JOAQUIN PHOENIX, one of the finest actors of his generation, has always marched to a different drummer.

But it still came as a bit of surprise to hear him tell us in a recent interview that he checks his e-mail only once a month. In this day and age, that’s a shocker to most people who virtually sleep with their BlackBerry. But this is probably why Joaquin has stayed refreshingly different from his colleagues.

The actor, who stars in the drama, “Reservation Road,” admitted in a talk at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York: “I’m pretty computer illiterate. I do e-mail but only occasionally, like once a month. But of course, the Internet is a great tool for research. I don’t know what actors did 15 years ago. I don’t know if I could go to a library and spend that much time researching. I’m very fortunate to be in this time as an actor because we have the Internet as a great research tool.”

Joaquin revealed that he’s “not a big reader” in general. “I read scripts and on whatever research I have to do,” he explained. “I have this problem — I suppose it’s why I’m an actor. When I start reading a book, I end up just going off on these fantasies where I take the character somewhere completely different. I have to go back three pages because I was inventing this other fantasy. I get stimulated by a book but reading doesn’t let me focus on staying with the book. I just start wanting to invent other things.”