He's Joaquin Phoenix's older brother who's career was cut short after a tragic death. At 19, he starred as a young Indiana Jones.
Thirty years after his death, the fifth movie of the franchise premieres at Festival de Cannes. This is the life of River Phoenix.
#Cannes2023
Thirty years after his death, the fifth movie of the franchise premieres at Festival de Cannes. This is the life of River Phoenix.
#Cannes2023
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00It scares the shit out of me, too, to be frank.
00:02To be in front of a camera?
00:03Oh, it's so frightening.
00:05That's why when I'm on set, I never look at the camera.
00:09You don't look at the camera.
00:11That's funny.
00:12I'm very frightened right now. I'm dealing with it somehow.
00:16Yeah, you're dealing with it quite well.
00:17But I really am frightened.
00:31When I was 15 or 16, my brother, River, came home from work
00:37and he had a VHS copy of a movie called Raging Bull.
00:42And he sat me down and he made me watch it.
00:45And the next day, he woke me up and he made me watch it again.
00:49And he said, you're going to start acting again.
00:52This is what you're going to do.
00:54And he didn't ask me. He just told me.
00:57And I am indebted to him for that because acting has given me such an incredible life.
01:27I've been vegan since I was 3 years old.
01:56And at that age, me and my siblings witnessed fish being killed in a really violent and aggressive way.
02:03And it was just absolutely obvious that that was something that we didn't want to participate in
02:07and we didn't want to support.
02:09I started acting through auditioning and trial by error, basically.
02:26How old were you then when you started?
02:28Ten.
02:29Does that sound?
02:30Television commercials.
02:32And then later you get cast in a film, if you're lucky.
02:37My brother and I always talk to each other and my sisters and everybody.
02:41Whenever some new script comes in the house or some new role,
02:45it's always on the family's mind for the day.
02:50And we all sort of talk about it and go through it.
02:53And it is a big help.
03:07I really don't think about how a part is going to do for my career.
03:18It's how I can do for the part.
03:21I feel like it's kind of like an official bonus to the satisfaction that I had already felt after seeing the movie.
03:39I mean, that to me was what really meant something to me.
03:43And this is just an extension of that.
03:46No one had asked next door if I was intimidated by the people that I was up there with,
03:51and I don't at all.
03:53I mean, I don't think that I'm out of the bunch at all worthy of the award,
04:01though it's still a very nice thing to be amongst them.
04:16It's more of like a police state now, more so than ever in the States.
04:44They're controlling things that get the culture in trouble.
04:49It's like a pressure cooker and never turning the stove off.
04:53It cooks and cooks until it explodes.
05:13Oh.