Nathan Lane recalled a time when he had to pull Joaquin Phoenix aside to give him an acting tip after noticing his “Beau Is Afraid” co-star getting a little too intense for the film’s comedic undertone.
The conversation came about during Lane’s appearance on Mike Birbiglia’s “Working It Out” podcast last week. The iconic actor and singer discussed how much he loved working with writer-director Ari Aster and Phoenix on “Beau Is Afraid.” However, Lane said Aster gave him a heads up that Phoenix would likely improvise his own lines instead of what was in the script and requested that he keep the “Joker” star on track. Lane said that after three hours of filming, it became clear that was the case and compared Phoenix’s performance to Olivia de Havilland in “Lady in a Cage,” Neither Lane, Aster nor Phoenix were happy with the takes, which motivated Lane to have an intervention with Phoenix.
You can watch the moment in the clip below:
“We’re talking, we’re talking and now three hours out the window, so now we’re back and we’re talking about the scene I finally said, ‘Look, Joaquin, we don’t know each other but, and I don’t know how to break this to you but I think this is supposed to be funny,’” Lane said, playing back the moment for Birbiglia. “‘We’re coming out of 45 minutes of you in the Kafkaesque opening that’s been horrifying’ and I said, ‘Everyone should think now you are safe in suburbia with these nice people, but something is a little off. And as written, what I think Ari wrote is funny and you’re speaking in, kind of like,’ cause you know the lines were written, it was like baby talk because we’re so heavily medicated.”
Lane then gave Phoenix some advice on how to tackle his scenes going forward.
“So I tried to give him a bit of business. You know, ‘Take one of those stuffed animals and put it under you and then when you have to make that weird noise, just pull it out and stare at it.’ And so he started to laugh and said, ‘Oh, I can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Why not? You won an Oscar. Just put your mind to it.’ So he started laughing and laughing and laughing. Then we were like home free. Then, everybody loosened up and we started to play the scene,” Lane said.
He continued: “He said to me, ‘I can’t look you in the eye or I’m going to laugh … But he was a delight and he was, you know he’s passionate and committed. As Ari would said he can only be truthful and if does not feel real to him he can’t do it. No, he’s a remarkable actor and total sweetheart.”
Funny enough, Lane and Phoenix’s co-star Amy Ryan backed up that Lane was the only person who could get a chuckle out of Phoenix.
“He could not look at Nathan without laughing,” Ryan said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in April of 2023. “And I don’t mean giggling, I mean hysterically laughing. The cameras are getting ready, and sound is speeding, and Joaquin, he can not keep it together. I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re never going to get this scene done.’ But, in some inhumane nanosecond, it drops away, and he is in that character. So, from my experience working with him, my perspective, he’s not one of those actors who needs to stay in this character for extended periods. He is so dialed-in that he can have this genuine, raucous, hilarious moment with Nathan and me and whoever else on set, and then, in a tenth of a second, he’s in the scene.”
You can watch the full interview in the video above.
