'Ladder 49' Star Fights Real Fires

Oct. 1, 2004 — -- Every major star has been burned once or twice, at least in a gossip column. But Joaquin Phoenix is the only fire-hardened celebrity who might show up at your door when your house is burning down.

Taking movie preparation to a new extreme, the 29-year-old, Oscar-nominated actor not only studied with real firefighters for Ladder 49, he graduated from the Baltimore Fire Academy and went on to serve for a month with West Baltimore's Truck 10, responding to real alarms, fires and rescues.

Whether or not it's a hit at the box office when it opens today, Ladder 49 will always be remembered as the first major feature film about firefighters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — and Phoenix says that inspired everyone to work just a little bit harder.

"We always felt a sense of responsibility," he said. "I really wanted firefighters to be satisfied with this film … and that takes precedent over whether the film is financially successful."

While that statement taken on its own might sound like typical Hollywood blather from a contractually obligated star, Phoenix can back that up with a training regimen that involved getting up close and personal with 1,000-degree blasts of heat.

At a Baltimore "Fire Camp," Phoenix was joined by co-stars John Travolta, Morris Chestnut and Robert Patrick and director Jay Russell, who wanted to use real fire — rather than computer-generated special effects — as much as possible.

In the most daunting drill, known as "The Maze," trainees strapped on 100 pounds of gear and ran through a pitch-black, smoke-filled, debris-packed room, often crawling through burning wreckage to find a way to safety.

"You never learn to overcome the fear of fire, you learn to control it. That's what the training is about," Phoenix said.

"Firefighters will say, 'If you're not scared, get out of the job.' You have to have a level of fear, a level of respect for the fire, if you have any hope of doing the job."

In the film, Phoenix's firefighter character is trapped in a burning building as his company, led by Travolta, tries to rescue him. The movie plays out in flashbacks as Phoenix's character goes from fresh-faced rookie, to hardened, self-tortured hero.

It was quite a change for Phoenix, who is hardly attracted to heroic roles. He's best known as the underhanded emperor who tangles with Russell Crowe in Gladiator, and he'll be next seen as country music legend Johnny Cash in Walk the Line.

"I wish you could have seen Jay's face when I went to the first firehouse and I couldn't go down the pole," Phoenix says. "It was like, 'Who did I cast and what are we going to do?' "

Ladder 49 proved to be a true baptism by fire — a five-alarm fire. In fact, the filming of the climactic fire, in a big Baltimore warehouse, caused something of a panic in the city.

Good Samaritans kept calling the fire department, jamming up emergency lines, causing officials to call radio stations to let the public know that a movie was being filmed.

Given America's newfound respect for firefighters, the filmmakers had to struggle to keep the project from being a thank-you note for the sacrifices of Sept. 11, and the script evolved during production progressed.

"We realized you don't have to have all those scenes of me coming out of a burning house in slo-mo with sweat coming off me," Phoenix said. "We had scenes with these long embraces when I looked at my kids and held them close and hugged them."

Real firefighters often don't have enough time to savor family moments, he said.

"After going down and spending time with the guys [at the firehouses], you realize they can't do that every day, they don't have time," he said. "It becomes like any other job. It's always in the back of your head but you can't say it."

One thing Phoenix learned in Fire Camp: Hard as it might be to fight fires, it's just as hard to be married to a firefighter.

"They [spouses] call the firehouse during the day and nobody's there and they know they're out on a call, and all they are left with is their imaginations," he said. "They have to be brave."

And for that sort of bravery, there is no training.