Joaquin Phoenix Giving Up Acting for Music

Is Joaquin Phoenix giving up acting? Appearing at the Paul Newman tribute and Hole in the Wall Gang fundraiser this weekend, Phoenix told E! that he's retiring to focus on his music career. Anyone who saw Walk the Line would probably tell you that it was Joaquin's acting and not his singing that earned him an Oscar nomination, but to each his own. Phoenix says of his decision to leave acting, "I've been through that. I've done it."

As you'll see, he looks as serious about this as he does about everything else. And brother-in-law Casey Affleck believes the decision is the real deal.

Joaquin has been working on an album with Tim Burgess (of The Charlatans), who says that Walk the Line prepared Phoenix for this transition. "Once he learnt guitar he found that he had quite a lot of demons inside himself that he wanted to expel through music."

Comments

[Thomas]

I think its brother in law considering the fact that Casey Affleck is married to Joaquin's sister.

[Get The Big Picture]

Sorry, yes, he is Joaquin's brother-in-law. That's what I meant. An editor would've caught that...

[Thomas]

It's cool, figured it was a typo

[Matt]

He's such a loose cannon, there's no telling if he'll feel differently in a few months. It'd be a shame if he didn't change his mind though. He's a great actor.