PARIS – Joaquin Phoenix said he was surprised to discover a version of Napoleon who was more like a soppy “teenager in love” than an all-conquering commander as he researched his epic new role.
Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon“, which hits cinemas worldwide next week, features massive-scale battles across Europe.
But it is also a portrait of Napoleon’s complex relationship with his wife Josephine, played by Vanessa Kirby, which has been preserved in the general’s often tragically pleading letters.
“He was very socially awkward. I think of him as a romantic with a mathematician’s brain,” Phoenix told AFP in Paris.
“He wanted to be heartfelt but in his letters… he seems like a teenager in love, almost plagiarising poetry.
“There’s something almost endearing about it — if he wasn’t also responsible for the deaths of millions of people,” Phoenix added.
“I imagined that he was…
