Joaquin Phoenix Threatened to Quit Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’ Unless Paul Thomas Anderson Rewrote the Script

This is not a headline from The Onion. This is real. This is Joaquin Phoenix at his finest.

Two sources are telling THR that Phoenix threatened to leave Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” unless Paul Thomas Anderson was brought in to do rewrites:

The actor is indeed known to get cold feet ahead of filming on various projects. Two sources tell THR that he threatened to leave Ridley Scott’s Napoleon unless his The Master filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson was brought in to do rewrites. Placated, he stayed aboard the project, and it arrived in theaters late last year.

This corroborates what many had stated to be Phoenix’s odd behavior towards Ridley Scott right before production was set to begin on “Napoleon” in late 2022. Phoenix’s behavior continued throughout the shooting of “Napoleon.”

In a 2023 Empire interview, Scott admitted that Phoenix kept “questioning” the film and its script before and during production of the film. This 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.” 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.

Scott never really mentioned the part where Phoenix threatened to quit unless PTA did rewrites on the script, and that is totally reasonable, but the cat’s out of the bag now. I actually find it to be quite the amusing anecdote.