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When Joaquin Phoenix won the 2020 Best Actor Oscar for “Joker”, he used the opportunity to share his passion for animal rights in his acceptance 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 said at the time.
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“We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity,” he continued, adding, “We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.”
In a new interview with the The Sunday Times, Phoenix admits he felt some apprehension about his speech.
“I did not want to get up anywhere and do anything. I was not excited about the opportunity,” he said.
“It’s just not who I am. I was full of fear,” he confessed, but explained he felt a responsibility to use that unique platform he’d been given.
“If I’m up here, I can’t just thank my mum,” said Phoenix, who was raised as a vegetarian since the age of three.
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Phoenix and fiancée Rooney Mara welcomed son River last year, and he told the Times he was hopeful his son would be a vegan.
“I would hope my child is vegan, but I’m not going to impose my beliefs,” he said, but explained that he plans to educate him about the realities of the food industry.
“I’m not going to indoctrinate him with the idea that McDonald’s have a Happy Meal because there’s nothing f**king happy about that meal,” he said.