We are nothing away from its premiere Beau is Afraidthe third feature from Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsummer) starring Joaquin Phoenix for A24. The film lasts just over 3 hours, and we can anticipate that it is a nightmare full of anxiety and terror while we witness the return of a son to his mother’s house.
As simple as it sounds, but as complicated as it is: a man who faces incomprehensible circumstances in his attempt to visit his mother, whom he has not seen for a long time. To give you an idea, Ari Aster himself has said that the best way to describe Beau is Afraid it is like “The Lord of the rings Jew”…
as we said, Beau is Afraid es a long and tortuous journey that needed an actor of the stature of Joaquin Phoenix to play its main character. And for this reason, on the way, the actor had to do something “humiliating” to be able to get into the role and the story well.
The scene of Beau is Afraid
Joaquin Phoenix plays Beau Wasserman, a lonely man who goes to his appointments with the psychologist. His department is located in a highly conflictive and dangerous area, so his level of anxiety and stress is always high, added to their emotional conflicts related to the figure of their mother.
In Beau is Afraid there is a scene where Joaquin Phoenix as Beau is in a bathtub naked, and suddenly, he notices that there is a man in the same bathroom who could do him a lot of harm. The scene, respecting the tone of the tape, is as absurd as it is tense.
Joaquin Phoenix’s character does not move because he is afraid (yes, they will understand the obviousness of the title), and the man who is in the bathroom acts in the same way. But the tension is there, because a wrong move could be fateful for one or both of them.
This scene from Beau is Afraid it was particularly difficult for Joaquin Phoenix, as Ari Aster wanted to film it in one take. During an interview, the actor said he felt that I had to do something stupid that I didn’t want to, and also, I had to do it in front of a new production team, which I didn’t want to disappoint.
What did Joaquin Phoenix do on the set of Beau is Afraid that was somewhat humiliating?
What Joaquin Phoenix did was scream. He screamed as loud as he could, as if in pain, a guttural scream, before heading out to film. “I had to completely humiliate myself. After that, I thought that I couldn’t see myself more stupid than at that moment. Everything flowed, right?“said the actor.
However. We might think that a scream is nothing serious or that it is hard for us to see how “humiliating” this is. But for Joaquin Phoenix it was necessary to be able to carry out a complicated scene. Aster said in that same interview that the scream was impressive, since it was noted how Phoenix, with the scream, tried to get out of himself to be Beau. Here the first trailer.
Florence Pugh a Midsummer
A few weeks ago, Florence Pugh spoke of the emotional and psychological impact she had after playing Dani, the lead in Midsummerthe second feature film by Ari Aster. Dani is a student who, after the death of her parents at the hands of her sister, who commits suicide, goes on a strange trip to Sweden.
The British actress said that to achieve this, she put herself in some pretty deplorable situations. “I imagined the most horrible things. Each track the content became rarer and more difficult to carry. I put things in my head that got worse over time. In the last one, I probably abused myself to be able to achieve the character”. Here we tell you more about this interview.
Florence Pugh said that the film set was a safe place, and that it was she who brought herself to that complex point to play Dani. Apparently with the interviews with Joaquin Phoenix for the premiere of Beau is AfraidThe same thing happened in this case.
What we mean is that Ari Aster writes quite complex and intense stories on both physical and emotional levels, but she doesn’t create an atmosphere on set that is difficult for the actors. (like when Stanley Kubrick “tortured” Shelley Duvall during the filming of The Shining or something like that).
