Although it wasn’t in the script: Joaquin Phoenix (48) surprisingly gave his colleague Vanessa Kirby (35) a slap in the face while shooting a scene from “Napoleon”. What sounds like a nightmare for post-MeToo Hollywood concerned about a non-toxic atmosphere actually happened by consensus. The two mimes had made a pact before shooting began, like her opposite the magazine “Empire” betrayed.
“Whatever you feel, you can do it,” Vanessa Kirby said to him, Joaquin Phoenix recalled in an interview. “You can slap me, you can grab me, you can drag me, you can kiss me, whatever it is,” Kirby continued, according to Phoenix. The same applies to him, the “Joker” star replied to his colleague.
“We always wanted to surprise each other”
So the two main actors had agreed to “surprise” each other, as Phoenix calls it. The aim was to avoid clichés of classic historical dramas. And by that the Oscar winner means “well-composed and well thought-out moments”.
The scene with the slap threatened to become such a moment. It was about the divorce of Napoleon and his wife Joséphine in the church. The actors spoke exactly the words that their historical role models used. “Something like that you can act out faithfully, read the lyrics and then go home,” Kirby said. “But we always wanted to surprise each other.”
“Napoleon” by “Gladiator” director Ridley Scott (85) is not just about the career of the French emperor. The turbulent relationship between the general and his first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais takes up a lot of space. “Napoleon” is scheduled to hit theaters on November 23, 2023.
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2023-08-01 14:32:56
