Oh sure you may have some crazy stories, but it’s likely all of them pale in comparison to the legend that is documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog.
Sometimes he’s filming in distant and sometimes brutal environments. Sometimes he’s randomly popping up in films and TV series from “Jack Reacher” to “The Boondocks” to “The Mandalorian”. Sometimes though, he’s saving Oscar winners from car wrecks.
In a new interview with The New York Times, Herzog has finally shared his version of an old story – that he found Joaquin Phoenix in a smashed and flipped over car on the side in Los Angeles back in 2006.
Phoenix’s brakes failed on a road above Sunset Boulevard and disorientated in the wreckage, Phoenix said he heard a gentle tap on the passenger window with a German voice saying ‘just relax’ as Herzog then helped him from the vehicle.
Turns out though, Herzog may have helped the “Joker” star from accidentally self-immolating due to his smoking habit combining with the leaking petrol:
“Yes, although he was upside down in this car, squished between airbags that had deployed and wildly trying to light a cigarette. I knew he must not light his cigarette, because there was gasoline dripping and he would have perished in a fireball.
So I tried to be clearly commandeering to him and tell him not to. But I was worried that if you gave him a command, he would strike his lighter even harder. So I managed to snatch the cigarette lighter from his hand. Then it became completely clear that it was Joaquin. But I didn’t want to speak to him after. I saw he wanted to come over and thank me. I just drove off.”
The full interview is up at The New York Times with Herzog talking about being shot at, and his love of being ‘marginally involved’ in mainstream culture.
