Actor Joaquin Phoenix studied the behaviour of caged animals in order to play a crazed prisoner in new movie The Master.
In the upcoming drama, the Gladiator star plays Freddie Quell, a troubled World War II veteran who turns violent when he begins questioning his mentor Lancaster Dodd, portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
And, in order to get in the right mindset for a scene in which the pair get thrown into neighbouring prison cells, the 37 year old watched videos of animals held in captivity in a bid to imitate their deranged habits.
He tells the New York Times, "You can see their brains don't seem to be functioning anymore. It's pure reaction, and you see the muscles going. I knew that's what I wanted to capture - they're hurting themselves, and they don't even know that, but something inside is saying get out, get out."
And Phoenix got so caught up in the shoot, he actually smashed the cell's toilet in the midst of a head-banging rage: "I didn't intend to break the thing. I didn't know that was possible."
In a small town at the college campus, a normal man is having a terrible...
Like the Thomas Pynchon novel it's based on, this film remains infuriatingly evasive as its...
Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is a simple man. When he's not abusing illicit substances,...
Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is a private investigator living in Los Angeles during the tail...
Ewa Cybulski and her sister Magda are Polish immigrants in search of new lives in...
With only a hint of a futuristic setting, Spike Jonze takes a remarkably honest look...
Theodore Twombley is a reserved man going through the hardest time of his life with...
Theodore Twombley wasn't exactly having the best time in his life. He never socialised, seldom...
This jagged, meandering exploration of a Scientology-style movement is hauntingly mesmerising and packed with meaty...
Freddie Quell is a violent and often drunk drifter who, whilst going through some of...
Joaquin Phoenix has a reputation for diving heartily into roles, and his starring turn in...