Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line."

HOLLYWOOD -- Joaquin Phoenix will gladly walk the walk, but he's often reluctant to talk the talk.

At the recent L.A. press junket for his Johnny Cash movie Walk the Line, Phoenix walked out early on two of his round table interviews with print journalists and walked right on by the room where radio reporters were waiting eagerly to interview him.

Even when he sat down for a full 25 minutes of questions, Phoenix, 30, was reluctant to address certain issues and flatly refused to deal with others.

In Walk the Line, Phoenix plays country legend Johnny Cash in the singer's early years.

This means Phoenix's Cash must deal with lingering guilt over the death of his older brother, his volcanic relationship with his father, a failed marriage, addictions to both drugs and alcohol and his initially unrequited love for June Carter.

The film ends when Carter helps Cash battle his dependency demons and finally agrees to marry him.

On Oct. 31, 1993, it was Joaquin who made the 911 distress call when his older brother River Phoenix succumbed to a drug overdose outside L.A.'s Viper Club.

There were rumours Joaquin had a breakdown on Walk the Line that ended in him banging his head against a bedpost because he was channelling his own memories into a scene when Cash recalls the death of his brother.

"I don't approach characters that way. It wouldn't have honoured Johnny's life to impose mine on the film. If actors have to draw this much on their own lives it shows a lack of ability, imagination or research," says Phoenix.

"I hate that the press has painted me as 'The Mourning Brother' just because I refuse to talk openly and often about that part of my life."

Phoenix doesn't deny he hurt his head one day on set but explains "that was during a scene when Johnny is detoxing from amphetamines. It was a very physical scene. I was thrashing about. I hit my head. It was that simple. It happens to actors all the time."

In April, six months after completing Walk the Line, Phoenix checked into an alcohol rehab centre.

"You want to know about that, check the Internet," is as far as Phoenix would go with such questions.

Britain's Time Out magazine has Phoenix quoted as saying "it was not playing Johnny that made me abuse alcohol but having to let him go."

Phoenix elaborated a little when he observed "every single movie I've done has affected my life in some way.

"For me, letting go of a character is difficult but so is getting into a character."

At first, Phoenix tried the same check-the-Internet approach when asked about the time he dined with Cash, but eventually relented.

"I'll give you a very short version of the story I've told so many times," said Phoenix, who met Cash six months before director James Mangold even approached Phoenix to do the role.

"It had absolutely nothing to do with the movie or my ever playing him.

"Johnny was a fan of Gladiator. He could even quote lines from the film. He invited me to have dinner with him.

"I thought there would be about 20 people. There were only six of us. I was so nervous, but John and June put me at ease immediately. They were so unpretentious and kind."

Phoenix recalls Cash "was a man of few words. After supper we went into another room and he picked up his guitar. I thought he assumed he had to sing for me, but that wasn't the case at all. Having a guitar in his hands was how he felt most comfortable.

"In retrospect that evening had such great value for the way I approached playing him."

When Mangold approached Cash about doing this bio-pic, the singer insisted on two things: "He wanted the actor to hold the guitar as rough as possible and that he do his own singing. Johnny said if people wanted to hear him sing they could buy his albums."

Phoenix does all his own vocals for Walk the Line.

In 2003, Cash and Carter died within four months of each other, sadly before Walk the Line was started.

Their son John Carter Cash met with Phoenix after seeing an early version of Walk the Line.

"He said the whole family loved the film and thanked me for honouring his dad. He gave me one of his dad's shirts. It's like a dress on me," says Phoenix, who stands 5-ft.-8 tall.

Cash was 6-ft.-2 tall.

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