Joaquin Phoenix Quotes

My anxiety level of my own work and what I'm doing and focusing on my art and all of that stuff? That's fundamental.

Auditioning for 'Philomena' was such a traumatic experience because I had three callbacks, and I was absolutely positive that I was just an option.

Pressure is something you feel when you don't know what you're doing.

It's the weight of expectation that's the hardest to deal with, really, from my point of view.

I'm afraid that I won't do a good job when I go into an audition.

For the first six or eight months at Juilliard I felt paralysed. I didn't know what I was doing.

I'm going to do my best to do both and die of an ulcer at age 30.

It's hard to tell yourself to get ready when it's like, 'I need to make this freaking team first.'

The questions that loom can be intimidating. 'What kind of moves is she gonna make? What is she gonna do?' There is this pressure that you're supposed to keep impressing.

I just don't want to fail, to be honest.

I wanted to prove myself on the pitch, but I didn't have many chances, so it put a lot more pressure on every single game that I played. I found myself in situations where I was so keen to show my qualities, but many times it worked against me and I was punished for being too eager.

It stresses me out if I mess up.

Ninety percent of the time when I'm working, there's this very palpable sensation that I'm doing everything wrong and should just give up.

I couldn't stand the thought of not succeeding; failure was more than I could deal with.

The thing is, I really like working. If I sit around too much, I get really bad anxiety.

I wish I could just relax sometimes and make some money, but I always feel like I have to prove some kind of big, profound point.

I am certainly suffering from a modicum of performance anxiety.

I can't go to sleep at night if I didn't accomplish at least something. That's the one thing that keeps me up.

A few years ago my goal was to try and get the goddamned album made, which put me in a real bad frame of mind.

I was very afraid that I wouldn't be able to do this job well. And the time never came back.

My biggest enemy for the longest time was my head. When I first became successful, it made me anxious because I was overthinking everything, and you hear so many 'fail' stories.

As a younger player, you always kind of play with that fear of failure.

I'm always thinking 'Don't mess this up.'

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

There are lots of things that keep me awake at night, but work isn't one of them. I mean, no-one's going to die if someone doesn't like what I do. So I don't feel a great pressure.