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Joaquin Phoenix "returns" to acting in the first teaser trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's hotly-anticipated new film The Master, which also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Dern. Neither of those two stars are seen in the trailer, which features Phoenix being interrogated by a naval officer. It's been widely reported that Anderson's film is some sort of thinly-veiled biopic inspired by the life of creepy Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and one could speculate that this trailer is drawing from Hubbard's checkered career in the Navy.
But there is nothing else in the trailer to indicate that this film has anything to do with Scientology. Still, it's quite compelling, in no small part due to Jonny Greenwood's anxious score. The Radiohead star also did the music for Anderson's last film, There Will Be Blood, and this excellent NY Times profile highlights his work as a composer.
