Joaquin Phoenix defends himself.

Joaquin Phoenix almost didn’t get the part of Specialist Ray Elwood, the drug-dealing, racketeering bad boy anti-hero of Buffalo Soldiers. Not because he wasn’t good enough, but because his agent - who only wanted him to do big-budget movies post-Gladiator - tried to keep him from reading the script. Director Gregor Jordan had to send it to Phoenix via his childhood agent, Iris Burton. Result: he loved the script and sacked his agent.

“Once I got the script, every 20 pages I kept saying, ‘Please don’t be bad, please don’t be bad,’” Phoenix told Collective, with a laugh. “Halfway through I decided I was going to do it whether the ending got bad or not. Then I got to the end and loved it, and thought, ‘Right, now the director’s going to be an idiot.’”

Notoriously publicity shy, Phoenix is more than happy to do interviews for Buffalo Soldiers, one of the few films he’s appeared in and actually watched afterwards. His support is all the more necessary since the film has hit a shitstorm of negative publicity before it’s even come out, with Americans phoning US distributors, Miramax, to complain about the “unpatriotic” poster featuring Phoenix flashing a peace sign under the tagline, “Steal all you can steal”.

“I’m surprised about the controversy - I went and did this movie because it looked like a fun, easy movie to do,” Phoenix reflects. “For me, the story has always been about the idea that there’s an inherent need for war in men throughout history. And the US military is used only because it’s the best example, and the biggest and most powerful in the world.”

So does he consider himself a patriot? “I feel an immense connection to – and I’m sorry if it sounds so f**king cheesy – the world and I don’t put any one country about another. I love my country, I love where I live, I love the rights that I have, but that doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t have the right to criticize.” Leslie Felperin 18 July 03

Buffalo Soldiers, on national release 18 July 03.

useful link: www.miramax.com/buffalo_soldiers