The life of River Phoenix

Brut America

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

Transcript

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.

Category

Transcript

Recommended