Joaquin Phoenix Is Confused by 'Inherent Vice' (But That's the Point)

"Inherent Vice" has become one of the year's most talked about films, already from its film festival premieres and limited theatrical release before the holidays. Based on the seemingly unfilmmable 2009 Thomas Pynchon novel, director Paul Thomas Anderson's film weaves a twisted mystery around 1970s Los Angeles hippie culture.

Since his breakout directorial debut with "Boogie Nights," Anderson has challenged audience with his divergent films, which range from the Altmanesque "Magnolia" to the John Ford-like "There Will Be Blood." "The Master," his most recent film, gave the late Philip Seymour Hoffman perhaps his best film role - that of the manipulative leader of a Scientologist-like cult. Similarly it gave co-star Joaquin Phoenix, who played Hoffman's henchman, a part that brought him an Oscar nomination. Whether or not Phoenix will be nominated for "Inherent Vice" remains to be seen. He's up, though, for a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical.

As he has in the past, Anderson has put together a first-rate ensemble for what's been described as something of the ultimate stoner comedy: Phoenix is joined with Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Sasha Pieterse, Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph and Martin Short.

Still hasn't figured it out

Set in LA in 1970, the film features Phoenix as Doc Sportello, a private detective whose old girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) goes missing. Searching for her uncovers a web of the seedy underbelly of L.A. and the police force. It's taken some audiences multiple viewings to follow it all, and some still haven't. Phoenix belongs to the latter category.

"No, I still haven't figured it out," he said. "Paul would stir that up and really make me feel really confused about it. So I would be doing a scene with Jade (Hong Chau) and he would walk around and he would just look at her suspiciously. I said, "Is she involved with the Golden Fang? Does she know about Shasta?" And he would be like, "I don't know, man. You're just going to have to figure it out." So he just really created this environment where I was confused and really never knew what was going to happen next or what role somebody was playing in the overall story."

Referring to the book for clarification only led to more confusion, as Anderson freely adapted Pynchon's prose. "Paul would sometimes combine characters," the actor explained. "He couldn't use all the characters from the book, so he would take dialogue from one character and apply it to another. So I would remember the dialogue, but I would be confused why Jade was saying it, because I didn't remember that Jade was the one saying it."

Welcomed confusion

Phoenix welcomed the confusion. "Paul gave me the book first, so I read the book and then read the script," Phoenix said. "Then I went back and I started reading the book again. I set out to read it a second time and halfway through, I just thought, 'I don't want to know this too well. I want to be confused by what's going on.' Then I would just pick up the book occasionally. If there was scene that we were working on that I was trying to find something new, then I might find that scene."

Those confusing encounters with different suspects are often played to comedic effect. In one scene with Jena Malone, playing a reformed drug addict, Doc screams at a photo of her baby. The audience never gets to see the dreadful picture.

"That's just a scream I've seen in cartoons since I was a kid," Phoenix said. "That's all that it was, but someone else had asked me what was on the photograph? Really, she had 50 different photographs that were just her and Owen [Wilson]. I think each one was different every time but there was nothing particularly terrifying or ugly about it."

When it comes to his own work, Phoenix has an ethereal perspective that suits the hippie beach culture of "Inherent Vice." "I don't really know why I make the decisions that I make," he said. "I wish I did, just so I could give you a solid answer in an interview, but it's usually just a feeling. It's kind of like falling in love. You don't really understand it but it's just something that you have to experience and nothing can keep you away from it. I try to come up with reasons but I don't fully understand it."

The X Factor

The aesthetics themselves may be an X factor, but Phoenix's work ethic is concrete. He would rather work 24/7 if he were allowed. "I like working all the time. I dread having days off. The weekends are the hardest thing to get through. Paul and I would always talk that we wish that we could just keep shooting straight. I'm not able to do it. I wish I could. I just marvel at some of the other actors that would work for a couple days and they'd be off for a week. Katherine came in and she worked in the first couple weeks and then she was gone for like three weeks. That's so difficult, to come back in after three weeks and just get in the groove. I need to be there every day and I find it really difficult to have breaks."

Some of Phoenix's most acclaimed performances were in supporting roles. Now he focuses on leads, and shares his discomfort with the stop-start of supporting work. "Sometimes I didn't have a choice. There was some time before I had the opportunity to work on something every day. You start out doing supporting roles. From very early on, I remember doing 'Gladiator,' I worked in the first couple weeks and then I was off for three weeks. It was very difficult for me to get back into it."

Doc walks the streets of L.A. barefoot, wears baggy clothes and a sombrero. Settling on the exact look of Doc Sportello was a collaborative process.

"I would say that Paul and Mark Bridges, the costume designer, are really obviously a big part of that," Phoenix said. "The first thing was Paul showed me pictures of Neil Young actually and he had those same kind of sideburns, and he had this kind of straw hat. So then you just start trying stuff on and it just tells you what's going to work and what isn't going to work. You really have to just be malleable and sometimes ideas that you have when you're sitting in your room alone reading the script that you think are great, don't work. There's clothes that Mark had, shirts that he would love and then we'd try them on and go, 'It actually just doesn't look right. The idea is great but it just doesn't fit.' It's just really an organic process, but when you work with people like Mark Bridges, you know that you're going to have so many great options to choose from."

Chemistry with Anderson

"Inherent Vice" is Phoenix's second film with Paul Thomas Anderson, after "The Master." The chemistry between them is another X factor to Phoenix.

"I think anyone that works with Paul would get on really well with him. He's really inclusive and warm and thoughtful. He's one of those people that makes you feel like you're important and you have value, even if you don't. He deserves all the credit. Again, it's like when you fall in love with somebody. I don't know. I just really like him. It's hard to say why. I like his demeanor. I like the way that he sees the world in that he's always searching for something else."

The film offers another reunion of sorts for Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, who played Johnny and June Carter Cash in 2005's "Walk the Line." Witherspoon plays a D.A. who helps feed Doc some info.

"I love working with Reese Witherspoon," Phoenix said. "She is a great actor and it's funny because it had been 10 years but it's like nothing had changed because we did the first scene and she was like, 'So that's how you're going to do it? All right, well I have to save this again.' And it's true. She made the movie last time and she's great in this."

"Inherent Vice" opens wide Friday.