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Summer Phoenix, revelation of the fall By Anne Diatkine
Elle (French edition), October 2, 2000
The youngest of the Phoenix children, sister to Joaquin and the late River, is called "Summer". Of Indian origin (translation note : err... not that I know. I think it was assumed from their names), she has known with her family the hippie bohemian lifestyle, a Christian sect and Hollywood parties. With a feline grace and the tenacity of a lioness, this 22 years old girl perfectly embodies Esther Kahn, a young passionate actress.
If Summer Phoenix was an animal, she would be a salamander. She has its golden color, its iridescence, its curling, its vivacity, its suppleness and maybe the faculty to inoculate a light poison to those that bother her. If she was a plant, she would blend in with the jungle. If she was a country, it would be Peter Pan's, the enchanted world of "Neverland", where one doesn't grow old and where the childish paradise remains intact. And if she was a fiction character? Esther Kahn, girl of stone, whose body "wanted nothing, anticipated nothing, waited" and begins to live through theater? Since she interprets her wonderfully... Not so sure. Or if it is so, mixed with Mary Poppins.
We thought of her brunette with long hair and a serious face as she appears in her first big role, Esther Kahn's, shot by Arnaud Desplechin. She is platinum blond, combed like Jean Harlow. Her expression changes quickly. She smiles, gives out a discreet wink, lies down on the sofa, warms her feet against Arnaud Desplechin's assistant's blue jeans, shrivels up, makes a serious face, gets bored, or fakes to be so, yawns, stretches, then speaks. A low and singing voice, with varying modulations. If one wouldn't understand what she says, her intonations would be spellbinding enough to listen to their music. It would be a pity : what she said has a sense.
Summer Phoenix has the appearance and ease of those that attract and diffracts light : stars. One suspects she has an ancestral experience of stage : a half mistake. Summer is only 22 years old and, before her interpretation in "Esther Kahn", no one knew her. But the young woman has been acting since she is 3 years old. "It was horrible. I was disguised in Indian, with feathers on my head, and especially, a suede jacket, that I wore next to the skin, without shirt. I cried because I was afraid to exhibit my naked chest, and I felt like I was abused." Today, does she still think that the show-business exploits children? Ambivalent answer : between ads and children, there's a reciprocal love story that makes a lot of money. As for her, she won't place her kids (that she doesn't have yet) before a camera, if they don't ask her expressly.
Summer Phoenix's early childhood is itinerant. With her parents and her five brothers and sisters - Mike (translation note : Mike? Never heard about him. Another mistake, I think), Joaquin, Rain, Liberty, River -, she crosses America in a trailer. The family lives on nothing, but with a lot of love. Of Indian (translation note : still not) Jewish origin, Christian missionaries, parents belonged to the sect of Children of God, from which they managed to get out. But they kept some principles mingling hippie lifestyle and biblical precepts : "Love your neighbour like yourself" and "Shows the example of a happy family". The trailer stops for good in Hollywood. Change of life. The Phoenix live in a building in which children are not admitted! It is the aseptic America as one can't imagine it. No matter, the Phoenix children sing and dance in streets of the city, for the biggest astonishment of passers-by who are no longer used to see little humans. Money misses. To earn some, children also act. Under their father's aegis, they organize regular spectacles in an orphanage. "For me, it was indeed a game. I didn't understand why we had to repeat, to work", remembers Summer.
Mrs. Phoenix finds a job of secretary for a casting director working for the important NBC network. Summer, youngest child who's not used to see her mother obeying schedules, doesn't get over her daily departures for long days. Every morning, the little girl runs in tears behind the car leaving. "From this time, it is rather my brothers and sisters who raised me, and especially my father, a real "mister mom". He was in charge of everything : teaching us music, dressing us, taking us to swim in the river, going climbing." A tutor is in charge of the school matters. The casting director for which Mrs Phoenix is working finds this strange family intriguing. It is a golden topic. He thinks of a television series, half-documentary half-fiction, in which children and parents would play their own roles : "It was especially our extraordinary emotional cohesion that surprised him and that he wanted to shoot." The director, in addition to find an agent who takes all children under her responsibility, sets up for them mini-shows in Hollywood parties. The little Phoenix's spontaneity and talent seduce the show-business. Summer specifies : "If we started early in this business, it wasn't for fame, but because our parents were proud of us. Of their time as missionaries, they had kept the idea that they had a message to deliver on this planet : to be an example of harmony and love." Very naturally, children turn to the gods of Hollywood. But the family has principles that complicate the agent's work. The Phoenix are vegetarian. Children have therefore to refuse all ads related to the food industry. No McDo, no Pepsi. If they praise food, it must be healthy. While telling this anecdote, Summer smokes cigarette after cigarette.
The young actress describes an idyllic world : a loving family without violence, a brotherhood without jealousy or rivalry, children who blossom self-sufficient. An absolute absence of ambivalence in feelings. Love without hatred. "Does this paradise really exist?", one questions with a bit of incredulity in the tone. "Or is this a made-up speech?" Immediate anger of Summer, who then demonstrates her sincerity. Storm. Loads of insults about the medias. How is this possible to suspect her of " being a liar"? She's interested in confidence, "not newspapers and paparazzis looking for gossips". When River, the eldest of the Phoenix siblings, actor idolized in cult movie "My Own Private Idaho", died of overdose in 1993, Summer was 15 years old. In deep mourning, the family faces a particularly aggressive and little respectful press. "Your brother has just died, you wake up in the morning, there are fifty journalists waiting for you in the staircase." The drama strengthens the connection between the siblings.
Summer gets quiet as quickly as she picks up the fight. Still now, her brother Joaquin (more and more in vogue actor, notably due to "Gladiator" and "The Yards") and her sisters are her closer friends. Actually, by the time of "Esther Kahn"'s shooting in London, Joaquin also worked nearby (translation note : for "Gladiator"), and the sister and brother shared the same apartment. Arnaud Desplechin met Summer tritely during "Esther Kahn"'s casting. He didn't hesitate : "She had a brightness and a determination that can't be mistaken." Among other examples, the actress is the only one who had made the effort to go to the library reading Arthur Symons' rare texts, a forgotten English author, which the movie is adapted from. A casting of ten minutes, tears : "Leave me a second chance..." Summer was persuaded she had failed.
During the shooting, the actress, with a four-tracks tape recorder and instruments, composed words and music. They accompanied her states of mind. "Really good songs. A bit Elliott Smith, a bit Dylan", describes the film-maker. Summer, Joaquin and Rain form a group, whose name changes pretty much every week. Today, the actress dreams of a musical. She who passes from the most extreme shyness to cordial crankiness also appreciate silence? "I like all that is rare", concludes Summer right away.
PHOENIX, AMERICA by Thomas Erber
Jalouse, N° 34, October 2000
With Summer Phoenix, heroine of the movie "ESTHER KAHN", those who didn't like Desplechin will appreciate him, and those who liked him will adore him. A nearly unknown young actress, she establishes herself by transcending an ambitious and successful movie.
Summer Phoenix is a young woman who suffers from a name already widely-known in the movies. Sister of the late River and of the henceforth "star" Joaquin, some would say that she fell in the arms of a Hollywood Morpheus from her very early childhood. Wrong! " I never had the vocation to be an actress. I didn't spend my youth dreaming in front of posters of Faye Dunaway or Grace Kelly. Some members of my family embraced this career very young but, for myself, I had other things to do before I'd take on this business", she declares without false modesty. Of a spontaneous beauty, the kind in which one discovers more enigmas than answers, light years away from the star actress surrounded by a cohort of agents and bodyguards, Summer Phoenix either travels alone or with her boyfriend, in all simplicity, true to form. Of her golden youth spent a within a family not much sedentary, she especially keeps the memory of this period where, between 12 and 16 years old, she left to live in Costa Rica with her sister to be in charge of a small restaurant: "I enjoyed this moment of absolute freedom", she confirms, obviously without realizing that to this age, a lot of kids are still begging money from their parents to buy Pokemon stickers.
SUMMER TOWARD THE TOP Summer is one of those for which some journeys bring revelation. "When I came back, I turned to acting without really knowing how it would turn". The spark catches but it happens to be a damp squib. Two or three movies as a supporting actress for a set of bad movies including The Faculty, by Rodriguez. A report that she confirms but that doesn't undermine her determination. A godsend. Because when Arnaud Desplechin decides to launch the adventure of Esther Kahn, he leaves to make castings in New York, wanting to film his movie in English. He will choose Summer, who confirms the way it happened. "Arnaud came to New York, where I live, to find a young actress who would embody the leading role of his movie. I got the script, rented How I had an argument... in a dark video club. I found both brilliant and, with my agent's blessing, I went to the casting". No boasts nor Hollywood tall stories. Summer Phoenix, wherever her career will lead her, already found one of the parts of her. Esther Kahn's, a young Jewish immigrant girl in London of the end of the last century and who, though stuck in an oppressive family, discovers herself a deep attraction for theater. A passion that will allow her to survive and to come out of her autism. Story of the discovery of passion and difficulties that one meets in his blossoming, Esther Kahn is a big movie with a retained delicateness. A work of an attractive classicism that sublimes its actors. Or maybe with Summer Phoenix, it's the other way around...
Summer Phoenix : birth of an actress By Gwen Douguet
Le Figaroscope, October 4-8, 2000
Do you imagine her shy? You're wrong. Sprightly with a cool side, she spends her time laughing. Do you believe her a brunette? She arrives all blond. Did she seem rather tall to you? Her size barely reaches 1,56 m. Youngest sister of the Phoenix clan, of the sadly departed River (in 1993), of Joaquin emperor in "Gladiator", Summer was so far flirting without ever succumbing (to acting, it means - translation note). Thanks to Arnaud Desplechin and his "Esther Kahn" - an actress's birth in London at the end of the XIXth century -, now she's in love with a profession that's obviously made for her.
- It's said that Hollywood doesn't propose anything very exciting to young actresses, is this the reason why you crossed Atlantic in order to make a movie in England with a French director?
- Yes and no. There was a script greatly adapted of a short story by Arthur Symons, that literally overthrown me.
- Younger, you said that you never knew if you wanted to be an actress. What do you think of it you after such an experience?
- That is not so simple. Esther reinforced me surely in my profession, but she mostly deeply marked and inspired me. Lessons that she learns from life opened on multiple questions and I am now very excited at the idea of finding answers.
- Were you not before?
- Not with such a strength.
- Did you live in a golden bubble?
- Yes, but a bubble also filled with dreams, and curiously Esther Kahn was one of them. I wanted to interpret such a character. To meet a producer who would respect me, who would offer me such a gift.
- Esther Kahn learns to play by drawing emotions from her memory, are you doing the same way?
- In me, all is more conscious. I don't look in my childhood for such or such sensation. Not more that I'm copying tricks or gestures from other actresses.
- What arguments did Deplechin use to involve you in this adventure?
- None. He didn't need any. I worked very hard for the auditions and then during several months I had no news. I secretly hoped. Then, when he asked me if I still wanted the role one week before the shooting, I jumped in the plane.
- Were you ready?
- Completely. I wanted this role. Esther is alone, lost. I have also been lost. She tries to become an adult, as I do. That immediately touched me. I also like the idea that this character can speak to people from Singapore, Timbuktu, or anywhere else, that it allows them to find themselves. That's why I like movies.
- You have a famous name, isn't the price to pay high for this?
- It depends on what people put over it. I am proud of my name, of my family, of that I am. And I pray to remain strong and to continue to be myself.
Summer Phoenix - interview
Allociné, October 18, 2000
Regarding Arnaud Desplechin's « Esther Kahn »'s release, actress Summer Phoenix reveals herself in « Star Talk »
AlloCiné : If you hadn't become an actress, what would you have done?
Summer Phoenix : I would have played music, surely piano, for it is my first passion.
What is your first movie memory ?
The first movie I saw when I was young, it was E.T... I thought for years that he lived in my closet... And I thought “I'm a vegan, I have nothing to feed you, E.T., not even M'nM's!!!” It's silly but it's true (laugh).
Your reference as an actress
I love many of them. But especially Jennifer Jason Leigh. Her career, the movies she's done. It's her movies I loved most.
Do you have a favorite movie? If you do, which one?
My favorite movie? (silence) I can't really tell. You know, there are so many of them. I loved “In the company of men” by Neil Labute, mainly Aaron Eckhart's performance, who's one of my favorite actors. I love to watch his movies ; I especially like the way he adapts each time for each part.
For the movie itself, it was made with very few money, and it never talks about it, but more about relationships between people, the different characters personalities, the way they change. I think it's a brilliant movie, especially regarding the acting.
Do you remember your first line?
No. I was so young. It's really too difficult... I can't ; you know, I was 3 yrs old. I'm really sorry... I'll think about it and I'll call you later (laugh)
The decisive encounter in your career?
The most important? Arnaud Desplechin and "Esther Kahn", without a doubt. A hand's down, like we say. Esther Kahn's character is a part that every actress dreams of playing. It's a character and an opportunity I had dreamed of for a long time. It's a huge chance for me ; when it happened, I was extremely pleased.
Who's this "Esther Kahn"?
An immigrant Jew living in London in the second half of the XIXth century. I guess she thinks she's not made for the life she's living, and that she wants to become an actress. For me, she's a lonely woman, in her thoughts as well as in her feelings. She's in the process of turning from a child to an adult.
Exactly, how did you play this transformation, the character's evolution? And also, the fact to play an actress?
Personally, it wasn't an issue to me that she was an actress. What mattered to me was that she was a person, a human being, just a girl, in fact... And it was very intense to play that.
I think we all have to go through these moments where you become an adult. It happened to me. I have felt all this, and there, for the movie, I lived through all these moments again through Esther Kahn. I think it's the most difficult time of her life ; at least it has been so for me. It was especially intense and amazing to live that period of life again.
How did you get involved in this project?
I met Arnaud Desplechin during a casting organized in New York. It's my agent, who had seen Arnaud's last movie, "How I had an argument... (my sexual life)", who told me that I should do this casting. "The script is brilliant, it's a French director ; you're going to love it", she said. I wanted to try ; I read the script and I fell in love with Esther's character. Next I saw "How I had an argument...", and I found the directing great. I was very impatient to know Arnaud's decision. When he chose me, I was very delighted. And relieved.
Was it difficult to play a character so intense and psychological on the screen?
In fact, it was Arnaud who was Esther for me ; he was always behind me. I knew that each time I would have difficulties - and I've had a lot - he would be there for me, knowing exactly who she was, and what I had to do to show her like he wanted. He was really my guide, like a light in the tunnel showing me the path.
This part is apparently very important for you, personally, and also for your career...
That's right, it was already very important in my idea of what I want for a career. But, also, because it's the kind of work that I love and that I'm proud of, whatever people think. Nothing has changed, even if everything has changed too.
Do you keep a specific memory from the shooting?
It's difficult... We've had three months and a half of shooting. It's the daily work that was a story by itself.
I especially remember this special moments, where I learned so much about acting thanks to Arnaud. It's a real gift that he made me when he chose and directed me. It all changed and enlightened my vision of art and acting, my ideas about movie-making.
After such an experience, what is your wish?
My wish? (silence) Oh you know, I'm not complicated. I'm a bit hippie ! I want to go home, kiss my nephews and my sister, see my mother, you know? That's what I want right now!
Your projects?
I did two independent movies this year in New York, Committed by Lisa Kruger and Dinner Rush by Bob Giraldi. Two small parts. A kind of pause, and it was very pleasant.
For the future, wait and see! Nothing is sure as of yet.
If you should stop your career tomorrow, what would you miss the most?
It's strange, but in fact, movie-making is really difficult, complex, but I like it. I can appreciate the work that has been done, the way it's edited, even if at first it's sometimes difficult to enjoy... But strangely, it's that process of film-making that I would miss the most. To be so close from people, see everyone working, it's amazing, and very interesting. It's a collaboration and a strong harmony : so many people doing their best to reach the same goal. To me it's wonderful !
Happy Days of Summer
You, 25 November 2001 (UK mag, goes free with The Mail on sunday)
The youngest of the talented Phoenix clan, Summer has followed her siblings - River, Rain, Joaquin and Liberty - into acting. Here she tells Bridget Freer that despite her parents' divorce and the death of River, the family remains united.
Summer is sitting on a plush opera chair, looking the picture of New York sophistication: her glossy dark blond hair drawn back in a severe chignon, her almond eyes fixed on the middle distance with a coal, calm intensity, a pretty pink dress floating over her svelte form. When the camera stops flashing for an instant, she looks up with a friendly smile and greets me warmly. Then the photographer indicates she's ready to roll again, the smile vanishes, the chilly poise returns and Summer is back at work.
It is an astonishingly rapid chameleon act - from ice maiden to nice girl and back again. But Summer Phoenix, a member of one of Hollywood's most talented acting dynasties, is that rare thing: a consummate but detached professional. Insiders have eagerly awaited her ascent into the 'family business'. At 22, she's the youngest of the Phoenix clan, which has also supplied Hollywood with the Oscar-nominated Joaquin, 27, the late River, and the equally imaginatively named Rain, 28, and Liberty, 25.
Following a family trait, Summer has thus far opted for challenging and complex roles. Her latest film, that will soon bring her to British screens (and a more mainstream audience), is no exception: she stars as a neo-fascist in love with a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer (which won the grand jury prize at this year's Sundance Festival).
'People always say, "Wow! Your whole family!"' says Summer, and she seems bemused as to why it should be that such a display of the hereditary nature of acting ability might prove so fascinating. 'It's hilarious. There are so many [acting families] in this business; you've got the Baldwins, the Sheens... I think it is kind of bizarre to single us out. Although it's true, at the beginning we sort of had this idea that we were going to change the world and get our points of view out there by gaining recognition. It's not about that now. We just want to act.
'But then we do all have weird names, we are all vegan, we have a different philosophy of life and we're very tight-knit, so I don't know...' she concedes. 'Maybe I can see the curiosity.'
Later, the shoot finished, Summer is back in her customary jeans and T-shirt, eating samosas and salad with gusto. She is still in full make-up, but the freshness of her complexion is evident. I wonder if this has anything to do with the vegan diet the Phoenix family was reared on. 'It's a gift that my parents raised me this way. I am as healthy as an ox, and, I think, a good poster child for that way of life. Meal times are still a huge ritual for us. There are certain dishes -tofu salad and tabbouleh -that we associate with our childhood, so it's nice to get together and make them.'
Inevitably, Summer's values (and those of her siblings) were shaped by her bohemian parents, John Bottom and Arlyn Dunetz, who married in a hippie ceremony in 1969 and changed their name to Phoenix. 'It was about changing who they were and starting new lives and a family together,' explains Summer. 'And the idea of Phoenix is exactly that: they wanted to rise from their respective ashes.'
In their early married life, John and Arlyn lived in communes and then became missionaries for a cult called Children of God, which took them across South and Central America (John, a carpenter, was the sect's 'Archbishop of Venezuela'). By the time Summer was born, the family had left the church, but they still couldn't manage to stay stationary for long. 'We just always travelled a lot. River was born in Oregon, Rain in Texas, Joaquin in Puerto Rico, Liberty in Venezuela, and me in Florida. It was a nomadic, gypsy sort of life. I loved it; it's in my blood still. I travel all the time - not always for work.'
At the age of three, Summer was already acting in TV commercials. At the time, the family was living in Los Angeles and her mother worked as a secretary for a casting director at NBC. Ever since their missionary days, River and Rain had taken to singing and playing guitar in public. In LA, all five kids were in a band - the Phoenix Family - and their dad took them out to sing on the streets, in jails and in orphanages. Their mother's boss was so intrigued that he made a documentary about them. As a result, all five of them signed up with the same agent, who encouraged them to go into acting.
'I acted in commercials and sitcoms up until I was 12,' says Summer. Then her parents split up; her mother moving to Florida and her father to Costa Rica. Liberty and Summer went with their father, while River, Rain and Joaquin stayed in the States and carried on working in TV and films.
'I scaled waterfalls, rode horses, worked in a restaurant and just was a kid,' says Summer. 'By the time I was 15, I was tired of that. Costa Rica is a beatiful country but I wasn't gaining anything. I just felt like, oh man, nothing seemed to change and I wanted to change.'
As it turned out, her life did change that year - with the death of her eldest brother, River. He was only 23, but had achieved almost iconic status as one of the most promising young actors of his generation. His first major film was Rob Reiner's award-winning Stand by Me, he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Running on Empty and received huge critical acclaim in My Own Private Idaho. Then, in October 1993, after a night out with Rain and Joaquin in Johnny Depp's LA club the Viper Room, he died of a drugs overdose. Joaquin, whose emergency call that night was widely broadcast, has briefly alluded to the acute pain the family felt at having their whole world 'raided and raided' by the media. Otherwise, the family's agreed coping mechanism has been not to talk about it.
This presents something of a dilemma for Summer, who brings to all other subjects a natural openness and candour. 'It can make giving an interview a bit of an ordeal,' she agrees. 'You go into it very tentatively because of all the nightmares that have occurred in the past. Reporters seem to want you to give them something sensationalistic, and I think, "What is that?" It's like the rubbernecking that happens after an accident - our culture is bizarre on that level.'
Not that I have mentioned River's death to Summer. But it has hung heavy in the air and it is a relief now that she has unblocked the impasse. Instead, we talk about her life in New York, where she has lived since leaving Costa Rica. For the past two years, she has shared 'a tiny apartment on the cusp of TriBeCa' with her actor boyfriend Casey Affleck (brother of Ben Affleck) with whom she seems very much settled. 'I love him so much,'she says. 'Even if he didn't love me, I would have kept on loving him and that would have been that. But I am lucky that I got his love.'
By that, Summer means she spent years nursing a serious crush on Casey, who is Joaquin's best friend - they met when they both worked on To Die For. 'Joaquin predicted that Casey was going to fall in love with me,' says Summer. But when they finally met months later she had a boyfriend, so they were just friends. Over the years they'd have the occasional 'episode', but it never really got off the ground. They even made a film together, ironically entitled Committed, and were still, she says, 'just friends, even though I was in love with him'.
Eventually, when Summer was in Florida visiting their mother, Joaquin brought Casey along. 'We were kind of flirting, but then he had to leave and asked if I'd take him to rent a car. So I did, and he said, "I'm driving home to New York but I might stop in Savannah. Do you want to come with me?" We've pretty much been together ever since. He just gave me a set of house keys and said, "Put all of your stuff in the drawers," and that was it. It was completely open and beautiful. He is the utmost rarity.'
He is also, it seems, the perfect on-set boyfriend. 'Because he's an actor too, he respects the process and the inevitable relationships that form,' she says. 'It becomes very familial and he understands that - he just fits right in.'
Summer's next production, The Believer, is out in the UK on 7 December, but its release in the States has been delayed until next spring because the last scene is of a terrorist explosion. 'Part of me thinks, "Maybe more people will see it if it comes out later," and I kind of feel disgusted that I can think that way,' she confides.
'I live on Canal Street looking south and our prized view used to be the river - and the World Trade Center. So on 11 September I saw the whole thing out of my window.' Asked if the catastrophe had brought her family closer together, she says, 'No. It couldn't. My family is always together. I speak to them every day. Growing up, we had no money, so there was no possibility of spoiling us, but we were all spoiled equally with love, and that is a brilliant thing. I will still crawl up in my mom's lap and nuzzle my face in her neck and make her hold me.'
Joaquin, too, has spoken of the family's closeness, referring to them as 'Team Phoenix', and admitting he called on them to come for 'relief visits' while filming Quills in London. 'It was the best,' recalls Summer. 'My mom and Rain and Liberty and I were pretty much there with him throughout.'
Better still was the time she signed the contract to work on Esther Kahn in London, only to discover that the very same day Joaquin had signed for Gladiator, also to be filmed in London. 'He saved my life,' she says. 'I had my own flat, but the minute he got there I was just living in his hotel room. It can be lonely on a film set, and England is so far away. It was really nice having somebody to go home to and eat with and hang out with.'
When Joaquin was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in Gladiator, he took his mother to the ceremony and invited Summer and Casey to the party afterwards. 'We ended up dancing salsa all night long, beaming with pride,' Summer recalls. 'You don't see many other sisters and moms at the Oscars,' she laughs.
The Believer is released on 7 December
Endless Summer By Barton Blasengame
Details, February 2002
Refusing the Hollywood hall pass afforded by her family tree, Summer, the final Phoenix, takes flight on her own terms.
THE YEAR IS 1987. DEEP IN HER GRATEFUL DEAD LUNCHBOX, 9-YEAR-OLD Summer Joy Phoenix, a pigtailed nugget of fourth-grade granola, packs a patchouli-scented menu of intrigue.
As the rest of her San Diego elementary-school set demolishes cardboard pizza and mechanized dairy droppings, the fifth and final member of the Phoenix clan privately sups on such alien victuals as "soy" and "tempeh." Her inscrutable diet is topped off with a taste of social isolation: After all, this is a girl who's spent her entire life, until now, home-schooled by her parents, John and Heart, on the family's Florida commune. As she interacts for the first time with pencil-packing munchkin carnivores, the world is reduced to a collision of digestive philosophies.
"I remember kids being like, 'Blue corn chips?' 'tofu salad?''" explains Phoenix, amber eyes flaming like sparklers. "That's when I went 'Ohhh... not everybody's like we are.' It was six months before I knew that most people ate meat."
Fourteen years later, Summer Phoenix is still anti-flesh (she's even converted boyfriend Casey Affleck: "It helps with his mucus," she says with a giggle). But nowadays she compensates for the meat-free Slim Goodbody act by talking through the butt end of an American Spirit.
And she's still not quite like everybody else. The bloodline she shares with brothers Joaquin and River could have afforded her a casting-call-free pass, but Summer has instead taken her lumps in such bruised-plum roles as the "Fuck-You Girl " in The Faculty and "Stoned Girl's Friend" in Can't Hardly Wait.
"I wanted to make my own way," she says, tucking a sprig of hair behind her ear. Besides, she adds, "there's not some big huge door that opens up because you have a certain last name. It's almost like you have to prove yourself even more."
So like any thespian with a contrarian background, Phoenix chose to pad her résumé in France. She got her first break in Esther Kahn, a film directed by French legend Arnaud Desplechin (My Sex Life). Back home, her wrath in Kahn had art-house mouths spitting gooey adjectives, paving the way for meatier roles in such low-budget staples as Dinner Rush and The Believer - the same career-making formula that worked for Joaquin (To Die For) and River (My Own Private Idaho). After a few more roles, Hollywood took notice of what her surviving brother has long known to be true.
"Summer's really strong," says Joaquin Phoenix. "She has integrity - always has - and takes acting very seriously. She's never wanted to waste time on projects that weren't important to her."
In March, Phoenix takes a swing at the Gen Y masses with a starring role in the heroin comedown Wasted, a made-for-MTV movie. Wasted plays like a mediocre episode of My So-Called Life (jittery quick-cuts, crusty dialogue, and an inescapable nouveau-rock soundtrack), but Phoenix transcends the trash as a mopey suburban smack addict struggling to get clean - a subject important enough to her to endure working for MTV.
"I don't even watch TV," she says. "But I appreciated the fact that they're trying to be socially conscious."
Now 23, Summer is the same age her brother River was when he suffered his high profile, drug-induced heart failure outside L.A.'s Viper Room in 1993. For obvious reasons, the subject still isn't easy for her to talk about (she was 14 at the time). But such questions come with her new territory; the cigarette in her slender hand trembles at the mention of his name.
"I mean, there's nothing that I feel I owe the world, any words that are going to wrap anything up for anybody," she whispers determinedly, grinding a tear into her cheek. "He was a beautiful man, a beautiful brother, and I respected him greatly and I miss him so much."
There's a silence, a hard swallow, and then a sliver of a smile burrows its way across her face. "The thing I'll always remember about him," she says, "was that no dream was too big."
In a family of big dreamers, Summer's still got a few plans for her pillow.
"I like to think of myself as the tortoise that wins the race," she says, craning her neck toward the sky. "I'm enduring, ya know?"
The Spring of Summer By Scott Lyle Cohen
Interview, February 2002
If you think you're seeing Summer Phoenix everywhere, it's because you are. Over the next two months, the 24-year-old younger sister of fellow actors Joaquin, Rain and the late River Phoenix, has four films set to debut. First up is Esther Kahn, wherein Phoenix plays the title role, a young 19-century Londoner who dreams of acting. Then it's back to the present with The Believer, Grand Jury Prize-winner at 2001 Sundance, in which she plays a neo-Nazi in love with a Jewish neo-Nazi in contemporary New York. The Laramie Project, an HBO film by theater director Moises Kaufman, which tackles the events surrounding Matthew Shepard's 1998 murder in Laramie, Wyoming, follows. Finally, MTV is to air Wasted, a drama centering on a heroin epidemic plaguing a small town. If there's a thread to be found throughout Phoenix's slate of work - other than its tight scheduling - it's that the films are gritty and relevant.
Scott Lyle Cohen : Your characters in Esther Kahn and The Believer, on the surface at least, seem to be paradoxical. Esther is a young Jewish woman, and Carla, from The Believer, is a neo-Nazi.
Summer Phoenix : Well, I didn't concentrate on the fact that Esther was Jewish, and I didn't concentrate on the fact that Carla was wrapped up in her mother's politics. I focused more on the fact that they were girls becoming women, trying to figure out their place in the world.
SLC : So they have quite a bit in common?
SP : They do and they don't. Carla's much smarter than Esther, who I somewhat ignorant. Carla's quite knowing, and she definitely knows how to play games. She's got a thirst for knowledge, but Esther has a thirst, too : to become an actress and express herself.
SLC : Do you find that being the youngest in a family of actors has been a hindrance or a benefit in building your career?
SP : I think I'm asked to probe myself even more because of my last name. Anybody who comes up in the industry after one of their siblings has already excelled will tell you that you're not going to get a free ride just because your brothers or sisters are good. I've worked long and hard, and I'm not going anywhere on anybody's coattails. I'm working hard for myself, to prove myself to myself, and not to anybody else. I care more about my self-recognition and the journey of self-love as opposed to outside recognition and the love of others, because that just comes and goes.
SLC : Do you have any plans to work with you family?
SP : Actually, my sister [Rain] did a song for the Wasted soundtrack that I contributed to, that I'm really excited about. She took something old I did on the piano, sampled it and wrote this incredible song.
SLC : Do you guys have a band?
SP : No, I play mostly by myself, but my brother plays a lot of music, too, and I'll play with him and my sister sometimes. It's familial.
SLC : So you play in somebody's house versus a public gig.
SP : Exactly. And sometimes we'll record [together]. But this is the first time the public will hear my music. Which is cool.
SLC : Very cool. Now, you also must have been pretty excited to have been cast in The Laramie Project, which feels like an Altman film, it's go so many great actors, Peter Fonda, Christina Ricci, Laura Finney, Steve Buscemi, Amy Madigan, Jeremy Davies, Camryn Manheim...
SP : Totally. And Moises Kaufman write a really great script. He cared so much about the subject. What I really like about the movie is that it doesn't only focus on Matthew and his death. It concentrates on how that death affected the people in the town, who rarely get a voice. I play a friend of the killer, and those people have even less of a voice [than most of the townspeople]. This terrible thing happened involving their friend, but not matter what, they're still friends. There's an automatic defense out of loyalty.
SLC : Was it a difficult audition process?
SP : Actually, it was the first thing I ever got that I didn't audition for. The first and last thing. [laughs] Someone got Moises a tape of The Believer and from there it was completely finagled through agents and managers.
SLC : Yeah, word is they actually get some work done at all those lunch meetings. You play teens, but we're never going to see you in a typical teen movie, are we?
SP : [laughs] I had a walk-on role in The Faculty [1998], but no, I don't think so. Not anymore. The truth is, the people making movies don't want to hire me just as much as I don't want to do those movies. Me and the teen movies, we've avoided each other, and it's been good for the both of us.