Five days before his next project — an NC-17 gay romance — was set to start filming, heterosexual Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix is accused of bolting from the production.
“Phoenix reportedly stormed off the set of Haynes’ movie two weeks ago in Guadalajara, Mexico, and producers have since been trying to put the project back together before the production completely died,” reports the far-left Deadline. “Local crew members are due money.”
Sets for the 1930s period piece had been built via financing that only became available due to Phoenix’s involvement in what was obviously a financial risk. Now that Phoenix has apparently abandoned the project, director Todd Haynes and his producer Christine Vachon say the movie is dead. That means hundreds of crew people are suddenly out of a job.
Via a now-deleted Facebook post, Vachon responded to criticism that this was her fault for hiring a straight man to play a homosexual:
And PLEASE — if you are tempted to finger wag or admonish us that “that’s what you get for casting a straight actor” — DON’T. This was HIS project that he brought to US– and Killer’s record on working with LGBTQ actors/crew/directors speaks for itself. (and for those of you who HAVE — know that you are making a terrible situation even worse).
According to World of Reel, she is right. Phoenix came to Haynes with the idea of a 1930s detective movie featuring his character engaging in a same-sex romance. What’s more, Phoenix apparently kept pushing the gay sex scenes to become more explicit, so explicit it became an NC-17 feature.
There’s a lot of speculation around Phoenix’s leaving. Most assume that as the filming date grew closer, the idea of graphic gay sex scenes gave him cold feet. That might be true, but why did he come up with the project and push for more graphic homosexuality to begin with?
There’s much talk in the entertainment media about how this could hurt Phoenix’s career. He’ll now be seen as erratic, unreliable, and maybe even uninsurable. The production could also sue him for financial damages and violating his contract. Before passing judgment and trashing Phoenix as a temperamental homophobe, I’d like to hear his side of the story. Famous actors and actresses drop out of productions at the last minute for all kinds of reasons not involving homophobia.
As far as Phoenix’s future, his Joker sequel is about to make a bazillion dollars. He’ll be fine.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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