Danny Ramirez: Joaquin Phoenix’s Exit from Todd Haynes Film Was ‘Definitely Disappointing’

Danny Ramirez is ready to talk about the “disappointing” experience of having Joaquin Phoenix abruptly exit a film the two were set to co-star in.

Ramirez landed the co-lead role in Todd Haynes‘ now-shelved queer romance after what Ramirez called an “extensive” audition process. And then the whole project fell apart just five days before production was supposed to begin.

It was Phoenix who brought the idea to Haynes and developed the (probably) NC-17-rated script with screenwriter Jon Raymond. IndieWire was the first to report the news that Phoenix dropped out of the film.

“It’s definitely disappointing,” Ramirez told Variety at the Academy Museum Gala. “If anything, it just gave me more inspiration to keep driving, keep pushing, and knowing that I’m on the right path and approaching the work the right way. So that’s what I’m excited about.”

Ramirez added that it is “definitely a very complicated situation” about where the production can go now.

“The most recent update is ‘hopefully,’” Ramirez said about the feature still getting made sans Phoenix. If there’s a silver lining here, at least Ramirez now knows he can hold his own alongside an Oscar winner like Phoenix.

“The audition process was extensive,” Ramirez recalled, “and so what I walked away with that was just the artistic validation of throwing down opposite of [Phoenix] in this chemistry read…There was a moment that I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve arrived as a performer.'”

Ramirez and Phoenix was supposed to play two men in the 1930s who begin a romantic relationship and leave Los Angeles for Mexico. Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, a producer on the film, said it is “tragic” that the project is now on pause.

“Todd Haynes is 62. He’s not old but there’s a finite number of films that he will be able to do in his lifetime,” Vachon said. “I consider him one of the most extraordinary film artists of his generation. The idea that his time was wasted and that a movie is not a result of those years of working closely with Joaquin, that is the tragedy to me and that I can’t get over. We, as a cultural community, lost an opportunity to have another movie by Todd Haynes. That is just criminal.”