How Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby kept it spicy on the ‘Napoleon’ set
nypost.comcharting a swift and brutal rise to power. The narrative focuses on Napoleon Bonaparte’s hot-and-cold relationship with his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais (Kirby), and the fallout from the couple’s tortuous divorce.
In one particularly heated scene, Phoenix even delivers Kirby an unscripted slap.Speaking to Empire magazine, the stars claimed that the ability to shock one another was the secret to their success.“We were using the real words from their divorce in the church,” Kirby, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in “Pieces of a Woman,” said. “When that happens, you can faithfully go through an archival re-enactment of it and read out the lines and then go home.
But we always wanted to surprise each other.”It isn’t hard to imagine that a dense period drama like “Napoleon” might collapse under its own weight — or collapse under the weight of Bonaparte’s hat — so the actors sought ways to inject some life into their scenes.
That meant trusting each other to make creative decisions that might verge on violent.Kirby explained, “It’s the greatest thing when you have a creative partner and you say, ‘Right, everything’s safe.
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