NEWSJoaquin Phoenix: I Think the Oscars "Are Bullsh*t, I Don't Want to be a Part of It"
Oct. 18 2012, Published 7:37 a.m. ET
File under: Biting The Hand That Feeds You.
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Joaquin Phoenix has always been complicated and a little temperamental, and the actor really let loose in a recent Q and A with Interview magazine.
After his impressive turn in Paul Thomas Anderson's flick, The Master, many are speculating that Joaquin could find himself on the Best Actor Oscar nominee list come this January, but he'd rather not have the honor.
"I think it's bulls**t," he said. "I think it's total, utter bulls**t, and I don't want to be a part of it. I don't believe in it. It's a carrot, but it's the worst-tasting carrot I've ever tasted in my whole life. I don't want this carrot. It's totally subjective. Pitting people against each other ... It's the stupidest thing in the whole world."
Many struggling actors would kill for a chance on the Oscar ballot, but Joaquin (who's been nominated twice) would be happy to never attend an awards show ever again.
"It was one of the most uncomfortable periods of my life when Walk the Line was going through all the awards stuff and all that," he said. "I never want to have that experience again. I don't know how to explain it — and it's not like I'm in this place where I think I'm just above it — but I just don't ever want to get comfortable with that part of things."
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Joaquin's return to acting in general was a bit eyebrow-raising after his highly calculated stunt in 2009, which involved him growing out a beard and pretending to have hung up his thespian ambitions for a new career in gangsta rap.
The perplexing and uncomfortable footage of him rapping was edited and released under the title, I'm Still Here.
"Once I became a total buffoon, it was so liberating," he says of the mockumentary. "I'd just been acting too long, and it had kind of been ruined for me."
