If you’re looking for a cause for Joaquin Phoenix’s erratic behaviour – other than Joaquin Phoenix’s innate dickery – then you could be in luck.

That’s because James Gray – the director of Joaquin Phoenix’s new film – says that he feels responsible for Joaquin Phoenix quitting acting, growing a beard like a French lady’s armpit, becoming a rapper and having a completely cuckoo loopy meltdown.

We’re still not convinced that Joaquin Phoenix isn’t hoaxing everyone, but James Gray makes a convincing point – if you spent six months staring at Gwyneth Paltrow’s bare breasts, you’d be lucky to escape with all your marbles, too.

Now that his shambling, paranoid appearance on David Letterman has taken his madness mainstream, the mystery over Joaquin Phoenix’s apparent full-on shitbat wagglespaz has dominated just about everything we’ve seen, read or heard over the last 24 hours.

Has Joaquin Phoenix really quit acting to become a professional rapper with limited motor skills, or is it all just a Borat-style hoax on the world? Nobody knows for sure, but it’s obviously a hoax. There were enough chinks in the Letterman interview to suggest that Joaquin knew exactly what he was up to – plus we’ve yet to see Joaquin Phoenix get out of a car in a short skirt without any knickers on which, as Britney Spears proved, tends to be the first sign of genuine crazy.

But let’s play along for a while anyway. James Gray, the director of Joaquin Phoenix’s latest – and apparently last – movie Two Lovers seems completely certain that Joaquin isn’t playing a prank on anyone at all. What’s more, as ABC News reports, he blames himself for breaking Phoenix’s mind:

“If it is an act, it’s the most committed act I’ve ever seen in my life… Toward the end of the shoot, he kept saying ‘Oh I’m so tired, I’m so tired.’ You hear that kind of thing and you think it’s a joke,” he said. “I just ignored it… I feel like I’ve ruined Joaquin Phoenix for the world. I don’t want to be the guy that destroyed Joaquin Phoenix’s acting career.”

Oh James Gray, don’t be so hard on yourself. You haven’t destroyed Joaquin Phoenix’s acting career – starring in two consecutive M Night Shyamalan movies within the space of two years destroyed Joaquin Phoenix’s acting career.

Some have speculated that James Gray would be furious at Joaquin Phoenix for behaving so confusingly when he should be doing his best to sell Two Lovers to the public, but he’s actually not. In fact, it seems like James Gray is more concerned for Joaquin’s wellbeing than anything.

That’s unless he’s in on the scam as well. And he’s got the perfect reason to be, too – not only has he directed two movies with Joaquin Phoenix now, but he knows the power of marketing. After all, if it wasn’t for Joaquin Phoenix acting like a bearded lunatic who directionlessly rambles his way through interviews, Two Lovers would be primarily known for being the film where Gwyneth Paltrow gets her manky baps out. And people generally prefer to leave cinemas with their eyesight intact, don’t they.

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