Joaquin Phoenix

• 1. Introduction

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  Joaquin Phoenix had just flipped his car on a winding canyon road in Hollywood when a voice at the window told him to relax. It was the 26th of January 2006. Gasoline was leaking into the cabin. A shaken Phoenix answered, "I'm fine. I am relaxed." The voice replied, "No, you're not."

  The stranger stopped him from lighting a cigarette. Then he broke the back window to help him out of the wreckage. Only afterward did Phoenix realize the man was the German filmmaker Werner Herzog. The crash was reportedly caused by brake failure, and Phoenix later sought Herzog out to thank him.

  Phoenix is an American actor, born in 1974, who built his reputation on dark, unconventional and eccentric characters in independent film. What kind of childhood produces an actor who can play damaged men so convincingly? Why did the world once decide he was falling apart in public? And how did a man who avoids the spotlight become such a determined campaigner?

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• 2. Children of God

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  Joaquin Rafael Bottom was born on the 28th of October 1974 at the Hospital Metropolitano San Francisco, in the Río Piedras district of San Juan, Puerto Rico. His father, John Lee Bottom, founded a landscape gardening company. His mother, Arlyn, who went by "Heart," worked as an executive secretary at NBC. Her link to an agent would later bring her children acting work.

  Joaquin was the middle child of five. River, born in 1970, and Rain, born in 1972, came before him. Liberty, born in 1976, and Summer, born in 1978, came after. He also had a paternal half-sister, Jodean, born in 1964.

  John Lee Bottom was a Catholic from Fontana, California, with English, German and French ancestry. Arlyn's parents, Meyer Dunetz and Margit Lefkowitz, were Ashkenazi Jews, Russian and Hungarian respectively, living in New York City. John and Arlyn met when she was hitchhiking in California, and they married less than a year later.

  After their second child was born, the couple joined a religious cult called Children of God. They traveled as missionaries through the Caribbean and South America, and the next two children were born along the way. Growing disillusioned with the group's increasingly questionable rules, especially the practice of flirty fishing, they left in 1977. The fifth child was born in Florida, where the family settled. Around then they legally took the surname Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, a symbol of a new beginning.

  In 1979, an old spinal injury forced Phoenix's father to stop working, and the family moved to Los Angeles. There Arlyn met a high-profile child agent named Iris Burton. Burton got the children into commercials and bit parts on television.

  River wrote a song called "Gonna Make It," and the children sang it for money, dressed in matching yellow shirts and shorts. They also studied dance, and Joaquin became an avid breakdancer. A dead frog, mailed to him for a biology dissection, ended his time in high school. He dropped out, and the cameras Burton had opened up to him were waiting.

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• 3. Leaf and River

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  Joaquin was eight years old when he made his acting debut, on the set of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in the 1982 episode "Christmas Song." His brother River was beside him. Phoenix called the experience "Instantaneous joy," and said of it, "That's the feeling I've been chasing ever since."

  In 1984, the brothers starred together in the ABC Afterschool Special Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia. They shared a nomination for Best Young Actor in a Family Film Made for Television at the 6th Youth in Film Awards. Joaquin also guest-starred in Murder, She Wrote, The Fall Guy and Hill Street Blues, and appeared in the television film Kids Don't Tell a year later. Unhappy in Los Angeles, the family moved back to Florida and settled in Gainesville.

  His feature film debut came in SpaceCamp (1986), where he played a boy training as an amateur astronaut at Kennedy Space Center. That year he also appeared in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "A Very Happy Ending," as a child who blackmails a hitman into killing his father. His first starring role was Russkies (1987), about friends who unknowingly befriend a Russian soldier during the Cold War. Through this period he was credited as Leaf Phoenix, a name he had chosen himself.

  In Ron Howard's Parenthood (1989), he played Garry, the withdrawn teenage nephew of Steve Martin's character. Reviewers at IndieWire called him a "terrifically believable angsty adolescent," and he earned a Young Artist Award nomination. When the film became a television series, Leonardo DiCaprio took the role and studied Phoenix's performance "to get it right."

  Phoenix then felt that no appealing offers were coming. He stepped away from acting and traveled to Mexico with his father, where he learned Spanish. Back in the United States, River suggested he go by Joaquin again and encouraged him to resume acting.

  On the 31st of October 1993, River died of a drug overdose outside The Viper Room in West Hollywood. Joaquin had gone to the club with River and Rain, and he called 911 for his dying brother. The recording of that call was broadcast again and again on television and radio. The family retreated to Costa Rica to escape the press. The event was turned into a cautionary tale of young Hollywood, wrapped in mythology and conspiracy.

  For years, Joaquin was labeled "the second most famous Phoenix." The New York Times set the brothers against each other, calling Joaquin "sweetly unsettling and endlessly vulnerable" and River all-American and boyish. Phoenix developed a lasting distrust of the media. He has called the constant questions about that day "insincere" and says they got in the way of mourning. The name Leaf was retired, and the next time he faced a camera it would be as Joaquin.

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• 4. Breaking Through

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  Gus Van Sant's black comedy To Die For (1995) brought Phoenix back to the screen. It was based on Joyce Maynard's novel, which was inspired by the Pamela Smart murder case. Phoenix played Jimmy Emmett, a disturbed young man seduced by Nicole Kidman's character into committing murder. The film premiered at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and succeeded with both critics and audiences. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called him "an actor to watch for."

  The late 1990s were less steady. In 1997 he played a small-town troublemaker in Oliver Stone's U Turn and a poor man in love with a rich woman in Inventing the Abbotts. Reviews were mostly mixed for the first and negative for the second, and neither did well at the box office. Clay Pigeons (1998), in which he befriends a serial killer, flopped commercially but pleased critics. 8mm (1999) had the opposite fate. Phoenix played a video store employee helping Nicolas Cage's character, and the film earned money despite few admirers among critics.

  Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000) changed his standing. Phoenix played a fictionalized Roman Emperor Commodus, and the film became the second highest-grossing release of its year. Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Phoenix turned "what could have easily been a cartoonish villain into a richly layered study of pathology." He earned his first Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, all for Best Supporting Actor. He and River became the first brothers nominated for acting Academy Awards, and they remain the only ones.

  His hard gaze and scarred lip kept him out of teen-idol roles. Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang later wrote that filmmakers saw something "more tortured, more vulnerable and infinitely more interesting" beneath the surface.

  Two more films followed in 2000. The Yards began his collaboration with director James Gray and follows corruption in the rail yards of Queens. In Quills, Phoenix played the conflicted priest Abbé de Coulmier opposite Kate Winslet, in a satire inspired by the Marquis de Sade. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers noted the irony that the real Abbé was a four-foot hunchback. For the year's work, the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review each named him Best Supporting Actor.

  Buffalo Soldiers had its world premiere at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival in early September. As a satire of the US military, it was held back after the September 11 attacks, and it reached theaters only on the 25th of July 2003. Phoenix earned a British Independent Film Award nomination as a cheerfully amoral soldier.

  M. Night Shyamalan directed him twice. In Signs (2002), Phoenix played Merrill Hess, a former Minor League baseball player who, with his brother Graham (Mel Gibson), faces an alien invasion. In The Village (2004), he played the farmer Lucius Hunt in a community terrified of creatures in the woods. Reviews were mixed at first, but critics later came to praise the film and Phoenix's performance.

  In 2003 he voiced Kenai in Disney's Brother Bear. "The real pinnacle in my career is that I'm playing an animated character in a Disney film," he said. Patrick Dempsey replaced him in the sequel.

  For Ladder 49 (2004), he trained for two months with the Baltimore Fire Department and fought real fires. He admitted he had been afraid of heights, and the training ended with rappelling off a six-story tower. He also played the cameraman Jack Daglish in Hotel Rwanda (2004). The film follows Paul Rusesabagina, played by Don Cheadle, as he shelters his family and more than 1,000 refugees in the besieged Hôtel des Mille Collines. The cast earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.

  Walk the Line (2005) cast him as Johnny Cash, with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter. Cash himself had approved of Phoenix, who sang every vocal track in the film and on its soundtrack. Roger Ebert wrote that he closed his eyes, heard the voice of Johnny Cash, and was "gob-smacked" to learn it was Phoenix. The role brought a Golden Globe, a Grammy for the soundtrack, and second nominations for the Academy Award and BAFTA. His next step was behind the scenes, as a producer.

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• 5. The Retirement Hoax

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  We Own the Night (2007), directed by James Gray, was the first film Phoenix produced. He played the nightclub manager Bobby Green, who tries to protect his brother (Mark Wahlberg) and father (Robert Duvall) from Russian mafia hitmen. David Edelstein of New York magazine wrote that Phoenix was "not an actor disappearing into a role but a man disappearing into himself." That year Phoenix also executive produced the television show 4Real, which sent celebrity guests on global adventures to meet young leaders. He starred in Reservation Road too, as a father obsessed with finding the driver who killed his son.

  Two Lovers (2008), again with Gray, cast him as a suicidal bachelor torn between two women. It premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and reviews were positive. The chief critic of The New York Times Magazine called it his best performance to date. But Phoenix had already begun filming his next project, and it would overshadow the release.

  I'm Still Here (2010) claims to follow Phoenix from his announcement that he was quitting acting through a new career as a hip hop artist managed by Sean "Diddy" Combs. Phoenix's then brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, directed it and co-wrote it with him. It premiered at the 67th Venice International Film Festival to mixed reviews. Critics were split over whether it was a documentary or performance art.

  Phoenix later explained that the idea came from his amazement that audiences believed reality television was unscripted. By pretending to retire, he and Affleck meant to explore celebrity and the relationship between the media, the public and the celebrities themselves.

  Throughout filming, Phoenix stayed in character at public appearances. After a notorious appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, media outlets worldwide decided he was having a mental breakdown. Confusion turned to concern as the seemingly drug-addled Phoenix kept insisting he was serious about rapping. Many feared he was following the self-destructive path that had killed his brother. The staging was not disclosed until after the film's release, and some people still believe he truly broke down.

  Phoenix credits the project with letting him make bolder choices as an actor. After a brief sabbatical, he came back in a film by Paul Thomas Anderson.

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• 6. The Director's Actor

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  In The Master (2012), Paul Thomas Anderson placed Phoenix opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman. Phoenix played Freddie Quell, a World War II navy veteran struggling after the war, who is drawn to Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd, leader of a movement called "The Cause." Phoenix lost a significant amount of weight. He also visited a dentist to help him force his jaw shut on one side, a trait his own father had.

  The performance won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 2012 Venice Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy called it "career-defining." Accepting a Screen Actors Guild Award, Daniel Day-Lewis praised the "remarkable" Phoenix and apologized that he had not been nominated. Phoenix still received his third Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations.

  In The Immigrant (2013), his fourth film with Gray, he played Bruno, a pimp who falls for the Polish immigrant Ewa, played by Marion Cotillard. It drew strong reviews at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In Spike Jonze's Her, he played Theodore Twombly, a man who falls in love with Samantha, a computer operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson. A.A. Dowd of The A.V. Club called him "one of the most emotionally honest actors in Hollywood." The film earned more than double its budget and brought a fourth Golden Globe nomination. Peter Knegt of IndieWire later listed his missing Oscar nomination among the worst acting snubs of the decade.

  Inherent Vice (2014) made him Doc Sportello, a hippie private investigator in Thomas Pynchon's adapted novel, and earned a fifth Golden Globe nomination. Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph called it work that would be "adoringly dissected and quoted for decades." In 2015 he played the philosophy professor Abe Lucas in Woody Allen's Irrational Man.

  Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here, based on a novella by Jonathan Ames, ranks among his most acclaimed films. He played Joe, a traumatized former FBI agent and Gulf War veteran who finds missing girls for a living. A former bodyguard who rescues children from traffickers advised him, and he gained significant weight and muscle. Ramsay called him "my soulmate in making movies." The film earned him the Best Actor award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

  In 2018 he played Jesus in Garth Davis's Mary Magdalene, to mixed reviews. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot reunited him with Gus Van Sant, with Phoenix as the quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan. In Jacques Audiard's The Sisters Brothers, he and John C. Reilly played the assassin brothers Charlie and Eli.

  Phoenix says he chooses films mostly by the director. In 2019 he said, "I don't really care about genre or budget size, anything like that." He told The Guardian in 2015 that he prefers independent film because in major studio work "the quality of acting suffers."

  Directors describe him in vivid terms. James Gray calls him "very tender and sweet and sensitive" off screen, as if he channels his intensity into the characters. Garth Davis compared working with him to "working with this beautiful wild animal," who needs room to roam. Leonard Maltin called him "a true chameleon." Phoenix names Robert De Niro as a favorite, and recalls the pinky handshake through a chain-link fence in Raging Bull as the sort of small, beautiful detail he is always looking for.

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• 7. Joker and After

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  Phoenix lost 52 pounds to play Arthur Fleck in Joker (2019), directed by Todd Phillips. The story, set in 1981, follows a failed clown and stand-up comedian whose descent into insanity and nihilism sparks a violent uprising against the wealthy in a decaying Gotham City. Phoenix based Fleck's laugh on videos of people suffering from pathological laughter.

  Joker premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival to acclaim, then divided critics after its theatrical release. Phoenix's performance drew raves, but the film's tone, its treatment of mental illness and its violence raised fears of inspiring real-life violence. The movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where the 2012 mass shooting happened during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, refused to show it. Even so, it became his highest-grossing film, reaching a box office level no R-rated film had reached before.

  David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called Phoenix "the prime force" that makes the film so edgy. Phoenix won the Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice awards for Best Actor.

  In 2020, The New York Times named him among the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century. James Gray wrote his paragraph. In 2021 Phoenix starred in Mike Mills's C'mon C'mon, as Johnny, a radio journalist who travels cross-country with his young nephew. The A24 film premiered at the 48th Telluride Film Festival and then posted the best per-venue average for a limited release since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vulture's Angelica Jade Bastién called it "a career best for him."

  Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid opened on the 14th of April 2023. Phoenix played Beau Wassermann, a mild-mannered, paranoid man on a surreal odyssey to reach his mother, in a cast with Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane and Patti LuPone. It earned him a seventh Golden Globe nomination. That November, Ridley Scott's Napoleon cast him as Napoleon Bonaparte opposite Vanessa Kirby as Joséphine de Beauharnais. Reviews were mixed overall and mostly negative in France, where French GQ called it "deeply clumsy, unnatural, and unintentionally awkward."

  In 2024 he returned as the Joker in Joker: Folie à Deux, with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Unlike the first film, it was a critical and commercial failure. He had also been set to star with Danny Ramirez in a film by Todd Haynes, a sexually explicit love story between two men in 1930s Los Angeles. Phoenix co-wrote it and urged Haynes to "go further." The project collapsed when Phoenix exited five days before filming began.

  He reunited with Ari Aster in the A24 western Eddington (2025), which earned positive reviews. His next film is Polaris, with Lynne Ramsay directing and Rooney Mara co-starring.

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• 8. Animals, Causes and Home

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  The documentary Earthlings (2005), narrated by Phoenix, investigates animal abuse in factory farms, pet mills and scientific research. It won him a Humanitarian Award at the San Diego Film Festival that year. Philosopher Tom Regan said that after watching it, "the world will never be the same." Phoenix also narrated its 2015 sequel, Unity, and Chris Delforce's Dominion (2018), alongside Rooney Mara and Sia. In 2020 he executive produced Gunda, which follows a pig, two cows and a one-legged chicken.

  Phoenix has been a vegan since age three. He asks that his film costumes made of leather be made from synthetic materials instead. He argues that climate change is imminent without a plant-based lifestyle, and PETA named him its Person of the Year in 2019. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said he never misses a chance to turn attention from himself to animals.

  He has been especially vocal about fish, which he thinks people overlook. In 2013 he simulated drowning in a 41-second PETA spot shot by photographer Michael Muller. During the 2019-20 awards season he pushed five ceremonies toward meat-free menus, beginning with the Golden Globes. Critics' Choice and the Screen Actors Guild followed, and the Academy later announced vegan food at the Dolby Theatre. PETA's Lisa Lange said of him, "He enlists friends. And it works."

  The day after winning his Oscar, Phoenix helped rescue a cow and her newborn calf from a Los Angeles slaughterhouse, and they went to Farm Sanctuary. That month he starred in Guardians of Life, the first of twelve short films by the environmental group Mobilize Earth. Film International writers criticized the coverage for focusing on Phoenix as savior rather than on the animals. On the 10th of January 2020 he was arrested with Jane Fonda at a climate protest outside the United States Capitol.

  Two species carry his name. A trilobite named Gladiatoria phoenix honors his role in Gladiator. A spider from Iran, Loureedia phoenixi, is nicknamed the Joker spider because its markings resemble the character.

  In 2020 he joined JusticeLA for a public service announcement about the health of people in Los Angeles County jails during the pandemic. In October 2023 he signed an open letter to President Joe Biden calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war. In May 2025 he was among 370 Hollywood figures who signed another letter on the film industry's silence, and in September 2025 he signed the Film Workers for Palestine boycott pledge. He also sits on the board of The Lunchbox Fund, founded by Topaz Page-Green, which provides daily meals to students in township schools in Soweto, South Africa.

  In early April 2005, Phoenix checked into rehab for alcoholism. Twelve years later he said he had simply seen himself as a hedonist: "I wasn't engaging with the world or myself in the way I wanted to." In 2012 he dismissed the Academy Awards in crude terms, then apologized and acknowledged they give a platform to deserving filmmakers. On Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2015 he said he felt uncomfortable receiving praise for collaborative work.

  He describes himself as a secular Jew with no organized religion, and names forgiveness among his core values. Playing Jesus in Mary Magdalene changed how he thought about it. Caroline Frost of The Huffington Post found him "engaging, engaged, mischievous, honest," and Anderson Cooper of 60 Minutes thought he simply did not like to talk about himself.

  From 1995 to 1998 he dated his Inventing the Abbotts co-star Liv Tyler, who remains a close friend. He was involved with the South African model Topaz Page-Green from 2001 to 2005, and with the artist Allie Teilz from 2013 to 2015. He met Rooney Mara in 2012, and they began a romance four years later during the making of Mary Magdalene. They were engaged in 2019. Their son was born in August 2020, and their daughter Sparrow in June 2024. Phoenix enjoys meditating, watching documentaries and reading scripts, and holds a black belt in karate. In September 2024 on the podcast Talk Easy, he called Mara his "wife."

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