Joaquin Phoenix just gave a rare interview about his son, River.
He shares the child, named after his late brother, with his fiancée and actress Rooney Mara .
In the interview, the Joker actor shared that he won’t “force” his vegan lifestyle on his son. But he won’t lie about the reality of meat, either.
This includes teaching him that there’s nothing happy about a McDonald’s Happy Meal.
It should come as no surprise that the *Joker* actor is extremely passionate about animal rights.
When he won the Best Actor Oscar for The Joker , he devoted his speech to it.
“We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and when she gives birth, we steal her baby even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable, and then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.”
“For me, I see commonality,” Phoenix said during his speech.
“I think whether we’re talking about gender inequality, or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice.”
He continued by saying:
“We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.”
He continued:
“And I’m not going to tell him that it’s OK to read books about all the wonderful little farm animals, and they say ‘oink oink oink’ and ‘moo moo moo,’ and not tell him that that’s what a hamburger is,”
And believe me, Phoenix is a man of his word.
He feels so strongly about this that he even rescued a cow and her calf.
If it’s possible, fans fell even more in love with the actor when this video came out.
But when it comes to his son, he’s not about to push his vegan lifestyle on him.
On that same thought, he won’t lie to him either.
He made these rare statements in a recent interview with The Sunday Times .
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“Well, certainly I would hope that [he is vegan], but I’m not going to impose my belief on my child,” he explained.
“I don’t think that’s right. I’m not going to indoctrinate him with the idea that McDonald’s have a Happy Meal because there’s nothing [expletive] happy about that meal,” he continued.
“So I’m not going to perpetuate the lie, but I’m also not going to force him to be vegan.”
“I’ll support him. That’s my plan.”
But that wasn’t all he talked about during the interview. He also expressed how terrified he was about making his speech at the Oscars.
“I’ll be honest with you here,” he said.
“I did not want to get up anywhere and do anything. I was not excited about the opportunity. It’s just not who I am. I was full of fear.”
“I was in that situation and there was a part of me that just wanted to say, ‘Thanks so much, great, goodnight.’ But I felt like I had to,”
“If I’m up here, I can’t just thank my mum.” he finished.
Which, honestly, is fair. People expect a lot at the Oscars.
Now, we want to hear from you!
What do you think about Phoenix’s approach to his son’s future lifestyle? Let us know down below in the comment section. We would love to hear from you!
Read the full interview here .