Joaquin walks the line

Joaquin famously made the emergency phone call from the LA nightclub where his brother died. Then 18, Joaquin's desperate call from the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard was broadcast on news bulletins all over the world. Did that dreadful episode help him to understand the drug- and drink-abusing Cash, who, at the age of 12, also lost his older brother in a gruesome accident?

"I see that people would assume that I use or project my personal experiences," Phoenix says, "but that's never been of help to me in acting. If anything, it made me self-conscious of what other people thought."

He grew up in a free-spirited, creative family, travelling with his missionary parents and four siblings around Puerto Rico (where he was born), Venezuela and Mexico. Their on-the-road lifestyle has been exaggerated, he says now, "blown up out of all proportion. From when I was five till I was 13, we were in LA. It was more stable than you think."

It was in California where his enterprising mother got a job in a casting department and kick-started her children's film careers. Like River, who was eight years his senior, Joaquin broke into acting at an early age, starring in a US TV series of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, on which River was a regular. Of his three sisters, Summer and Rain are also actors; Liberty tried it, but gave up to look after her two children.

Around that time, Joaquin changed his name to Leaf because nobody, he claims,
could pronounce his real name (it's "Wakeen"). A string of guest parts in TV series such as Hill Street Blues and Murder, She Wrote followed before his breakthrough film performance in 1995, in To Die For, for which he returned to his real name.

After that film, Phoenix essentially stepped into his brother's shoes as the "next big thing". He starred in U-Turn for Oliver Stone, 8mm for Joel Schumacher, Gladiator, The Yards with Charlize-Theron, Quills with Kate Winslet, Buffalo Soldiers and two M Night Shyamalan blockbusters, Signs and The Village.

When director James Mangold was looking for an actor to play Cash, Phoenix was bound to be on the shortlist. It helped that Cash, who was closely involved with the film before he died, was a fan of the actor's work and had previously met him. "I went to have dinner at their house before I even heard about the movie," recalls Phoenix.

"We were in their living room and John just started strumming. He said he was waiting for June before he could get his nerve up. And I thought, 'Wow, this is Johnny Cash waiting to get his nerve up. This guy has played prisons and he's nervous.' Then June came in and they started singing On the Banks of the River Jordan and they're looking into each other's eyes, and the connection and love they had was palpable."

By the time Phoenix was cast, both Cash and Carter were too ill to meet him again and both died soon afterwards within months of each other. Cash's passion for Carter, which is at the film's heart, lifts Walk the Line out of the ordinary.

Phoenix and Witherspoon achieve a rare romantic chemistry, making up for the formulaic biopic aspects imposed by the film-makers. The two actors helped each other out considerably, especially since both were using their own singing voices.

But while Witherspoon was required to master tambourine and auto-harp, Phoenix had to duplicate Cash's natural ease with the guitar. " I played every day and no matter what I was doing, I had a guitar," he says. "At some point it just becomes a part of you."

The whole experience was evidently intense on every level. The good thing, Phoenix says, was to experience it "with someone else that was in the same boat. Reese and I really relied on each other and developed a dynamic through to the music."

He has had little time for mundane things like a love life, however. He is quick to point out: "As long as I work like that, I am not ideal boyfriend material - my work has always come first."

There has, all the same, been some rumour of a new girlfriend. Since his one long-term relationship, with actress Liv Tyler, in 1998, he has claimed to date only "outside the industry". He seems to spend much of his free time with his sister Liberty's children, Rio Everest and Indigo Orion.

It's good to know that this most intense of actors finds some respite from the serious business of acting. Especially as, with the attention he's getting for Walk the Line, he'd better brace himself for a busy few years ahead.