LukesEnglishPodcast - 5. Joaquin Phoenix
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There is now a transcript for this episode, thanks to a listener called Krissy. Thanks Krissy! See below for the transcript. You can use it to read every word which you can hear in this podcast episode. There may be some errors in the script. If you find any, please give corrections by adding a comment under this episode. ;)

Joaquin Phoenix is a famous Hollywood A List actor. He appeared in Gladiator and Walk The Line (the Johnny Cash story). Recently he announced that he wants to quit acting to become a rapper. Also, his appearance has become very strange! He looks more like a homeless person than a Hollywood star. His decision has become a Hollywood mystery. Is it real, or is it a joke? No one really knows.

In this episode of the podcast, Luke talks about Joaquin Phoenix with his friend and colleague Howard. You can listen to the conversation – some of the vocabulary is defined below. The language section of the podcast is about making speculations with modal verbs. See below for more information. Also, below you will see some pictures of Joaquin Phoenix, and some YouTube videos – one of him announcing his retirement from acting, and one of him rapping (badly) and then falling off the stage! For more strange Joaquin Phoenix videos, have a look on YouTube. We can’t wait to find out if it is real, or if it is all a big joke. We really hope that it is a joke, because if it isn’t, he could be in real trouble…

Some vocabulary that Luke & Howard used in their conversation + definitions:

Howard: “He’s from a famous acting dynasty” – a dynasty means a large and powerful family
Howard: “He looks like a homeless, or a tramp or something” – ‘homeless’ and ‘tramp’ both mean someone who doesn’t have a home and has to live on the street. ‘homeless’ is also an adjective
Luke: “He’s making a fly-on-the-wall documentary” – a fly-on-the-wall documentary is a documentary film or programme which is filmed to look like the people in the film are not really aware of the cameras, so they act naturally and it is like the viewer is a ‘fly on the wall’ just watching what is happening. This is not a reality show like Big Brother. It’s a type of documentary.
Luke: “A comedy movie a bit like Borat” – Borat is a satirical comedy about a man called Borat, played by Sacha Baron Cohen
Luke: “The thing about rapping is that you have to have a flow” – a rapper’s ‘flow’ is his rhythmical style of rapping. E.g. Eminem has a fast flow. Joaquin Phoenix’s flow is slow, and elementary.
Howard: “He looks like a twat” – a twat is a slightly rude word which means ‘an idiot’
Luke: “He’s let himself go” – to ‘let yourself go’ means you stop looking after yourself and your appearance goes bad, e.g. you gain wait, your hair grows too long, etc.
Luke: “It sounds like he’s slurring his words” – to ‘slur’ your words means that you don’t pronounce your words properly, like when you are drunk.
Luke: “He’s famous for a method approach to acting” – a method approach is an acting style which involves the actor totally becoming the character he is performing. The actor lives as that character all the time, even at home. Famous method actors are Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. DeNiro famously put on a lot of weight to become Jake LaMotta in the film Raging Bull (an excellent film!)
Howard: “His family are very eccentric” – ‘eccentric’ means slightly crazy, odd, weird, bizarre, strange
Howard: “A lot of craziness” – craziness is the noun from ‘crazy’
Howard: “A lot of weird and wacky things happening” -wacky is another word for crazy, bizarre, weird, odd, etc
Luke: “I’m a bit sceptical” – ‘I’m sceptical’ means ‘I don’t really believe it is true’
Luke: “Someone in the crowd was heckling him” – to heckle someone means to shout criticisms from the crowd. Comedians are often heckled, by hecklers during stand-up comedy routines – e.g. “That’s not funny!!”
Luke: “It’s a piss take” – a ‘piss take’ is a joke. designed to fool everyone, to make fun of everyone.
Howard: “It sounds like he’s on the edge” – on the edge means ‘close to being crazy’ or ‘close to a nervous breakdown’
Luke: “I’m leaning towards ‘it’s all a joke'” – to be leaning towards something means that you are starting to take that opinion. You are favouring that opinion.
Howard: “I think it might be for real” – ‘for real’ means genuine, not fake.
Luke: “Finally, he’s cracked” – he’s ‘cracked’ means he’s ‘lost his mind’

Summary of Language Section – Modal Verbs:

Use might, must, could or can’t to speculate about things.

1. For present or future use modal + infinitive (without to)
e.g. He may have an emotional problem

or modal + be + -ing for the continuous form
e.g. He may be having emotional problems

2. For speculations about the past, use modal + have + past participle
e.g. He may have got tired of Hollywood

3. Use ‘must’ when you’re sure that something is true
e.g. It must be a joke! (or It has to be a joke!)

4. Use ‘may’ ‘might’ or ‘could’ when you’re less sure that something is true.
e.g. He might be serious, but I’m not sure to be honest.

5. Use ‘can’t’ when you’re sure that something isn’t true or didn’t happen.
e.g. He can’t be for real
e.g. He can’t have given up acting.

Transcript Here:

Episode 4 – Joaquin Phoenix



You are listening to Luke’s English podcast. For more information visit teacherLuke.wordpress.com.

Hello there and welcome to podcast number 4. This is Luke, of course. It’s Luke’s English podcast, right? So obviously it’s Luke.

What a surprise! I am just sitting here in my living room. It’s a Thursday evening. I’ve been just chilling out this evening, relaxing, watching DVDs and drinking tea. I have had about 4 cups of tea tonight. I love tea. I’m completely addicted to it. Love it. I don’t drink very much coffee, actually because I find if I drink too much coffee I can’t sleep at night. Sometimes I drink coffee in the morning but if I drink coffee in the afternoon, I can’t sleep at night. But tea is fine. I can drink as much tea as I like and I am totally okay. So I am a complete tea lover, addicted to the stuff.

Anyway, on this podcast first, in the first section I am going to talk about some of the comments that I have had from people who have contacted me recently in the feature.

In part 2 I am going to be talking to my friend and colleague Howard and we are going to be talking about a Hollywood actor whose name is Joaquin Phoenix. Now Joaquin Phoenix is a very popular, very famous Hollywood actor who recently has had quite a big career change which is quite mysterious and interesting and I am very interested in it at the moment, so I thought it might be interesting for you to hear us talking about it as well and I am also interested in your comments on the situation.

In part 3 we are going to be looking at modal verbs of speculation.

You know modal verbs, they are words like might and can and can’t and could and they are very useful verbs. Native speakers use them all the time. I don’t hear students of English using them enough and they are very useful for giving your opinion on something or for getting a situation or speculating about a situation and you can definitely use them to talk about the whole wagging Phoenix thing that I am going to be talking about with Howard in part 2.

So you have to wait until the language section in part 3 to hear about that.

Now, I’ve had a few comments about the podcasts. I have had some comments saying that the podcasts look very professional and sound very professional. So thanks very much for those positive comments. The picture that I use, the logo for the podcast was designed by my brother. He is a graphic designer and he used my computer to design that logo and the logo itself is based on a London street sign. So if you come to London and you look at the street signs, they look like that. They’ve got the same design and my particular logo is based on the street sign for – I think it’s Baker Street, yeah, it’s Baker Street. You can see in the top right hand corner of my logo there is a silhouette. A silhouette is a kind of black outline of somebody’s face, okay? So you can see that my silhouette in the top right hand corner and that’s there because on the Baker Street sign there is a silhouette of Shirlock Holmes. That’s because Sherlock Holmes in the Sherlock Holmes’ stories lived at 221B Baker Street. So Baker Street is famous for Sherlock Holmes. So if you see the Baker Street sign in London you can see that there is a Sherlock Holmes silhouette on it.

So okay, thanks for the episodes – no not episodes – thanks for the comments about my podcast episodes. Thanks for saying that they are very professional loo