Joaquin Phoenix can certainly be mercurial, cagey, and unpredictable in real life, depending on his mood and the kinds of questions you throw at him, but he’s also as affable and playful. His director Mike Mills (“Beginners,” “20th Century Women”) the filmmaker behind the new lovely drama, “C’mon C’mon” has even described him as a “sweetheart,” and that’s pretty apt for the character he plays in Mills’ movie, a radio journalist, who is unexpectedly thrown together with his young nephew, Jesse (tremendous newcomer Woody Norman, read our interview here) when his sister (Gaby Hoffmann) has to attend to her husband (Scott McNairy) with mental health issues. Rather than put his life on hold, Johnny, the NPR-like journo that Phoenix plays, takes his nephew along for the ride for his most recent assignment: crisscrossing across parts of the United States interviewing young school children about their hopes and dreams and thoughts on the future.
During their trial-by-fire parenting/hang-out adventure, Johnny and Jesse forge a tenuous but transformational relationship that is moving, delicate, melancholy, and filled with the little bumps and pains that life throws at us every day. Parenting isn’t easy, and being thrust into the role of ad-hoc caretaker at the last minute without experience can be even more challenging. “C’mon C’mon” is an absolutely lovely humanist piece of work, so empathetic and sensitively attuned—as is the Mike Mills way—and it Phoenix’s most tenderhearted performance to date, perhaps just another example of the actor’s wide range, and demonstrating that there’s almost nothing the actor can’t do (read our review here). He can play much more than just unhinged characters, people.
I spoke to Phoenix a few weeks before the film’s release, and he was playfully evasive in the way he’s come to perfect. His hair threw me off at first when he took off his hat—shaved down the middle with the sides a normal length, making for a rather goofy-looking haircut. I asked, “what’s that about?” And he played dumb, “what do you mean?” I countered, “the hair,” and he responded, “Oh, nothing,” he said, quickly changing the subject and basically trying to pretend nothing was different.
I realized later his odd haircut was for Ari Aster’s “Disappointment Blvd” (see some photographic evidence here), a film he apparently had decided before he spoke to anyone that he wasn’t going to talk about in advance. But it’s perhaps a good example of how Phoenix won’t just say that upfront and plays little games instead. Fortunately, that awkward first interaction quickly turned to a relatively normal conversation, albeit a little bit freewheeling, rambling and abstract. Like the interviewer that Phoenix learned to be during the movie, I just tried to listen and hang on to the discursive places he took me. “C’mon C’mon” is in limited release now and is easily one of the year’s best films.
I really love Mike Mills as a filmmaker, and I’m wondering if you did too or if it was the script that hooked you. How did you become part of this one?
For me, usually—and I think that’s the case here too—it usually doesn’t have as much to do with someone’s previous work, as much as it does with whether I just liked them when I meet them. It’s really that simple. So, I met Mills, and I liked the script a lot, obviously, enough to say that I wanted to meet him in the first place. But really, it was in the time that we spent together, wherever we met ages ago, where I think, “yeah, I can be around and work with his person for a couple of months.”
So, are you a process person in that way? Most people who say similar things generally are more interested in the experience rather than the final product. As long as they had a good time making the product, that’s all that mostly matters.
I mean, whatever you want. Who the fuck knows, man? We do interviews. We say things…I think that you say things like, ‘somebody’s prior work doesn’t make a difference,’ but that’s hard to say because I’m sure it does cause you’re affected by things even if you’re not always conscious of it. I imagine it like, OK, is this person, A) do they seem like they are a creative force, and can they inspire me? B) Can I inspire them? And so, therefore, can we have some reciprocal and interesting relationship in this world that they are creating and want to create, and I’d be a part of that. I guess that’s mostly what I’m interested in.
So, there are people whose work you appreciate, but you might not necessarily work well together, and you might not enjoy that process. So, it’s certainly not enough, right? I want to know that that person I’m working with is going to, you know, help inspire or conjure something in me, or help me with a new way of thinking about something or whatever the fuck it is.
[Laughs] OK, but story or script-wise in general, what makes you connect with things, enough to make you say, yeah, I want to do that.
I don’t know that that’s what happened, like a key eureka script moment. It might’ve, though I don’t remember the moment. It was like a slow process. The first thing was just talking to him. I liked how he sounded like how he felt; I liked looking at him. I liked how he dressed; I liked his hair. Then you start talking about wardrobe and hair and start getting a sense of what the feeling will be on set. Like here’s the person who is ultimately responsible for hiring everyone person that I’m going to interact with. And I’m going to work very closely with. I love collaboration, so working with the costume designer, working production designer pops, and what that will be like.
“Oh, we’re going to shoot on real locations. There’s not going to be any stage. And it’s all going to be real, tangible, working props that you are going to interact with.” OK. Well, that’s very different. You’re going to have this sound recording device, and we need to learn how to use this. So, all that stuff starts getting me excited about this world.
I suppose one thing that spoke to me: I love this idea of hearing directly from real kids about their experiences and their feelings about their lives and the future. So often, you would find a writer—and Mike Mills is a particularly sensitive and empathetic person. I think that he could easily just write and imagine what those kids felt and would say, but for him, it’s like, “I’m not going to impose my ideas of what they feel I want to really hear from them,” and that’s all real stuff that we shot with them.
Working with those kids unscripted like that must have been cool; they have all kinds of great insightful thoughts in the film.
Yeah, all that was really unique. I loved that opportunity to go in and talk to these kids. It’s a bit strange to me in a way, but it’s what you, as a journalist, do all the time in some ways, except these are kids, as opposed to, you know, a jerk like me.
It was really interesting. I never fully realized the real responsibility of [interviewing people], particularly with kids. I would think you don’t want to just have this list of questions under any circumstance—and I’m sure you do in some ways. It’s wanting questions to fall back on that can lead you toward the conversation, but not wanting to dictate the direction of the conversation too much and wanting to stay open to it. It’s this unique kind of balancing act that you’re trying to find.
What was really helpful, and who was great at this was [real-life WNYC journalist] Molly Webster, who plays Roxanne [Phoenix’s characters radio journo partner and colleague in the film], she’s my work partner in the movie. So, early on, we went around and did some interviews, and she was amazing. Obviously, I was super nervous. I had all my questions lined up, and I was like, “wait a minute, do I jump in now and cut them off?”
Probably like you’re feeling right now, “he’s been talking for 10 minutes straight, and I have other questions, so I jump in” I’m now saying what you’re feeling and thinking Those were your words calling me an idiot [Laughs].