A Hollywood Agent Talks Joaquin Phoenix, “Jon & Kate” and Three Nice Stars

The actor’s former agent says he’d bet on the whole thing being an elaborate ruse, but leaves open the possibility it’s for real.

Meanwhile, that agent (now manager) Chris Snyder says Phoenix is a natural and brilliant actor, but true to Phoenix’s reputation (and his own confessions to me and others), the actor has struggled with the very idea he is as talented as he is.

After Phoenix became a star in “Gladiator,” a story came out in a magazine that depicted the actor as hard to work with and running around the “Gladiator” set saying, “I suck.” After that, it was tough to get him into some movies.

“We couldn’t get him a job — with a huge blockbuster in the theater,” says Snyder, who has a well-reviewed new book out called “Hunting with Barracudas: My Life in Hollywood with the Legendary Iris Burton.”

Handling stars always requires agents to think like psychologists. It was no different with Phoenix.

“You had to be a mother and a father, and you had to make sure that you had the time to listen to him for many hours to reassure him about things,” Snyder says.

For the record, Snyder didn’t bring up Phoenix in our interview. I did. Since I ask, he recounts the story about how Phoenix lost the lead role in “Boogie Nights,” because he was counting on another movie at the time, “Inventing the Abbotts,” being “his version of ‘East of Eden.” And?

“He was afraid of the pornography aspects” of  “Boogie Nights,” which ended up intensifying the stardom of Mark Wahlberg, Snyder says.

Since Snyder has been around Hollywood for years, he’s weary of representing child stars. But at least, he says, California has tough child labor laws, while pointing out that the Pennsylvania Department of Labor is investigating the set there of the “reality’ show, “Jon & Kate Plus 8.”

“The whole kids-in-the-business thing — I think it really screws you up. It just does. Think about all the rejection. And for a little kid, it’s hard,” he says. “Very few kids make the transition” to adult acting. “You work from [ages] 4 to 18, then nobody wants you. … Your whole world is taken away.”

Also in his book, Snyder, a champion of independent films, bemoans the way the business has turned into a town of large conglomerates making only big films, while the inside business has been even more overrun with unscrupulous agents, managers and acting teachers.

Hollywood’s not all bad, of course. For starters, he says nice things about Liv Tyler (“A nicer person, there couldn’t be”), Jamie Lee Curtis (“So gracious”) and Jerry O’Connell (“incredible person, his parents are amazing”).