No Shock! Joaquin Phoenix's Documentary “I'm Still Here” Wasn't Real

Apparently the crazy beard was real, but that's about it.

Casey Affleck has come clean to the surprise of absolutely no one and pointed out that his Joaquin Phoenix documentary "I'm Still Here," including the infamous appearance on David Letterman's talk show, was all fake.

"It's a terrific performance, it's the performance of his career," Affleck told the New York Times.

Can you imagine two years of pretending to be a bearded, drug-addled, rap-star wannabe for the sake of "gonzo filmmaking" (Affleck's words), and then to have the film entirely panned by critics? And to have the rest of the film-going pubic just yawn. That would suck.

But that's the case as "I'm Still Here" was released this weekend to horrendous reviews including from titan Robert Ebert who wrote that the film was "a sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin."

The New York Daily News gave it no stars and called it "pointless."

Maybe the movie just plain old stunk like Phoenix's beard. Perhaps people were upset that Affleck and Phoenix seemed to be duping the world for so long with the crazy-man act.

"I never intended to trick anybody," Affleck told the Times. "The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind."

The bright side? Perhaps Phoenix can get back to being a great actor last seen as Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line" now that this social experiment/art project gone very wrong/middle finger to celebrity has finally ended

And it will make for a killer episode of David Letterman, now that Phoenix, presumably normal, will sit on the couch on Wednesday. But probably not worth two years of acting like an idiot.

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