Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix made a pact with one another on the set of Napoleon that allowed him to slap her, and basically either of them to do anything in order to ‘shock each other’.
Here's the trailer for the upcoming epic.
Phoenix’s style of acting is well documented – he likes to get right into the role, often taking on the role entirely, method-style.
It’s yielded some great results over the years, most notably for his Oscar-winning performance in Joker.
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However, it seems as if his Napoleon co-star Vanessa Kirby is up for pushing the boat out a bit with regards to what is and isn’t acceptable on set, and she agreed to let Phoenix slap her, kiss her, grab her – whatever, basically.
The pair play the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais in the huge Ridley Scott biopic, and wanted to make sure that the whole thing wasn’t just another period drama.
That meant establishing some ground rules, then getting a bit transgressive.
During one scene in which the pair are arguing over their divorce, the agreement came about.
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Kirby explained: “We were using the real words from their divorce in the church,
“When that happens, you can faithfully go through an archival re-enactment of it and read out the lines and then go home.
“But we always wanted to surprise each other.”
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Phoenix added: “She said, ‘Look, whatever you feel, you can do.’
“I said, ‘Same thing with you.’
“She said, ‘You can slap me, you can grab me, you can pull me, you can kiss me, whatever it is,’
“We had this agreement that we were going to surprise each other and try and create moments that weren’t there, because both of us wanted to avoid the cliché of the period drama.
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“And by that I mean moments that are well-orchestrated and designed.”
The whole thing seems to have created a great partnership, as Kirby explained: “It’s the greatest thing when you have a creative partner and you say, ‘Right, everything’s safe. I’m with you. And we’re gonna go to the dark places together.'”
Napoleon sees Phoenix working with Scott again for the first time since Gladiator, and tells the story of the titular emperor’s quest for dominion, as well as his turbulent love life.
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However, the slapping scene wasn’t part of the script at all.
Phoenix said: “We encouraged each other, demanded of each other, to challenge ourselves to shock each other in moments,
“And that’s what came out of that, that moment.”
The film is being released in theaters by Apple and Sony on November 22 2023.
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Joaquin Phoenix
Tom Wood