All the World's A Stage, and Joaquin Phoenix is a Player

I assume by now you've all seen the Joaquin Phoenix interview on Letterman. I won't bother to link to it on YouTube, because CBS keeps pulling it down (as rightly they should). Besides, if you're reading this, you're savvy enough to find it for yourself.

The chatter in the blogosphere is waxing that Phoenix must have been on drugs, or otherwise lamed out. It was, as you saw, a ridiculously lame performance. He mumbled. He gave one word answers. He seemed baffled by Letterman's questions.

Until Letterman started mocking him, that is. Until, like Harvey Korman on the Carol Burnett show, who occasionally succumbed to a smirk, if not outright losing it, in response to Tim Conway — Phoenix lost his composure. Just for a nanosecond; if you weren't paying close attention, you probably missed it.

So go watch the video again, and look for it. There, see?

I have a confession to make: I'm extremely gullible. My good friends know this. I will believe just about anything, if someone I trust tells it to me. And when they're pulling my leg, it takes me longer than the average bear to get it.

But I got Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman. I got that it was a performance. To what end, I don't know, but I'm sure we'll eventually find out. There's no way that was an accident, or a PR misstep. There's just no way.

No Hollywood celebrity goes on a talk show unprepared, uncoached, un-made up, or un-styled. They all have people — publicists, stylists, hair dressers and makeup people. Advisors.

(Well, maybe all but Michael Jackson. But I digress.)

I think Rolling Stone got it right: it was an act. It was like Borat. If you saw that movie, didn't you wonder how the people he was with could have been fooled into believing he was playing it straight?

Same thing. Joaquin Phoenix is up to something. I hope, when we find out what it is, it's one quarter as good as Borat was.

I love David Letterman, though. (My good friends also know that about me.) And at the end of the interview with Joaquin Phoenix, Letterman had the greatest last words: "We owe Farrah Fawcett an apology!"

(I don't think that one was an act.)