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"It's like one's enough," he says about press interviews,
forcing a grin.
The three-time Oscar nominee, known as much for his enigmatic
public persona as the complicated characters he embodies on
screen, has to talk about his hippy private eye in Paul Thomas
Anderson's trippy mystery "Inherent Vice."
The performance already earned the 40-year-old a Golden Globe
best actor nomination on Thursday.
"There's an expectation that you're out promoting the film, and
that's understandable," said Phoenix, whose near-silent
appearance on David Letterman's "Late Show" in 2009 was a viral
hit.
"I understand that need, and honestly a lot of time it may seem
like I don't," he added. "But I do enjoy the opportunity to talk
about the film and I enjoy these sit-down, one-on-one TV
interviews."
Known for roles in "Walk the Line" and Anderson's 2012 film "The
Master," the actor drew headlines earlier this week by telling
Letterman he was engaged to his yoga instructor after
demonstrating a position he called "harnessing of the hog."
The next day Phoenix said the engagement was a joke.
That public performance strikes a resemblance to the dense,
tangled plot of "Inherent Vice," the first film adaptation of a
Thomas Pynchon novel, which opens in limited release on Friday.
As Doc Sportello, he lives among surfers and burnouts in 1970
Los Angeles, dealing with the haze of marijuana and feelings for
an old flame.
Sportello finds himself at the center of a shadowy, irreverent
noir-like conspiracy involving skinhead bikers, a strung-out
real estate baron, a detective called "Bigfoot" and a heroin
operation fronting as a dentists' association.
"This (film) gets more and more stirred up until the point
doesn't have anything to do with solving a mystery," said Joanna
Newsom, the indie pop singer who plays Sortilege, the film's
narrator.
For Phoenix and the rest of the cast - which includes Josh
Brolin, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon and Katherine Waterston -
it is a struggle to put Anderson's dizzy adaptation into words.
"I don't know how he does it," Phoenix said before cutting the
interview short.
If he had his choice, the actor would prefer a life closer to
the famously publicity-shy Pynchon.
"Yeah, of course ... just to work on his book and be creative
and not have to be out there selling it. Sure, that's
appealing."
(Editing by Mary Milliken and G Crosse)
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'Inherent Vice,' Phoenix plays complicated on and off screen
