{"id":55898,"date":"2017-09-08T09:06:19","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T16:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=55898"},"modified":"2017-10-13T19:33:15","modified_gmt":"2017-10-14T02:33:15","slug":"mary-magdalenes-joaquin-phoenix-says-jesus-just-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2017\/09\/mary-magdalenes-joaquin-phoenix-says-jesus-just-man.html","title":{"rendered":"Mary Magdalene<\/i>\u2019s Joaquin Phoenix says his Jesus is \u201cjust a man\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"her-phoenix-mara-a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We still haven\u2019t seen any official images or trailers for Mary Magdalene<\/a><\/i>, the biblical drama that the Weinstein Company recently bumped to next year, but the film\u2019s stars are beginning to talk about it. Last summer, Rooney Mara \u2014 who plays the title character \u2014 talked to Empire<\/i> magazine about why she took the role<\/a>. And now, Joaquin Phoenix has hinted at how he plays Jesus in the film.<\/p>\n

Speaking to T Magazine<\/a><\/i> about his career in general, Phoenix briefly mentions his reasons for taking the role of Jesus, and how he approached it:<\/p>\n

When asked why he decided to play Jesus in the upcoming \u2018\u2018Mary Magdalene,\u2019\u2019 a retelling of the New Testament story by the director Garth Davis, he says, \u2018\u2018I was looking for something meaningful. I was looking for an experience. I was friends with Rooney.\u2019\u2019 (Rooney Mara plays Mary Magdalene in the movie. The two are now a couple.) Jesus, in the film, is \u2018\u2018just a man\u2019\u2019 and playing him was \u2018\u2018just instinct, just a gut feeling.\u2019\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article also ends on this somewhat cryptic note:<\/p>\n

He\u2019s equally self-deprecating when he\u2019s asked about having an obligation to his fans. \u2018\u2018What fans? I have about three. And one of them is my mother.\u2019\u2019 But when he\u2019s asked if he felt overly self-conscious when he was chosen to play Jesus, he says, simply, \u2018\u2018No.\u2019\u2019 He looks at me, somewhat perplexed: \u2018\u2018I thought: Finally<\/i>, someone gets me.\u2019\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, not a lot there. And of course, as Phoenix himself admits in the article, an actor\u2019s performance is often built in the editing room rather than on the set (\u201cWhen I was younger I thought the idea was to construct a character, figure out its arc \u2014 now I think arcs are kind of BS. The director creates the arc.\u201d). So it\u2019s impossible to say much about the film based solely on Phoenix\u2019s comments. But make of them what you will.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The image at the top of this post shows Mara and Phoenix in Spike Jonze\u2019s <\/i>Her.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The actor says his performance was rooted in \u201cinstinct, just a gut feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":55900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[345,1217,3352,4161,3353],"class_list":["post-55898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-jesus","tag-joaquin-phoenix","tag-mary-magdalene-2017","tag-mary-magdalene-2018","tag-rooney-mara"],"yoast_head":"\nMary Magdalene\u2019s Joaquin Phoenix says his Jesus is \u201cjust a man\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The actor says his performance was rooted in \u201cinstinct, just a gut feeling.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2017\/09\/mary-magdalenes-joaquin-phoenix-says-jesus-just-man.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mary Magdalene\u2019s Joaquin Phoenix says his Jesus is \u201cjust a man\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The actor says his performance was rooted in \u201cinstinct, just a gut feeling.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2017\/09\/mary-magdalenes-joaquin-phoenix-says-jesus-just-man.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-09-08T16:06:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-10-14T02:33:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2017\/09\/her-phoenix-mara-a.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"234\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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