DreamWorks Distribution LLC
If you have even a passing familiarity with Joaquin Phoenix's body of work, you probably know that he played famous American singer Johnny Cash in a biopic. What you probably didn't know, though, is that Cash himself was a fan of one of Phoenix's other hugely successful movies: "Gladiator."
Some quick timeline notes here: "Gladiator" released in 2000, with Phoenix playing Commodus, the nakedly power-hungry and openly violent emperor who, as it happens, murdered the family of the film's titular gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) as well as his own dad Marcus Aurelius (the late Richard Harris). Cash passed away in 2003, and "Walk the Line," James Mangold's film that cast Phoenix as the musician and Reese Witherspoon as his long-suffering wife and creative collaborator, June Carter Cash, was released in 2005. What that means is that, sadly, Cash didn't get to see Phoenix play him on-screen, but he really liked Phoenix's performance in "Gladiator," apparently.
In an "Ask Me Anything" post on Reddit in 2014, Cash's son John Carter Cash told a commenter about his dad's love for "Gladiator." In response to a question about the famous musical couple's favorite books and films, the younger Cash replied, "He truly loved Russell Crowe in Gladiator. He really did. I met Russell Crowe last night and told him that." Phoenix also got the chance to meet Cash and discuss this groundbreaking historical epic, and apparently, the discussion went ... a bit differently.
Johnny Cash's super-specific favorite thing about Gladiator might surprise you
DreamWorks Distribution LLC
During an interview with Conan O'Brien, Joaquin Phoenix said that he did get to meet Cash before playing him in "Walk the Line." As Phoenix recalled: "Well, I was invited over to dinner at a friend's house, and went over, and it was an amazing experience. John and June were just beautiful people." After saying the two played a song together, Phoenix said he was all set to head home when the music legend approached him one-on-one.
"And then I had to leave, and John stopped me as I was walking out. He was a big fan of a film I did called 'Gladiator,'" Phoenix said. "He said, 'My favorite part is when you said, your son squealed like a girl when you nailed him to the cross! And your wife moaned like a wh*re as they ravaged her again and again! I love that part!'" I think I speak for many when I say, "Wow, Johnny Cash!"
Perhaps the funniest thing about this recollection is that, while speaking to a British publication called IndieLondon about "Walk the Line," he presented a much more ... family-friendly recollection of these same events. It started the same way: it had nothing to do with "Walk the Line" and came about thanks to some mutual friends. In this case, Phoenix described watching Cash with his guitar:
"John was actually quite shaky. His hands were shaking and he picked up the guitar. He felt obligated to play and yet he couldn't play anymore but he was going to try to. The moment he touched the guitar, the shaking stopped. I couldn't believe it. I had never seen anything like that and he just started strumming a little bit."
Joaquin Phoenix did a good job playing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, but the movie itself feels tired
20th Century Fox
If you're familiar with literally any other music biopic that's not "Walk the Line," you have at least some passing familiarity with "Walk the Line," if I'm being perfectly honest. In fact, the first time I saw it, I sort of felt like it was just "Walk Hard," the John C. Reilly biopic that directly references Cash's story, without any jokes. Still, I'm not completely without taste — Joaquin Phoenix is extremely good in "Walk the Line," which is probably why he earned an Academy Award nomination for the role (and, incidentally, Reese Witherspoon won her only Oscar to date for playing June Carter Cash).
Director James Mangold went on to make more music biopics, including 2024's "A Complete Unknown" with Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan (which also garnered its star an Oscar nod), and Phoenix, a truly chameleonic actor with a great body of work, has played everyone from Arthur Fleck — stylized as the Joker in the 2019 movie of the same name that finally won Phoenix a long-awaited Academy Award — to Napoleon Bonaparte (which brought him back together with his "Gladiator" director Ridley Scott) in 2023's "Napoleon." Still, it's funny to know that Johnny Cash really, really liked how depraved Phoenix was in "Gladiator," which is streaming on Paramount+.
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