“We tried to get through one take and he was, like, losing it,” Johansson said of the Oscar winner.
Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson
Getty
When Scarlett Johansson came, Joaquin Phoenix left.
Johansson revealed during Dax Shepard and Monica Padman’s “Armchair Expert” podcast that filming Spike Jonze’s 2013 romance “Her” proved to be “so gross” during an intimate sequence involving the sounds of an orgasm between an A.I. machine and its owner, played by Phoenix.
Johansson’s character Samantha was only present as a voice, and a verbal sexual encounter during which Samantha pretends to be human led to the sounds of a climax for both characters. Yet Phoenix had to leave the room when recording the sounds together.
“We tried to get through one take, and he was, like, losing it,” Johansson said. “He left the studio. He needed a break.”
Johansson added, “You don’t want to hear your voice ever. You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having an orgasm. You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having a fake orgasm — ew. It’s so gross. It was so bizarre.”
“Her” won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture.
Phoenix will flex his vocal power once more for the upcoming “Joker” sequel “Folie à Deux,” a musical take on the dark “Batman” villain for which Phoenix won the Oscar. Grammy and Oscar winner Lady Gaga stars as Joker’s love interest Harley Quinn in the upcoming film, helmed by Todd Philipps. Brendan Gleeson, Zazie Beetz, and Catherine Keener also star.
Phoenix previously sang in the Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line” alongside Reese Witherspoon in 2005.
“I was surprised just to get through a song,” Phoenix told CNN at the time (via USAToday). “I never sang before, but if I had tried to sing along to something it was to John Lennon and David Bowie, who both sing quite high. So to suddenly go to John was so odd to me. It was very strange to have to use a part of my voice that I didn’t know existed.”
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