Joaquin Phoenix Once Shared He Used to Be Jealous of Child Actors

Actor Joaquin Phoenix is highly regarded as one of Hollywood’s most talented performers. But even Phoenix has felt envy towards other stars from time to time.

His jealousy, however, was targeted at the acting abilities of other child stars.

Joaquin Phoenix got into acting at an early age

As is the case with some actors, Phoenix caught the acting bug at a very young age. But his interest in acting didn’t stem from watching his favorite movies or stars on the big screen. Whereas often times actors were inspired by their favorite celebrities, Phoenix didn’t watch too many features growing up.

“I wasn’t exposed to very many movies or television before I started working. I didn’t watch shows and go, ‘Oh, I want to do that.’ We just didn’t really watch a lot of TV. I feel like, what did I see? I probably saw Grease with John Travolta, I probably saw that movie, and I probably watched ChiPs,” Phoenix once told Collider.

Still, despite him having little interest in films as a kid, he eventually found himself in the movie industry.

“My mom worked at NBC, and so I feel like I had memories of watching some of their shows at her office. We used to go to the office, and her boss was a casting director. His name was Joel Thurm. He’s the person who is probably responsible for us kids being actors,” he explained.

Phoenix would then inherit his passion for the film industry while he was already on the job.

“For me, it was, like that moment of, ‘I want to do that,’ was, ‘I want to do this,’ because it was something I was experiencing. I was working. I did my first job when I was eight years old. It was the feeling that I had made me say, ‘I want to do this.’ It wasn’t that I saw somebody else up on a screen and I was like, ‘I want to do that.’ I was like, ‘I want to do this,'” he said.

Why Joaquin Phoenix envied other child actors

Phoenix has given many critically acclaimed performances, at one point even having earned an Oscar for his cinematic contributions. But despite the praise he’s received for his work, the actor has been critical of his own performances in the past. Phoenix noticed that perhaps his approach to acting needed a less serious, and more lighthearted, approach.

“Part of why I was frustrated with acting was because I took it so seriously,” he once told Time. “I want it to be so good that I get in my own way…Once I became a total buffoon, it was so liberating.”

His self-criticism towards acting was partially why Phoenix used to feel envious of other child actors.

“I’d see child actors and I’d get so jealous, because they’re just completely wide open,” Phoenix continued. “If you could convince them that something frightening was going to happen, they would actually feel terror. I wanted to feel that so badly. I’d just been acting too long, and it had kind of been ruined for me. I wanted to put myself in a situation that would feel brand-new and hopefully inspire a new way of approaching acting.”

Joaquin Phoenix believed that everything child actors were taught about acting was wrong

Phoenix believes that it’s better to act on instinct than to worry about the technical aspects of his performance. The movie star felt this was important in order to appear as authentic as possible to audiences and the camera.

“I just want to be open and receptive to what’s happening in the moment, and I don’t want to force anything. Dishonesty is so ugly on film. You just act, and it’s so ugly, and I don’t want to do that,” he once said on Interview.

For this reason, he felt that children getting into acting were given all the wrong lessons.

“I mean, everything that they teach you when you’re a kid about acting is completely f****** wrong. They tell you to memorize your lines, follow your light, and hit your marks,” he added. “Those are the three things that you shouldn’t do. You should not learn your lines, you should not hit your mark, and you should never follow your light. Find your light—that’s my opinion.”