A HOPEFUL AIR

THERE'S a lot of optimism in the "Walk the Line" camp as the film's opening approaches. It was originally scheduled to come out in the spring, but reaction has been so strong that it was pushed back to November in part to better position it for the holiday box office season and the Oscar race.

Though some early stories have noted the movie doesn't always avoid convention, the notices so far for the two stars have been mostly glowing.

On a recent morning, co-producer James Keach was in a Burbank editing room, showing home movies he took of the Cashes at their home outside Nashville. He feels Mangold's film is true to its subject.

"The one thing John said over and over was, 'Don't Hollywood-ize it,' " Keach says. "There are difficult moments in the film, but that was John's life. He was someone struggling to find the light, and he eventually did it."

Whatever the fate of the film, Phoenix doesn't plan to see it. He's rarely watched his movies.

"There's a part of me that is curious, but not really," he told me. "It doesn't really benefit me. I have the experience. I can see you wanting to see something you didn't experience, but I got the best of it. My experience blows away your experience in watching it."

And, he adds, he doesn't want to become self-conscious about his acting. "I don't want to imagine myself on the screen," he says deliberately. "The worst-case scenario is having people say, 'I look best on the left, shoot me from the left.' I don't want to think that way. I go out of my way to ignore those things…. I don't want to give in to that place. It's not that I'm above it; I fear that I'm susceptible to it."

Soon after wrapping up his work on the film, he took himself to Alcoholics Anonymous. It's tempting to think that he got too far into the role of Cash, who battled against drug addiction, but in fact, he says, the motivation to go to AA came from the reading he did in preparing for the part.

During his research, Phoenix says, he noted that the issue with alcohol isn't about the "quantity consumed, but about a behavior pattern and a way of thinking" — and he wanted to change that thinking.

Alcohol, he says, was "something I relied too much on, and I didn't want to…. I wasn't an everyday drinker. I wasn't crashing cars, getting arrested or beating up my girlfriend — all these cliché things usually perceived to lead to rehab. [AA] was more a way to learn more about myself."

It's been a year since he finished "Walk the Line," but you sense he's still going through acting withdrawal.

"When I go off to make a film, I always fall into … ," he pauses — " 'depression' is too dramatic a word. It's just a foreign state. I don't know how to function in that world yet.

"When I get on the set, I cut myself off from all the things that make me comfortable and define me … the material things, my clothes, my pictures, my computer, whatever it may be. I pretty much cut myself off from my family and friends and tell my agents not to call me.

"I'm leaving me behind so I can find the things that make the character comfortable, so there's a period of a couple of weeks before that takes shape and I feel lost. You get new clothes, new friends. Then when the film ends, you go through the same process in reverse.

"You've gotten to a point where you feel comfortable as a character and suddenly those things are taken away from you. The studio takes the clothes. Your friends go separate ways. You are suddenly dropped off back on your doorstep."

Phoenix, who has an apartment in New York and a house here, says the process of cutting himself off while making a movie makes it hard on relationships, and he's not involved in a serious one at the moment.

But the urge to act is beginning to nag. "I've just now started being mildly interested in working again," he says, standing up and tucking his motorcycle helmet under his arm. "Mildly interested."

Phoenix heads through the hotel lobby down the stairs to the garage. He's almost to his motorcycle when a woman calls his name.

She introduces herself and reminds him of some previous meeting, apparently long ago. He nods in recognition, but it's not very convincing.

After an awkward silence, she blurts out, "You're huge now!"

Phoenix smiles gamely and wishes her well, then turns to the motorcycle, which looks out of place in this den of trophy cars and limos. His whole body seems to relax as he slips a helmet over his head and reenters his private world.

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Contact Robert Hilburn, The Times' pop music critic, at calendar.letters@latimes.com.