Affleck admits Joaquin Phoenix doc a hoax

By Alexandra Heilbron on September 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Casey Affleck, who is Joaquin Phoenix‘s brother-in-law and the director of I’m Still Here — a “documentary” that follows Phoenix as he retires from acting to pursue a career in hiphop, now admits the film was staged. During a two-year period, Phoenix gained weight, grew a beard and grew increasingly eccentric, picking fights and making an awkward appearance on David Letterman’s talk show. The clip, during which Letterman says, “Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t be here tonight,” is included in the movie. “It’s a terrific performance, it’s the performance of his career,” Affleck said in an interview with The New York Times. Affleck admits that almost nothing in the film is real, not even the opening shots that show a young Joaquin and his siblings swimming in a water hole in Panama. Affleck admits it was shot in Hawaii with actors. One exception was a clip from a home movie that showed Joaquin, his brother River and the rest of their siblings performing on the street in Los Angeles as children. A number of critics have given the movie negative reviews, including Roger Ebert, who called the film “a sad and painful documentary that serves little purpose.” For his part, Affleck says, “I never intended to trick anybody.”

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