Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix (né Bottom; born October 28, 1974) is an American actor. Known for his roles as dark and unconventional characters in independent films, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Phoenix began his career in television series in the early 1980s with his brother River. His first major film roles were in SpaceCamp (1986) and Parenthood (1989). Initially credited as Leaf Phoenix, he later returned to his birth name in the early 1990s and earned acclaim for supporting roles in To Die For (1995) and Quills (2000).
He received further recognition and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for portraying Commodus in Gladiator (2000). He also starred in Signs (2002), The Village (2004), and Hotel Rwanda (2004), and won a Grammy, a Golden Globe, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for playing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (2005).
After a brief break, Phoenix starred in The Master (2012), winning the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and earning his third Academy Award nomination. He received praise for Her (2013) and Inherent Vice (2014), and won Best Actor at Cannes for You Were Never Really Here (2017).
For his role in Joker (2019), Phoenix won the Academy Award for Best Actor and reprised the role in the 2024 sequel. He later starred in C’mon C’mon (2021), Beau Is Afraid (2023), Eddington (2025), and played the title role in Napoleon (2023).
Outside acting, Phoenix is a vegan and an animal rights activist, supporting charitable causes and producing documentaries on global meat consumption and its environmental impact.
Early life
Phoenix was born at the Hospital Metropolitano San Francisco in the Río Piedras district of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to John Lee Bottom, the founder of a landscape gardening company, and Arlyn “Heart” Bottom, an executive secretary whose connection to an agent provided her children with acting work. Joaquin is the third of five children, following River and Rain, and preceding Liberty.
(born 1976) and Summer (born 1978), all of whom have been involved in acting. He also has a paternal half-sister, Jodean (born 1964). His father was a Catholic from Fontana, California, and was of English, German and French ancestry. His maternal grandfather, Meyer Dunetz, was Russian Jewish and his maternal grandmother, Margit Lefkowitz, was Hungarian Jewish; they were both Ashkenazi Jews who resided in New York City. Phoenix’s parents met when his mother was hitchhiking in California; they married less than a year after meeting.
Soon after their second child was born, they joined the religious cult Children of God and travelled throughout the Caribbean and South America as missionaries, where the next two children were born. They eventually became disillusioned with the group and left in 1977, being opposed to the cult’s increasingly questionable rules, particularly the practice of flirty fishing.
[16] The fifth child was born in Florida where the family settled; around this time they legally adopted the surname Phoenix, inspired by the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, symbolizing a new beginning.[1] When Joaquin was three, he and his older siblings witnessed fish being stunned as “they were throwing them against the side of the boat”, prompting the whole family to convert to a vegan lifestyle.
Career
In 1979, when Phoenix’s father had to stop working because of an old spinal injury, the family moved to Los Angeles where the mother met a high-profile child agent named Iris Burton, who got the children into commercials and bit parts on TV.Phoenix made his acting debut alongside his brother in the television series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in the 1982 episode “Christmas Song”. He has said of his first acting experience:
Instantaneous joy. The most enjoyable thing. For some kids, it’s the first time they crack a ball or score a goal. For me, it was this. I was eight years old, and I remember the first scene on the TV set so vividly. And I knew that I loved it – the physical sensation; how powerful it was. That’s the feeling I’ve been chasing ever since.
In 1984, Phoenix starred opposite his brother River in the ABC Afterschool Special entitled Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia, for which they shared a nomination for Best Young Actor in a Family Film Made for Television at the 6th Youth in Film Awards. He also made guest appearances in the Murder, She Wrote episode “We’re Off to Kill the Wizard”, and individual episodes of The Fall Guy and Hill Street Blues. A year later, he appeared in the television film Kids Don’t Tell.
To supplement their income, the kids sang their original songs like “Gonna Make It”, written by River, and busked for money in matching yellow shirts and shorts. They also studied dance; Phoenix became an avid breakdancer. He dropped out of high school when he was sent a dead frog in the mail to dissect for his biology studies. Dissatisfied with life in Los Angeles, the Phoenixes moved back to Florida, settling in Gainesville.
Phoenix made his feature film debut in the adventure film SpaceCamp (1986) as a young boy who goes to Kennedy Space Center to learn about the NASA space program and undergoes amateur astronaut training. He guest-starred in the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “A Very Happy Ending” that year, playing a child who blackmails a hitman into killing his father. Phoenix’s first starring role was in the film Russkies (1987), about a group of friends who unknowingly befriend a Russian soldier during the Cold War.
Other ventures
Phoenix has directed music videos for Ringside, She Wants Revenge, People in Planes,Arckid, Albert Hammond Jr.,and Silversun Pickups. He was said to have produced the opening track for Pusha T’s My Name Is My Name album alongside Kanye West. The track is called “King Push”. Phoenix then denied in a statement to XXL having produced the record, saying, “While it was widely reported that Pusha T used my beat and that I produced his song, I can’t take any credit. A friend’s son played me his music, and all I did was make an introduction to Kanye [West]’s camp.
During the 2019–20 awards season, amid protesting for animal rights, Phoenix had been driving a behind-the-scenes movement that transformed five events to meat-free menus, beginning with the Golden Globe Awards. He acknowledged the Hollywood Foreign Press Association during his acceptance speech, for its “very bold move making tonight plant-based. It really sends a powerful message.” Soon after, Critics’ Choice and SAG followed suit. Phoenix contacted the presidents of the award ceremonies, accompanied by signatures from the likes of fellow nominees Leonardo DiCaprio and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Phoenix’s pitch was that meat agriculture is a leading cause of climate change and that the televised spectacles should use their platforms to address pressing societal issues. The Academy Awards later announced that all food served at the Dolby Theatre before the Oscars was going to be vegan. Lisa Lange, Senior Vice President of Communications at PETA, spoke of Phoenix’s power saying “He knows what can be done. He knows he’s in a good position to push. He enlists friends. And it works. He can have influence in Hollywood and it influences the rest of the world.
Personal life
After reestablishing himself as an actor in the mid-1990s, Phoenix moved back to Los Angeles. He is known for his disdain of celebrity culture, rarely granting interviews, and being reticent about discussing his private life. In 2018, he described himself as a secular Jew who did not affiliate with any organized religion; one of his core values is the idea of forgiveness. He has also said that his mother believes in Jesus, though his parents were not religious. While portraying Jesus in the 2018 movie Mary Magdalene, he expressed that the role changed his perspective on the nature of forgiveness.
A longtime vegan, Phoenix finds animal agriculture “absurd and barbaric”. He explained his reasoning behind his veganism: “To me, it just seems obvious I don’t want to cause pain to another living empathetic creature. I don’t want to take its babies away from it, I don’t want to force it to be indoors and fattened up just to be slaughtered. Certainly, also, the effect that it has on our environment is devastating. So, for me, it’s my life and has always been my life, and it’s really one of the most important things to me.
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