Walk the Line, Joaquin Phoenix
Image credit: Suzanne Tenner
Walk the Line, Joaquin Phoenix

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Walk the Line

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Witherspoon at least had a slight musical leg up on her costar: While Phoenix knew little about Cash prior to getting the script, she'd played Mother Maybelle Carter in her fourth-grade play and, as an ex-Nashvillian, knew her country music. Then again, she had some trauma to overcome. ''My only other singing experience was in summer camp. They told me how awful I was, and that I should never try to sing but just be an actor. I'd really taken that to heart,'' she says. ''Jim said, 'Just try, and we'll see where it goes from there.' And I'm such a sucker for 'just give it a try,' because I'm a mom. I make my kids try everything.''

Rehearsing to the point that the musicianship felt second nature was key, because nearly all the stage scenes are also pivotal dramatic sequences, ripe with telling looks. Says Mangold, ''I wanted viewers to feel what it was like to be on stage, as opposed to out in the audience. For the 10 years that these two really couldn't be together'' — because one or both were married to others at the time, and then because of his addictions — ''the only place they were together was in front of thousands of people. Being a stage duo gave them permission to have their greatest intimacy there. People imagined they were a real couple for a long time before they were.''

(This is an online-only excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's Nov. 25, 2005, cover story.)

Originally posted Nov 15, 2005 Published in issue #851 Nov 25, 2005 Order article reprints
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