An Empire interview with Ridley Scott has the filmmaker looking back on the filming of “Napoleon” and his time with star Joaquin Phoenix.
“Joaquin is about as far from conventional as you can get. Not deliberately, but out of intuition. That’s what makes him tick. If something bothers him, he’ll let you know,” says Scott. “He made [Napoleon] special by constantly questioning.” That inquisitive nature led to significant changes on the movie. “With Joaquin, we can rewrite the goddamn film because he’s uncomfortable. And that kind of happened with Napoleon,” he says. “We unpicked the film to help him focus on who Bonaparte was. I had to respect that, because what was being said was incredibly constructive. It made it all grow bigger and better. With Napoleon, I think we dug in and found the character, or as close to what he may have been. Joaquin is probably the most special, thoughtful actor I’ve ever worked with.”
Phoenix was once, in his early days of acting, a down-to-earth and “normal” actor, but something inside him snapped around 2008 — that’s when the strange behavior began, including a memorably weird appearance on the David Letterman show a year later. The vulnerability and unpredictable nature of this new Joaquin ended up making him a better actor. Filmmakers who have worked with him keep pointing to his intense preparations, deeply immersing himself in the characters, often blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
We can speculate all we want about what happened in 2008 and the following years since, some believe it was a mental breakdown, but Phoenix’s art blossomed after that with some of the most surreal and intense acting I have ever seen on-screen: “The Master,” “Two Lovers,” “Joker,” “Inherent Vice,” “You Were Never Really Here,” and “Her.”It’s not that surprising that Scott found it to be a unique experience working with Phoenix. I’ve always been fascinated by the on-set stories that have leaked of the actor. He’s turned into one of the greats.
Back in November, Scott’s “Napoleon” stunned an L.A. moviegoer at a test-screening. He called Scott’s epic a “masterpiece”:
“It’s 150 minutes. Covers the sweep of Napoleon's life from his promotion around the time of the revolution, to the end. I think it’s bigger, better and MORE PSYCHOLOGICAL than Scott’s epics like Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator. Also more political. I think the picture is a masterpiece, or very nearly one. It's the culmination of Ridley's life's work as a filmmaker. His staging of battle scenes on a near-cosmic scale is mind-blowing. Joaquin gives a Brando-like performance, taking some very big risks, and at times verging on the absurd, but always taking the audience with him. As a movie about a nationalist in a time of chaos and disintegration who thinks in terms of pure power, it has a lot of parallels to 2022. It's a great movie and I'll be surprised if there is anything better released in 2023.”
From what I heard a few months back, Apple wanted to release “Napoleon” in the summer of 2023. Given that rumors are pointing to “Killers of the Flower Moon” being launched at next year’s Cannes Film Festival, would Apple also want to also world premiere Scott’s film on the Croisette?
Netflix and Skydance Animation have also called it quits. The two sides announced Monday that they're ending the animated film deal struck back in 2023, framing it as a mutual decision.