Beau Is Afraid: Joaquin Phoenix warns fans to ‘not take mushrooms’ before watching the film

When Joker star Joaquin Phoenix issues a warning, you gotta take it seriously! In the news lately for his new outing Beau Is Afraid - a surrealist black tragicomedy horror film written and directed by Ari Aster - the actor has advised those planning on watching the movie to “not take mushrooms” before. 

In Beau Is Afraid, Joaquin plays the title character, Beau Wassermann, who although mild-mannered, suffers from paranoia. The plot follows him as he embarks on a surreal odyssey to get home to his mother and along the way confronts his greatest fears. The film also features Patti LuPone, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Kylie Rogers, Parker Posey, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Michael Gandolfini, Zoe Lister-Jones and Richard Kind, in supporting roles. 

While speaking in an interview with Fandango recently, Joaquin said, “I was told from someone in college that there was this college thread amongst friends, a challenge they were going to take mushrooms and go see this movie. And I just wanted to make a public service announcement and say, do not take mushrooms and go see this f**king movie. But if you do it, film yourself. But don’t do it!”

Also read: Joker: Folie à Deux first look: Joaquin Phoenix is back in the titular role, but in Arkham Asylum

Recalling the first time he watched Beau Is Afraid with an audience, the actor said, “I was definitely squirming in my seat. First of all, I’m just laughing about the entire movie. There’s a couple of sequences where I’m just squirming – I mean, stuff that [Ari] did with the sound design, it was really great. It’s such a rich world, and there’s so many details to see in it. It is a hundred percent a movie that you feel. There’s so many rich, complex themes in this film, but it’s such a visceral experience to watch it. Then you leave, and when that feeling subsides, you start thinking about it.”

Described as a “pitch-dark existential horror comedy about an emotional wreck on a painfully conflicted journey home”, Beau Is Afraid is releasing in India on April 28.