Ari Aster plays an April Fool’s prank on moviegoers hoping to see a screening of the film midsummer But instead saw a screening of his latest film Beau is scared Starring Joaquin Phoenix.
The filmmakers and Phoenix introduced the film to an audience at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in New York. At the end of the three-hour screening, Emma Stone moderated a Q&A with Astaire to talk about the film.
Astor talked about working with Phoenix and said that “everything has to feel honest” with the actor and prefers multiple takes. The director shared an incident from the sets of the film where Phoenix fainted while Patti LuPone, who plays his mother in the picture, was shooting a scene.
“There was a scene that was too intense for Patti and it was a shot that was on Patti, it wasn’t on her and all of a sudden she fell out of frame,” Astor recalled. “I was really pissed ’cause it was really cool. It felt confusing so I went around the corner and it fell off.
Astor continued, “I knew it was bad because he was letting people touch him and people like him and he was allowing it. The point is that he fainted in someone else’s take.” , he was not on camera and he was helping them, he was there for them in the position where he fell. It is very poetic that he fell in someone else’s shot.
A24’s Beau is scared revolves around a madman [who] embarks on an epic journey to get home to his mother. The film also stars Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Kylie Rogers, Denis Menoshet, Parker Posey, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Richard Kind, Hayley Squires, and Michael Gandolfini. The film is all set to hit the theaters on 21 April.