Pedro Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix on Eddington, politics and doomscrolling

Halfway into our interview, Joaquin Phoenix grabs his iPhone to photograph me and Pedro Pascal. The reason, he explains, is the unusual way I handwrite my questions. Even Phoenix, an old-school Hollywood actor without social media, can’t keep away from his devices.

Fittingly, in Ari Aster’s political comedy Eddington, everyone seems to have a mobile phone addiction. Teens walk around with an eye on TikTok, adults gravitate towards Facebook. In the fictional town of Eddington, the sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), fears that his wife, Louise (Emma Stone), is being lulled into a cult through online videos uploaded by a charismatic influencer, Vernon (Austin Butler). It’s May 2020 and the murder of George Floyd is prompting Black Lives Matter protests in the streets, all of it live-streamed. Joe, an anti-masker, uses the internet to battle those activists. That’s right, Aster has made a film that’s somehow even more provocative than Beau Is Afraid.

While Aster’s politics presumably skew left, Eddington is savage towards everyone, regardless of their stance on masks, equality and race. One protester, Brian (Cameron Mann), is openly passionate about BLM in a bid to impress his crush, Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle); their concerns about white guilt are comically over-the-top and often announced through a microphone. Meanwhile, the town’s only Black resident is Michael (played by Micheal Ward, who was charged with rape after this interview took place, allegations he vehemently denies). He is a cop whose immediate response is that the activists are inconveniently blocking the road.

Eddington, then, is Aster recreating the specific anxiety inflicted by doomscrolling, but through IRL humans. Lensed by Darius Khondji, Aster’s fourth feature – the first draft was written pre-Covid and pre-Hereditary – is also arguably a western, just with cars, not horses. Instead of drunks being kicked out of saloons, a Covid-sceptic is ejected from a supermarket due to not wearing a mask. Joe, who always wears a 10-gallon hat, is in a macho power struggle with the town’s mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). However, the social distancing forces the duo to stand six feet apart like it’s a Mexican standoff. When you expect them to draw pistols, they check their phones.

Reuniting with Aster after Beau Is Afraid, Phoenix depicts a different kind of frantic, paranoid loser: Joe is a gun-toting Facebooker who’s motivated by petty revenge and feelings of emasculation. Ted, his political rival, is a crooked politician who’s sneaking an AI data centre into Eddington. In short: everyone in this film is awful, and you get to spend two and a half hours with them.

In London’s Corinthia Hotel in late June, I sat down with Phoenix and Pascal to discuss Eddington, if celebrities doomscroll in bed, and if they have a moral obligation to publicise their beliefs on subjects like trans rights and Palestine.

Does Eddington feel like a cowboy film to you? It’s quite different from Strange Way of Life and The Sisters Brothers, the two westerns you’ve both done separately.

Pedro Pascal: Do you know how badly I wanted to be in The Sisters Brothers?

Joaquin Phoenix: Oh, really?

Pedro Pascal: I wrote letters and stuff. I read the book.

Did you try out for Joaquin’s role?

Pedro Pascal: No. I wanted to be his brother.

Joaquin Phoenix: We can talk about that later [laughs]. I’m the worst. I don’t know anything about movie genres at all.

Pedro Pascal: This one seems like a political satire western, but only partly. Because we’re in a dusty, small town, that’s what makes it a western? It’s something I’m surprised I never really asked Ari about.

Joaquin Phoenix: I remember talking about this with Jacques [Audiard, the director of The Sisters Brothers]. I was like, ‘I hate westerns. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one.’

Pedro Pascal: If you asked me for a western, for me it’s Silverado.

Joaquin Phoenix: The impression I have is that there’s always this idea of defending and protecting your land, whether it’s your land or the land. The land represents your ideal. That ideal comes at what cost? Both these characters are saying, ‘I’m shaping this land – my land – in this way. My vision for this land is the right vision. And I will defend this.’

Ari very smartly said to me – so it’s not my line – but he’s replacing guns with phones. For our first confrontation, I literally come out, and I go, ‘I’m recording this.’ It’s like in westerns when they do that walk. [Phoenix gets up and poses with an imaginary gun]. It ramps up the conflict, and takes it out of the politics of the situation. It adds fuel to this political satire.

I’m doomscrolling like a fucking madman. It’s worse than ever before – Pedro Pascal

That’s interesting, because people tend to think of westerns as this dated genre, but Eddington references Covid, George Floyd and AI. Did it feel bold or risky to do a film referencing real-life events and concerns?

Pedro Pascal: It feels very bold. I don’t mean to say ‘dangerous’ in its making, but it felt dangerous to acknowledge the psychology that is continuing to inhabit us from such a collective experience that we were all under, if that makes sense? It doesn’t really, by the expression on your face.

I was just wondering what’s going on. [At this point, Phoenix has taken his phone out, stepped out to get a wide shot, and is taking a photo of me, Pascal, and the table with my notebook.]

Joaquin Phoenix: Can I get a picture? I just wanted to take a picture of that. Is that OK? I love that you did that. [he taps the detailed notes in my notebook]

Yes, of course.

Pedro Pascal: We all had different experiences of the pandemic. I spent a lot of that summer very isolated with my gadget. Eddington is, with a very unnerving accuracy, putting a real lens on so many roles that people stepped into, myself included. I don’t think Aster’s intention is to poke a bear, but we’re all still so fragile from that summer.

Joaquin Phoenix: The least we could do is make a really entertaining, fun exploration of how we all were behaving. It’s a little embarrassing at times, the shit that people do, that you go, ‘Yeah, I did a version of that.’ And you’re like, ‘Yeah, you should have to acknowledge that, and you should also be able to forgive yourself.’

You were both doomscrolling on your phone in bed during the pandemic?

Pedro Pascal: Hell, yeah. Still! I’m back to it.

Joaquin Phoenix: I don’t do that.

Pedro Pascal: I’m doomscrolling like a fucking madman. It’s worse than ever before.

But Joaquin, you’re the only one who’s taken their phone out in the last few minutes.

Joaquin Phoenix: Oh, yeah, totally [laughs]. It’s funny, because with my kid, I’m trying to differentiate, and go, ‘It’s artistic, what you can do with a camera. It’s a tool to communicate with your mom. But that’s it.’ And you realise: oh, this thing does 50 different things, and how do you differentiate it for a child, to go like, ‘Well, some of the things are not good’?

Pedro Pascal: It has all the information right in your pocket. It has where your ex is. Anyone who’s ever hurt you – what vacation they’re on.

It’s probably more stressful to doomscroll if you’re famous, because then you might come across a story about yourself.

Pedro Pascal: Yeah.

Joaquin Phoenix: That’s never happened.

I’m trying to get my head around what the film is saying about the internet. It suggests it’d be better if all these people didn’t waste so much time online and posting on social media. But, at the same time, it seems better that they know about, for example, George Floyd and what’s going on in the world outside of Eddington.

Pedro Pascal: It’s so complex. I have such a complicated relationship with my social media because so much of it is pacifying a feeling of helpless impotence against things that I feel angry about. On social media, I have this simple way of taking a position. But where do you find truly effective ways of making a contribution in the direction of something that you believe in? That is the big trigger for me in this movie. You can take a stand. You can be indoctrinated in any direction. But what’s not happening is human engagement and human interaction. It’s just curating your own reality, really, with the gadget.

Joaquin Phoenix: Yeah. Our fear, isolation and outrage are the things that are manipulated and magnified. The calming effect that comes from interaction in a community, and being rational, is fragmented. It goes out the window.

In some ways, yeah, you’re being informed about world events, but you’re also being triggered in such a way that your reaction [puts you in] ‘fight or flight’ mode. You get dumb, because there’s no need for your brain to really use logic or rationale in that state.

And so we have these [extreme] reactions. It’s because we’re fucking terrified, right? Everyone was going through a real crisis in the pandemic. A real existential crisis. And it was manipulated by the tech giants. And that is obviously a recipe for disaster. And the solution? Pedro’s come up with something. And he’s going to unveil it.

Pedro Pascal: Not this weekend.

Joaquin Phoenix: But in the coming days [laughs].

Pedro Pascal: The next election cycle [laughs].

It’s vital and it’s important that if you have an opportunity that you speak up and you share your voice. There have been many times when I’ve been scared to talk about certain issues that I really look back on, that I regret – Joaquin Phoenix

I was wondering if doing the film has made you reconsider how you use your voice as public figures? It’s very meaningful that, Pedro, you’re one of the few public figures to speak out against JK Rowling in terms of trans rights. And Joaquin, when you won an Oscar, you did a speech about animal rights; you’re doing a documentary about biodiversity; and you signed an open letter in the New York Times supporting Palestine [titled “Jewish People Say No to Ethnic Cleansing”]. Is it better to use your voice thoughtfully when lots of people will post online thoughtlessly?

Pedro Pascal: That’s an interesting question because I think that there’s really apt criticism in the movie of – what’s the right word? – posturing your identity politically, and then I think that what you’ve touched upon in regards to the two of us as individuals, it’s very, from both ends, personal passions of ours that I, in an uncalculated way, can’t be quiet about.

I don’t know what else to say beyond that. It’s very important that, especially with young readers, they feel seen, that they feel heard, that they have the space to continue progressing and growing into a world that creates opportunities and protections for them. I mean, it’s such a simple fucking thing.

Joaquin Phoenix: All of these things are interconnected. That was beautifully said. It’s vital and it’s important that if you have an opportunity that you speak up and you share your voice. It’s absolutely vital. There have been many times when I’ve been scared to talk about certain issues that I really look back on, that I regret.

It’s an awkward position when you’re selling a movie. You go from one interview to the next. It sometimes feels fucking weird to touch on certain subjects that you know are so important. You’re like: this deserves its own time and space to talk about this, in the midst of doing Good Morning Britain. That’s always the thing you’re navigating.

Eddington is out in UK cinemas on August 22