Don’t “Take Mushrooms” Before Beau Is Afraid

If you were planning to take mushrooms before heading to the theater for Midsommar director Ari Aster’s new movie Beau Is Afraid, lead actor Joaquin Phoenix has shared a “public service announcement” advising you against it.

Phoenix shared the warning in a recent interview with Fandango, saying, “I was told from someone in college that there was this college thread amongst friends, a challenge they were going to take mushrooms and go see this movie. And I just wanted to make a public service announcement and say, do not take mushrooms and go see this fucking movie.”

The actor jokingly added, “But if you do it, film yourself. But don’t do it!”

Elsewhere in the interview, Phoenix recommended checking out Beau Is Afraid in IMAX and remembered his first experience of watching the film as a member of an audience. “If you can, [IMAX is] the way to fucking see it!” he said. “I was definitely squirming in my seat. First of all, I’m just laughing about the entire fucking movie. There’s a couple of sequences where I’m just squirming — I mean, stuff that [Ari] did with the sound design, it was really great.”

He continued, “It’s such a rich world, and there’s so many details to see in it. It is a hundred percent a movie that you feel. There’s so many rich, complex themes in this film, but it’s such a visceral experience to watch it. Then you leave, and when that feeling subsides, you start thinking about it.”

Beau Is Afraid revolves around Phoenix’s character of Beau Wassermann, who’s described in the official logline as “a paranoid man embarks on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother.” Written and directed by Aster, it also stars Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Parker Posey, Patti LuPone, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Kylie Rogers, Michael Gandolfini, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Richard Kind.

In our review of Beau Is Afraid, Senior Staff Writer Clint Worthington writes about the movie going “into Charlie Kaufman territory.” Worthington also describes a segment of the film as “a watercolored fantasia” with “bright pops of color and sweeping animation.” This portion sounds trippy enough without psychedelics, but it’s understandable why fans might be tempted to enhance their experience — just don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Up next, Phoenix will play two larger-than-life figures. His portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon hits theaters this November, and he’ll don the Joker facepaint once again in Joker: Folie à Deux, currently slated for October 2024.