When movie actors declare they're quitting movies.

From what I've been reading, Casey Affleck and allegedly-retiring-from-acting Joaquin Phoenix are filming a Sacha Baron Cohen/Andy Kaufman put-on documentary that includes, among other things, Phoenix' less-than-acclaimed Las Vegas debut as a hip-hop artist. And apparently towards that end, Phoenix appeared on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN last night to plug his allegedly-final film TWO LOVERS: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/02/why_did_he_come.php

The appearance (or at least the clips I watched on THE VIEW this morning) contained a giant dollop of bored, monotonal "I hate doing talk shows" attitude a la Kristen Stewart's drop-by on LETTERMAN to plug TWILIGHT (which can be found here at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVjoXMJ7j3E).

And, since the media attention span is quite small, no one recalls Phoenix's discomfort on THE TONIGHT SHOW in 2000 around the release of GLADIATOR--and the peevish response from Jay Leno. No documentary film crew on the set then.

About a decade ago, Liam Neeson (suffering burnout from doing back-to-back escapist, CGI-dependent fare such as STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE and the now semi-forgotten remake of THE HAUNTING) made similar threats to retire from film acting.

Thankfully, Neeson changed his mind (and may be on the verge of giving a potential career-highpoint performance as Abraham Lincoln for Steven Spielberg). And maybe Phoenix, after a year or two away from the inanities of mainstream show business, will consider doing the same.