He’s one of Hollywood’s most compelling actors today, known for disappearing into roles that haunt and mesmerize.
But his childhood was anything but ordinary. Born into a family that rejected conventional life, his parents abandoned the comforts of California to roam South America, raising their five children in extreme poverty and countercultural chaos.
No one could have predicted that one member of the family would grow up to become one of the world’s most famous stars.
Many of Hollywood’s biggest stars had surprisingly unusual and challenging childhoods. Some even grew up in cults, by which we mean any small group led by a self-proclaimed leader who exerts extreme control over its members.
Take Oscar-nominated actress Glenn Close, for instance, who spent her formative years — from age 7 to 22 — immersed in a group called the Moral Re-Armament.
The Hollywood giant we’re focusing on today left cult life far earlier, by the age of three. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the third of five children to John Lee and Arlyn Bottom. His parents married in 1969 and lived in California before they left everything to become members of a religious cult, called The Children of God.
They traveled across South America while raising their children in its strict and nomadic environment. Children in the cult were encouraged to hand out pamphlets for the church and spend time on street corners collecting money.
By 1978, the family had grown disillusioned with the group and returned to the U.S., eager for a fresh start. The final straw came when the family received a letter from the cult’s leader, David Berg, instructing members to engage in sexual relations with as many people as possible to recruit new followers.
It would later emerge that The Children of God were a dangerous sect wanted by Interpol, and that David Berg was accused of murder.
“I think my parents thought they’d found a community that shared their ideals. Cults rarely advertise themselves as such. It’s usually someone saying, ‘We’re like-minded people. This is a community,’ but I think the moment my parents realized there was something more to it, they got out,” the actor told Playboy magazine in 2014.
After leaving the cult, the family moved to Florida, nearly broke, to live with Arlyn’s parents. They even changed their surname to mark a new beginning — the name that would later become iconic in Hollywood.
You could say the family got a flying start in their new life in the U.S. All five siblings were incredibly talented, and it wasn’t long before even talent scouts from major TV networks started taking notice. Soon, the family packed up for Hollywood, cramming into a beat-up station wagon with a missing back window. On the way, they had to give away their dog because, as the actor told The Gazette in 2001, “We couldn’t afford an extra mouth to feed.”
When they arrived in Los Angeles, their mother, Arlyn, landed a secretarial job in NBC’s casting office — a golden opportunity to get her children into showbiz.
By the age of eight, our star had booked his first gig. He later described the experience on camera as “instantaneous joy.”
“For some kids, it’s the first time they crack a ball or score a goal. For me, it was this,” he told The Guardian. “I knew that I loved it—the physical sensation; how powerful it was. That’s the feeling I’ve been chasing ever since.”
Despite some early successes, he long remained in the shadow of his older brother, River. As River’s fame soared, the actor was sometimes dismissed as “the second most famous” in the family, leaving him with the sense that his own career was stalling.
But everything changed in 1993. By then, River was a major Hollywood star, but his life came to a sudden and tragic end.
Outside the Viper Club in Hollywood, he collapsed from a fatal overdose of cocaine and heroin. His younger brother, our star, was there, making a heart-wrenching 911 call that would later be broadcast by news outlets, as his 23-year-old brother lay dying on the sidewalk.
The person who made that devastating call and watched his brother die on the street was Joaquin Phoenix.
Today, in a bittersweet twist of fate, it is Joaquin who has earned the kind of acclaim his brother might have. He is now an award-winning actor, celebrated for his transformative portrayals — from musician Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, to the iconic role of the Joker, and most recently as Napoleon in the epic historical drama bearing the same name.
After River’s tragic death, the entire Phoenix family relocated to Costa Rica, seeking to grieve in private, far from the intense media attention that had followed the loss. Joaquin didn’t return to the United States until he was called back to audition for To Die For (1995). When the film’s director, Gus Van Sant — a close friend of River’s —saw him, he reportedly broke down in tears. For Joaquin, who had taken a three-year break from acting, the film also served as a wake-up call, reminding him just how much he missed performing.
Phoenix’s chilling performance as Emperor Commodus in Gladiator (2000) was a major breakthrough, silencing even the harshest critics. The film was a massive hit, grossing over $400 million, and suddenly he became the go-to actor for roles that demanded a dark, magnetic presence. Today, his trophy shelf and résumé speak for themselves: an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Grammy, a Volpi Cup, and two Golden Globes. He has been described as one of the finest actors of his generation.
Another remarkable detail: when Joaquin earned his first Academy Award nomination for Gladiator, he and his late brother River became the first brothers ever to be nominated for acting Oscars. River had received his nod for Running on Empty (1988). To this day, they remain the only brothers in history to hold that distinction.
Joaquin has largely stayed quiet about his late brother in extended interviews.
But in one episode of comedian Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, the 51-year-old Joker star opened up about River’s legacy and the profound influence he had on his life and career.
“My brother was quite a force and was definitely, like, I don’t know if it was mythical or Shakespearean, or I don’t know, maybe it’s because he died or something,” Phoenix recalled. “Maybe it’s because he was the first son and he was incredible.”
“He was such a force within our family,” the Gladiator actor added. “He was kind of like the guiding light in some ways. He was the one who acted first. We used to sing on the streets and he played guitar and kind of like oversaw everybody.”
Outside of acting, Phoenix is a passionate animal rights advocate. A committed vegan, he frequently supports charitable causes and has produced several documentaries exploring global meat consumption and its environmental impact.
This traces all the way back to Phoenix’s third birthday. In October 1977, he and his family were on a cargo ship bound for Miami from Venezuela, having just left life as members of the controversial religious group the Children of God.
While they were aboard the freighter, young Joaquin and his siblings watched fishermen haul in flying fish — and then saw the catch killed in a brutal way. The sight of the fish thrashing and dying so violently left a deep and unsettling mark on him, he told Vanity Fair. Two months after they settled in Florida, the whole family made a dramatic change: they adopted a vegan lifestyle. Joaquin has said he’s stayed true to that choice ever since.
And speaking of staying true…
In 2012, Phoenix met his future co-star Rooney Mara. The two stayed friends before beginning a romantic relationship four years later while filming Mary Magdalene.
They got engaged in 2019, welcomed their son in August 2020, and in June 2024, celebrated the birth of their daughter, Sparrow. Their son’s name, River, honors Phoenix’s older brother.
The couple now lives in the Hollywood Hills, and in a September 2024 podcast interview on Talk Easy, Phoenix even referred to Mara as his “wife.”
Though Mara and Phoenix keep their relationship and parenting life largely private, Mara shared that becoming a mother to River had profoundly “opened her heart” when celebrating her first Mother’s Day in May 2021.
Years later, during an appearance on the LaunchLeft podcast, Mara revealed how it is to raise her son with her famous husband.
”It feels like a creative household, we’re constantly talking about creative things,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like a two-actor house because I didn’t work for the first three and a half years we were together. Basically, since we’ve been together, I only worked one or two times and one was really small and short.”
Joaquin, on the other hand, has described his family life as simple and grounded. He enjoys meditating, watching documentaries, reading scripts, and practicing karate — he holds a black belt in the discipline.
From his early days growing up in a family on the move, to the heartbreak of losing his brother, Joaquin Phoenix has transformed every experience—painful or joyous—into unforgettable performances.
Whether disappearing into the haunting intensity of Joker, embodying the tortured Emperor Commodus in Gladiator, or channeling the soulful depth of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, Phoenix consistently proves why he’s one of the most fearless and magnetic actors of his generation. With every role, he reminds audiences that true talent isn’t just about skill — it’s about courage, heart, and the willingness to explore the darkness and light within us all.
