In January of 2009, just a few months after announcing his “retirement” from acting, Joaquin Phoenix did something that Jay Leno has never been able to do, make a late night talk show interesting.  He appeared on David Letterman to promote his supposed last film, Two Lovers, and instead gave us a bit of Andy Kaufman as Tony Clifton-esque role playing.  Phoenix was heavily bearded, unkempt, sporting dark glasses and talking about his new foray into rap music.  It was ridiculous, and clearly a joke.

Here’s a general rule of thumb for everyone out there: any time an actor claims to be retiring from the biz, they are lying or throwing a temper tantrum.  Case in point, the recent hubbub over Amanda Bynes and her Twitter announcement she was retiring…

at 24.  That lasted 35 days.  Phoenix managed to pull off a longer stint of retirement, but mainly that was because he was working the whole time.

Along with his brother in law Casey Affleck, Joaquin has been traveling around, poorly rapping, and trying his best to hold character for a mockumentary that premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.  This week, he returned to Letterman’s chair to perform a little spin control and promote I’m Still Here.

I gotta say, I’ve been only moderately interested in this film and the saga of his fake retirement until this interview.  Joaquin was back to his classic charming actor self, joking around with Dave and revisiting his last appearance.  He talked about how he was sure people would understand it was a joke and was surprised by the attention he received.  But Phoenix also brought up the inspiration for the project, reality television.  As he watched reality TV, he was amazed that people actually believed they were unscripted and wanted to do something to sort of blow up that myth.  What?  This was a noble endeavor?  Now I’m all for it!

See, I am on a reality TV show and completely agree with Phoenix’s assertion that the only thing real about them is people use their real names.  The interview on Letterman was the best promotion for the film I have seen so far.  We all knew it was fake, but now we can see why they did it and the movie transforms from being a footnote to a real piece of cultural criticism, a conversation starter.  Maybe we thought this was just a joke, but now it seems Joaquin Phoenix was making art.  What do you think?