
"At the start of the film, I really want you to feel Willie has this sense of confidence, optimism, and charisma." Phoenix explains, "But that's just a means to mask the great insecurity he feels. I don't think there's really any good or bad character in this film -they all could go anywhere. It's like standing on the bridge, looking at the train tracks: the characters seem to have a destination, but with one flip of the switch, they'd be sent off in another direction."
Moral complexity in a character appeals to Phoenix, who comes over as a shy, shambling bag of nerves in the flesh. Hair uncombed, nails bitten down to their roots, he begins the conversation warily and seems headed for a mumbling nowhereland until his own switch flips and he begins to gain confidence, even cracking a few jokes. Just don't draw comparisons between his teen killer in To Die For, his porn shop assistant in 8MM and Gladiator's crazed emperor...
"Uh-oh, the Dr. Evil question," he groans. "People talk about my 'dark, evil, neurotic characters', and I'm going : 'What the fuck are you talking about?' In 8MM, the whole point is you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. This guy is one of the innocents in the film, which is deliberately why he has the devilish hair and the piercings. I try to draw out the good in characters and understand what leads to their destruction as an individual, try to find a history to them. In my life I try to find the finest qualities in people, regardless of what they look like."
Chewing at his fingertips, deep eyes avoiding direct contact, Joaquin Phoenix shouldn't be judged by surface appearances either. "Joaquin has unbelievably tour de force natural skills," says James Gray, director of The Yards. "But the question is, how do you get it from him? It's a brutal process. But he is willing to put himself into the most troubling and personal and exposing of places, which is all you can ask from actors."
|
