“Extra” caught up with actor Joaquin Phoenix, and the “Walk the Line” star dropped a shocker — is he really leaving show biz?!

Yes! Last night at the Paul Newman benefit, the Oscar nominee told “Extra,” “I want to take this opportunity… also to give you the exclusive and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor… I’m not doing films anymore.”

“Extra’s” Jerry Penacoli, shocked by the news, further probed Joaquin. “Are you serious?” Phoenix, who was curiously being followed by his own camera crews, reiterated, “Yeah. I’m working on my music. I’m done. I’ve been through that.”

Actor Casey Affleck, present during the admission, tells “Extra”, “I don’t think he’s kidding. He’s got music and stuff.”

Today, “Extra” contacted Phoenix’s rep for clarification and got this response: “That is what he told me.”

Source

WENN

Joaquin Phoenix was forced to call in sick to the Cannes Film Festival.

The actor, 33, missed the Monday premiere of his movie Two Lovers after doctors told him he couldn’t fly because of his illness.

“Joaquin has the stomach flu,” his rep, Susan Patricola, tells PEOPLE. “He had his dog boarded, his tux in hand but couldn’t even sit on the plane. He did go to the hospital to get hydrated, hoping he could get on the plane but he didn’t stay there. He was so sick – and so sorry he couldn’t be there with everyone.”

Phoenix was due to promote his drama Two Lovers at the festival. The film’s director, James Gray, told reporters Monday that Phoenix wanted to make the trip to France, but he advised him to go to the doctor.

“He wanted to come,” Gray told reporters. “I said ‘No, go to the doctor and see what he says.’ Sadly he followed my advice and they put him in the hospital.”

Gray praised Phoenix’s performance, calling him “fantastic” opposite Gwyneth Paltrow.

Source, WENN

Actor Joaquin Phoenix, who played Johnny Cash on the big screen, is cutting an album with Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess, Billboard.com has learned. But whether the set will be released remains unclear.

According to U.K.-born Burgess, who has lived in Los Angeles for several years, the album came about after Phoenix learned to play guitar in preparation for his role in the 2005 film “Walk the Line,” for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

“Once he learned guitar, he found that he had quite a lot of demons inside himself that he wanted to expel through music,” says Burgess, who has been mixing the record alongside Alan McGee, the Charlatans’ manager and former head of U.K. independent label Creation Records.

But it seems that the perfectionism that has brought Phoenix acclaim as an actor could prevent the record from ever seeing the light of day.

“All the tracks that me and Alan worked with him on were brilliant,” says Burgess. “But I think he just keeps scrapping everything or redoing everything. I’m sad to say that I think it’s one of those records that may never come out, to be honest with you.”

“It’s an ongoing thing,” he continues. “I’m trying to get Alan to force him to put it out at the moment, but I don’t know whether it will (get released).”

Source

WENN

Here’s Joaquin Phoenix on the cover of Nylon magazine’s winter 2008 issue. He’s sexy, what do you think?

Since his 1994 debut, Little Odessa, filmmaker James Gray has been sparse with output. It took six years for him to deliver his follow-up, The Yards, and another seven years to give us We Own the Night, which premiered earlier this year at Cannes and opens in theaters on October 12. However, there won’t be such a long wait for Gray’s fourth film; titled Two Lovers, the film begins shooting in November with Gray regular Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow. Two Lovers marks a third collaboration with Phoenix, who starred in both The Yards and We Own the Night. If there’s a part somewhere for Mark Wahlberg, it could be a perfect reunion.

According to Variety, Two Lovers will star Phoenix as a Brooklyn man torn between two women. There’s the family friend who his parents are trying to set him up with, and then there’s the beautiful new neighbor who he prefers and with whom he falls in love. I’m going to go ahead and guess that Paltrow is being cast as the neighbor.

Source