How Martin Scorsese and River Phoenix changed Joaquin Phoenix’s life
Over the last 20 years or so, Joaquin Phoenix has established himself as one of the greatest actors of his generation. Beginning with family comedy movies like SpaceCamp and Parenthood, Phoenix’s career really took off when he starred in Ridley Scott’s 2000 historical action epic Gladiator.
Several acclaimed performances followed in films such as Walk the Line, in which he portrayed country music legend Johnny Cash, Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant film The Master, and of course, Todd Phillips’ Joker. However, were it not for Phoenix’s older brother, River, the actor who tragically died at the age of 23, then we might not have seen Joaquin as we do today.
In 2019, while attending the Toronto International Film Festival, Joaquin gave a moving speech in honour of his late brother and explained that it was his words and encouragement that gave Joaquin the drive to succeed as he does today. There’s a beautiful anecdote about River showing Raging Bull to his younger brother in order to try and persuade him to continue acting.
“When I was 15 or 16, my brother River came home from work, and he had a VHS copy of a movie called Raging Bull, and he sat me down and made me watch it,” Joaquin began. “And the next day, he woke me up, and he made me watch it again. And he said, ‘You’re going to start acting again; this is what you’re going to do.'”
“He didn’t ask me; he told me,” the actor added. “And I am indebted to him for that because acting has given me such an incredible life.” Joaquin had been making the speech because he was being awarded the TIFF Tribute Actor Award, as introduced by fellow performer Willem Dafoe.
Dafoe had his fair share of kind words to say about Joaquin: “You tell me if any of this is bullshit,” he said. “The point is he’s always surprising us and himself.” The truth is that Joaquin Phoenix has delivered excellent performance after excellent performance, the likes of which we might not have seen were it not for his brother River and a copy of Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull.
River Phoenix was not the only family member of Joaquin to be praised, though. He added: “I feel overwhelmed with emotion because I’m just thinking about all the people that had such a profound influence on me. When I was watching those clips, I thought about my family. My sisters Rain and Liberty and Summer, who are still my bests friends.”
