A Quote by Joaquin Phoenix

I becan acting when River was doing this TV series and they needed two kids for the show, so they got me and my little sister, Summer, to do it. After that I did some really weird guest spots with orangutans and stuff.
I did a standup show called 'Show Me the Funny,' so from that I got some TV stuff and people would book me for gigs. I wasn't really good enough at that point, so had to catch up with expectations.
I was in a TV show called 'Orrible' with Johnny Vaughan, I did the last series of 'Teachers', I did two or three different characters on 'The Bill'. Just stuff like that. The 'Inbetweeners' was the first thing that really took off.
So many actors started on soap operas. So yeah, I'd graduated Julliard and done some theater. I've done a few guest spots on TV but nothing that long-term. I did a little 'E.R.' back when it was on, and a pilot for 'Cold Case.'
Career wise, I'm looking into different opportunities to do a TV show, but in some way that's not a goal in itself. To me, the goal is creating content and doing fun stuff that I'm proud to show. I don't want to do a TV show for the sake of doing it.
I went to Broadway and I've been doing some fun guest spots with 'Entourage' and 'Glee' and I'm ready to have my own show.
I'm not really sure if I have anything that inspires me. I think what goes into my work is everything beforehand that I do with my dad. He teaches me acting, and I think maybe without him it would be pretty hard. I started acting for fun, really, because my dad's an actor and my sister's an actor, so I started doing it and it was normal. But it got places really fast, and I started doing feature film auditions and stuff.
Nobody wants to sit where I'm sitting and say, 'Hey, this is the reality. I did two movies, six guest-star spots and I starred in a one-woman show, and I'm not making any money. I'm on TV every day in every country in the world, and I don't make any money.'
The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.
I had been doing plays in New York and on a whim we packed up and moved West, I started doing commercials and plays and guest star spots on TV and one thing led to another and I got Knots Landing.
I love my regular job playing with Alice Cooper, I love doing my solo stuff, I love doing guest spots and guest tours. So I just love to play, and I'll play with anybody that'll have me, just about.
I did a series in Britain years ago called 'Skins,' and I remember my little sister telling me that I had a Wikipedia page that was talking about me. But then it got deleted because on Wikipedia anyone can write stuff, right? So I think that it got sabotaged. But this is years ago, so it got taken down. I don't think it exists anymore.
I used to take acting so seriously, but after we did the Quest pilot and the show sold, Kurt Russel said, "You know, you work too hard. You'll make yourself sick. You can't work that hard doing a series, because it goes on so long. It's like a baseball season. You've got 162 games. You can't just go all-out the first week or two. You can't maintain that pace." And it's true.
I was like, 'I'm only going to do musical theater for the rest of my life. I'm never going to do TV.' And whenever I'd get auditions for TV, I'd be like, 'Okay, whatever. I've got a lisp, so they're not going to take me.' And then I started doing this, and I guess it was my sister that got me into the acting thing.
Some people have this really clear memory of making that decision, and I don't. My earliest memories of being involved with drama or acting were in elementary school. My sister and I got dropped off at an after-school improvisation class, a time-killer for kids while parents were doing the groceries. I'm 6 years old, and I remember running amok and playing these games.
I'm interested in acting roles that I want to do, that are meaningful to me in some way. I think, because my kids are still pretty young, if something is meaningful and it's a good little part that I could do or feel that I can have fun with, then I'm interested in it. I'd like to be able to do a TV show or something and really have a voice in it.
Younger audiences are into me because I did 'Stuart Little,' and that movie was a very big deal for kids. And in 'Angels in the Outfield,' a generation of kids learned about magic and angels. And then, of course, there are these two blond girls named Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and I played their nanny on their TV show.
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