The life of all of us is made up of ups and downs, of happy moments and others in which everything seems to go against us, of successes and crises. And if there is an actor in the world who with his existence has embodied this eternal alternation of joy and suffering, that actor is Joaquin Phoenix, who turns 50 today.

His latest film, Joker: Folie à deux, received an avalanche of criticism and is not doing any better at the box office, so much so that it is expected to lose around $200 million on expenses. Quite the opposite of his first Joker, highly acclaimed by critics, awarded everywhere and above all loved by the public.

A flop that could end anyone’s career and, even worse, could profoundly affect any actor. But certainly not Joaquin Phoenix, who has experienced various situations between the difficult and the desperate in his life, always managing to find in them the stimuli to return to the top. For his 50th birthday, but also to console all of us who are not Hollywood stars, let’s look at the five worst moments of crisis in Joaquin Phoenix’s life.

The Phoenix’s change of surname to distance themselves from the sect

Joaquin Bottom was born on October 28, 1974 in Puerto Rico, the third child, after River and Rain and before Liberty and Summer, of John Lee, a Catholic from California, and Arlyn Sharon Phoenix, a Jew from New York.

Her parents met when she was hitchhiking around California, and they got together. After Liberty’s birth, the Bottoms joined a religious sect called the Children of God, with whom they toured Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America as missionaries. And that’s why Joaquin was born in Puerto Rico and has a Spanish name.

But their life was anything but carefree, and in fact in 1977, after the birth of Liberty, John and Arlyn decided to leave the sect and return to their homeland: the two had developed a profound disagreement with the values ​​and customs of the sect, in particular with the custom of so-called flirty fishing, which consisted of forcing the women of the sect to give themselves sexually to other men to convince them to join the cult.

So, when they returned to the USA, to also symbolically terminate relations with the past, the Bottoms decided to change their surname to Phoenix, like the Arabian Phoenix which is reborn from its ashes after death. Joaquin was still a small child, and had already overcome his family’s first dark moment. But never as tragic as what would strike Phoenix in 1993.

The death of his brother River and the recording of Joaquin’s phone call

In 1979 Joaquin and his family moved to Los Angeles, where his mother got a job as a clerk at NBC and met a children’s agent named Iris Burton. Thanks to her, Joaquin and his brothers and sisters pursued acting careers.

Joaquin, who initially chose Leaf as his stage name to also have a “natural” name like River and Rain, acted alongside his older brother River in the TV series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and in the ABC Afterschool Special which earned him the first attention of critics. He also appeared in an episode of Murder, She Wrote, and then made his film debut in 1986 with SpaceCamp.

In 1989 he was chosen by Ron Howard for a minor role in Parents, Friends and Trouble, and his performance definitively launched him as one of the talents of his generation, so much so that, when that film was made into a TV series, the actor who played the part of Joaquin said he studied it thoroughly to get into character. That actor was Leonardo DiCaprio.

In short, Joaquin’s life seemed destined for a bright future, but the spell was broken and shattered on the eve of Halloween 1993: on the evening of October 30, he followed River and Rain to the Viper Club in West Hollywood, a owned among others by Johnny Depp where River was to play with his band “P”, which included Flea and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

During the performance River felt ill and left the venue, while his companions continued to play he had convulsions and Joaquin, who was present there, called the emergency number 911 to ask for help. But it was all in vain, because in the early hours of October 31, River Phoenix died of a drug overdose, at just 23 years old, while being transported in an ambulance accompanied by Flea.

To make everything even worse, Joaquin’s 911 call had been recorded and released to the media, who for weeks broadcast it on every channel at every hour, each time adding more macabre and morbid details. To escape such a heavy climate, Joaquin retired from the scene and moved with his family to Costa Rica.

The documentary for his (fake) career change

Joaquin Phoenix has interrupted his acting career several times. The first time was when he was a boy: tired of only playing parts as a problematic teenager, Joaquin retired and moved to Mexico with his father (his parents had separated in the meantime).

It was River who convinced him to return to acting, and to do so under his real name Joaquin. Unfortunately, a few years later it was the death of his brother that made him decide to leave the scene again, only to return a year later, when he took part in the film To Die for by Gus Van Sant.

He then worked with Oliver Stone in U-Turn and with Nicolas Cage in 8mm, before arriving in 2000 at the role that definitively established him among the stars of Hollywood, that of Emperor Commodus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. The first real major role, however, came five years later with the unforgettable Walk the Line, in which Joaquin played Johnny Cash.

That performance was confirmation that Joaquin was one of the best actors of his generation, yet during the promotion of his film Two Lovers, in 2008, Joaquin again announced his retirement from the scene, or rather the end of his acting career to undertake that as a hip hop singer under the guidance of P. Diddy.

At the 67th Venice Film Festival in 2010, Joaquin revealed that it had all been a setup, presenting his fake documentary I’m still here made together with Casey Affleck, Summer Phoenix’s husband at the time. However, even today there remain doubts about the veracity of that story, which according to some was told after the fact to cover a moment of crisis for the actor.

“Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t be here tonight”: it was with these words that David Letterman dismissed him at the end of a surreal interview on his show, during which Joaquin had responded in monosyllables to talk about his career change, appearing confused if not actually in a state of alteration. Watch the video below to get an idea.

The hospitalization for alcoholism and the accident from which Herzog saved him

Moreover, it would not have been the first time that Joaquin Phoenix had health problems linked to some substance. In April 2005, when Walk the Line was about to be released at the cinema, Joaquin went to a clinic to rehabilitate his addiction to alcoholism.
Later, to explain that moment, he said: “I saw myself as a hedonist, as an actor from Los Angeles who wanted to have a good time, but I couldn’t relate to the world the way I wanted.”

A few months later, in January 2006, Joaquin had a tough time again. While driving near a canyon in Hollywood, his car went off the road and overturned.

Someone came to help him, telling him to stay calm, and in response he thought of demonstrating his calm by lighting a cigarette, but the rescuer convinced him not to do so since in the meantime he was leaking petrol everywhere.

He was therefore helped out of the car to await help in complete safety. Helping him was the great German director Werner Herzog, who left the scene as soon as Joaquin was safe.

The arrest of vegan Joaquin for the protests

In the Phoenix family there has always been great attention to the environment and nature in general. Joaquin became vegan at 3 years old: he was at the port with his family when he saw some fishermen repeatedly hitting fish against the side of the boat to kill them: the scene disgusted Joaquin and his brothers, who couldn’t understand how such an act could be done of such cruelty towards animals.

In his life Joaquin is, like his mother Arlyn later known as Heart, an activist for animal rights and the environment. He was named PETA’s person of the year in 2019, lent his voice to several animal documentaries (and voiced Kenai in the Koda cartoon Brother Bear) and was also arrested in January 2020.

He was on Capitol Hill, in Washington, and was taking part in a protest to denounce the damage caused by pollution and the resulting climate change. He was arrested together with Jane Fonda, the promoter of that demonstration, but the arrest certainly did not shift the beliefs of Joaquin Phoenix one millimeter, an artist who is not afraid to fight for what he believes in. And with the life he’s lived, it would be strange otherwise.