Joaquin Phoenix, the star of the Oscar-winning 2019 thriller “Joker” has reportedly welcomed a baby with his fiance, Marra Rooney.
The baby is named River after Phoenix’s late brother, who died of a drug overdose at the age of 23.
The director Victor Kossakovsky revealed the news at the 2020 Zurich film festival after a screening of the black-and-white documentary Gunda. Joaquin was an executive producer on the film.
Apologising for the actor not being able to be there, Mr Kossakovsky said: “He just got a baby, by the way, his name was… a beautiful son called River, so he cannot promote [the film] right now.”
Joaquin Phoenix and Mara Rooney first met on the set of “Her”, a 2013 science-fiction romantic film but did not begin dating until they were reunited on the set of the film “Mary Magdalene”, a 2018 biblical drama film about the woman of the same name.
Phoenix admitted to Vanity Fair in October 2019 that he was initially convinced that Mara “despised” him.
“She’s the only girl I ever looked up on the internet,” Phoenix explained. “We were just friends, email friends. I’d never done that. Never looked up a girl online.”
The couple got engaged in July 2019.
Joaquin’s brother, River died in the early hours of October 31, 1993. He had featured in films such as Stand By Me and My Own Private Idaho, for the latter, he won a Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, along with Best Actor from the National Society of Film Critics.
Speaking recently to Anderson Cooper on the TV programme 60 Minutes, Joaquin Phoenix reflected on his brother’s death.
“I feel like in virtually every movie that I made, there was a connection to River in some way… And I think that we’ve all felt his presence and guidance in our lives in numerous ways.”
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