The last time Joaquin Phoenix was a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman was a bizarre bit of television.
Here's that full interview.
Very strange, but not really.
It was a performance. Phoenix was acting.
Last night, Phoenix returned to Letterman's show and explained.
Actor Joaquin Phoenix returned to David Letterman's "Late Show" on Wednesday to apologize for his wacky appearance last year that turned out to be an elaborate piece of performance art.
"You've interviewed many, many people and I assumed that you would know the difference between a character and a real person, so — but I apologize," Phoenix said. "I hope I didn't offend you in any way."
No offense taken, Letterman replied. The chance to lob jokes at Phoenix was like batting practice, he said.
"Every one of them was a dinger," he said.
Phoenix was clean-cut and shaven Wednesday, without the shaggy beard, unruly hair and sunglasses he wore on Feb. 11, 2009, when he told a befuddled Letterman that he was giving up acting for a rap career. Describing that appearance on Wednesday, Letterman said it was "like you slipped and hit your head in the tub."
Instead, Phoenix was playing a role for filmmaker friend Casey Affleck. The fake documentary on Phoenix's "career change," called "I'm Still Here," just hit theaters.
At Letterman's urging, Phoenix made clear that the talk-show host was not in on the joke.
Did Letterman know? Was he in on the joke?
Jay Leno thinks so.
Did David Letterman know that crazy interview he conducted with Joaquin Phoenix in February 2009 was just an act? A hoax, in other words?
Jay Leno thinks so. Casey Affleck, director of I'm Still Here, was Leno's guest last night, and Affleck admitted the documentary about Phoenix "wasn't real."
When Leno asked Affleck directly if David Letterman was in on the hoax, Affleck said, "Neither Joaquin or I ever talked to Dave. I told [Paul] Shaffer, but he's not going to tell anybody."
Leno said, "So you told people around Dave," adding that he guessed the interview was staged because Letterman "didn't seem cranky enough."
Last week when Affleck first came clean about the hoax, Letterman writer Bill Scheft admitted it was a set-up and he said he tried to come clean about it, but no one would believe him.
Joaquin Phoenix insists that Letterman wasn't in on the hoax.
Looking a lot different from the last time he appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman a year and a half ago, Joaquin Phoenix last night said that Dave was not in on his film hoax, despite Jay Leno saying yesterday that he thought Dave was.
Said Dave: "Did I know anything about this?"
"No," said Joaquin.
"Was there a script?"
"No," said Joaquin.
"I was not part of it, was I?" insisted Dave.
"I assumed you would know the difference between a character and a person, but I apologize."
Dave: "No, no. It was so much fun. It was batting practice!"
Letterman then said that he wanted $1 million for his appearance in the film, to which Phoenix replied: "We'll work it out."
Did Letterman know or not?
Who cares?
He claims he didn't but Letterman isn't exactly a man of his word or one to be trusted.
What really matters is that an interview that stood as one of the strangest in the history of late night TV was just an act, another bit, a joke.
It's lost its luster. It was fake.
Scratch it off the list of noteworthy moments in television. Now it's just part of a promotional campaign for a movie.
Video.
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