It’s tting that the latest actor to
take up the mantle of the Joker,
the comic book villain who has been
played by Jack Nicholson, Heath
Ledger, and Jared Leto, would insist
on being fooled to get a good shot.
“Just trick me—just trick me,” Joaquin
Phoenix urged Ethan James Green,
whose portraits of the actor for this
month’s cover story, along with
his portfolio of YouTube’s brightest
stars, are his rst as a Vanity Fair
contributing photographer.
As Green recalls it, the shoot wasn’t
going well. He was trying to craft
scenes; Phoenix was looking, as he does
in all his roles, for authenticity. “He
pulled me aside and was like, ‘This is
stupid,’ ” says Green, who embraced
the critique as an invitation to simply
capture their day together. “So I said,
‘Okay, let’s do something low-key.’ ”
Low-key suited the actor perfectly.
Phoenix is vegan inside and out—
he doesn’t wear cashmere, silk,
wool, or leather, opting instead for his
own Converse sneakers. On the
day of his cover shoot, there was a
single rack of clothes, in cotton
and linen. “For a timeless picture, it
works great,” says Green. “You can
get away with more black and white.”
The monochrome palette proved
particularly striking against the
opalescent swimming pool, which
reminded Green of a favorite photograph
by his mentor, David Armstrong.
And then Rooney Mara, Phoenix’s
longtime girlfriend, arrived. “Joaquin
just lit up,” Green recalls. “So I had
Rooney sit out of frame and make him
laugh.” A few weeks later, news
came that the couple was engaged.
—
From the Editors Behind the Issue
SOON-TO-BE
Engaged couple Rooney Mara and Phoenix on the way to the Venice Film Festival.
Read Richard Lawson’s VFF dispatches at vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019
/09/on-the-scene-at-the-venice-film-festival. See Greg Williams’s snapshots of
the festival’s best parties in Fairground on page 40.ON SET
Left: Stylist Tom Guinness and V.F.
contributing photographer Ethan James
Green in Beverly Hills; Joaquin Phoenix,
this month’s cover subject and star
of the new film Joker.Making
Waves
20 VANITY FAIR NOVEMBER 2019
PHOTOGRAPHS: FROM TOP, BY ETHAN JAMES GREEN, NICK RAPAZ, GREG WILLIAMS