Joaquin Phoenix Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Producer , Screenwriter
Birth name Joaquin Rafael Bottom
Nationality American
Birth October 28, 1974 (San Juan – Puerto Rico)

BIOGRAPHY
Joaquin is the only child in the Phoenix family not to have a name related to nature (like his elders River and Rain , as well as his younger daughter Summer ). Frustrated, the actor adopted the first name “Leaf” only to abandon it in the 90s. His childhood was nomadic, since his parents, itinerant fruit pickers, traveled the North American continent in a caravan and frequented the sect of the Children of God. Encouraged by his family, the actor began his acting career very early. Barely aged 8, Joaquin appeared in the TV series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers alongside his brother River and Richard Dean Anderson , then two years later, in an episode of the series Arabesque . However, he had to wait until 1987 to shoot his first feature film, Spacecamp .

Son of Dianne Wiest in Spitting Image of a Model Family (1989) by Ron Howard , he stood out by playing the very impressionable Jimmy, a lover bamboozled by Nicole Kidman in Ready for Anything (1995) by Gus Van Sant . Liking to compose marginal and disturbing characters, he was given the roles of Claire Danes ‘ violent fiancé in U-Turn (1997) by Oliver Stone , of a sex shop manager in the thriller 8mm (1999) and of an unsavory friend in The Yards (2000) which marks his first collaboration with James Gray .

The same year, Phoenix blended into the skin of the hated emperor Commodus, whom Russell Crowe pursued with his desire for revenge in Ridley Scott ‘s Gladiator . This film allowed him to become known to the general public and gave him recognition in the profession with his first Oscar nomination. This gallery of unsympathetic characters, to say the least, does not prevent him from playing real “heroes”: the withdrawn and courageous brother of Mel Gibson struggling with the extraterrestrials of Signes (2002) by M. Night Shyamalan , he adventure in the woods surrounding The Village (2004) again for the director of Indian origin. This interior performance once again reveals the facets of Phoenix’s acting, always very involved in his characters to the point of melting into them. He also reforms a couple with Claire Danes, five years after U-Turn, in It’s All About Love by Dane Thomas Vinterberg .

In 2005, Joaquin appeared briefly in Hotel Rwanda alongside Don Cheadle and Nick Nolte . But it was above all his interpretation of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line , alongside Reese Witherspoon , which made an impression the following year. To play the legendary man in black, the actor learned to play the guitar and performed the songs from the film himself. His performance then earned him a nomination for the Oscar for Best Actor and won the Golden Globe in the same category. Joaquin Phoenix then reunites with director James Gray, 8 years after The Yards, for The Night Belongs to Us where he plays a nightclub boss at the center of the conflict between the New York police and the Russian mafia in the 80s. duo followed in 2008 with Two Lovers , a drama with a love triangle background. Phoenix plays Leonard, a reserved and solitary young man shared between two women, the discreet Vinessa Shaw and the ardent Gwyneth Paltrow .

The following year, the actor caused a sensation by announcing his retirement from the world of cinema to devote himself to music. In reality, there is a buzz around the mockumentary that Casey Affleck is filming , I’m Still Here . For a year, Ben Affleck ‘s brother follows the fake Phoenix who is supposed to be depressed; between hateful remarks towards the world of show business, provocations and fights, the actor completely blends into this false self to the point of gaining weight and growing a long beard. The hoax works so well that the actor begins to really attract the wrath of the public and the profession. Casey Affleck then publicly reveals the deception so as not to harm his project.

Joaquin Phoenix therefore does not retire and shoots in 2012 under the leadership of renowned director Paul Thomas Anderson for The Master . Phoenix plays Freddie, an alcoholic and depressed war veteran who falls under the yoke of a cult guru played by Philip Seymour Hoffman . His performance earned him his third Oscar nomination. He reunited with the filmmaker two years later for Inherent Vice , a police investigation imbued with the psychedelic atmosphere of the 60s adapted from a novel by Thomas Pynchon .

In the meantime, he toured again under the direction of his favorite director, James Gray, for The Immigrant, selected in official competition in Cannes. There is a pimp who takes advantage of the distress of a Polish woman ( Marion Cotillard ) recently arrived in New York before falling in love with her. He also dabbles in science fiction in Her by Spike Jonze where he falls madly in love with the voice of an artificial intelligence dubbed by Scarlett Johansson . In 2015, he added a new prestigious collaboration to his filmography thanks to Woody Allen . In The Irrational Man , he is a tortured and nihilistic philosophy professor who regains his taste for life when he decides to turn to crime.

Absent from the screens for two years, he made a strong comeback in 2017 with A Beautiful Day , an ultra-violent and aesthetic thriller by Lynne Ramsay . His lively interpretation of a veteran converted into a hammer-wielding hitman earned him the Best Actor Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Follows Mary Magdalene , a drama in which he is nothing less than Jesus of Nazareth facing his companion in the city, Rooney Mara . He found her in his next film, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot by Gus Van Sant , a biopic dedicated to the quadriplegic and alcoholic cartoonist John Callahan. In 2018, the actor shines in front of Jacques Audiard

‘s camera in the western Les Frères Sisters before slipping under the makeup of the Joker . Phoenix bursts onto the screen as the iconic DC Comics villain: his tortured performance is hailed by the BAFTA, the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actor. Acclaimed by the public with more than a billion dollars in revenue worldwide, Todd Phillips ‘ film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.