Joaquin Phoenix, a longtime vegan activist and
Mercy For Animals supporter, recently sat down for an interview with Collider where he not only discussed his new
thriller, You Were Never Really Here,
but shared the event that led him to veganism. Like the Academy Award-winning
actor, interviewer Steve Weintraub is an animal rights supporter.
Phoenix told Weintraub about the moment he
decided to go vegan:
Really it was seeing these fish being killed when I was on a boat as a kid. I guess to stun them they were throwing them against the side of the boat. I just had a profound strong reaction. It felt like a real injustice. It wasn’t just me, it was my siblings, all of my siblings, except for the youngest, Summer, she wasn’t born. My mom was pregnant with her. I don’t know how to explain it. I think it made me distrustful, and angry, and frightened of humans, humanity. I just thought it was such a gross abuse of power in a way. I think that during that moment we knew that we were not going to eat meat anymore. We said to our parents, “Why didn’t you tell us? It’s amazing. I remember my mom’s face, I remember her crying. She didn’t know how to answer. It became very obvious we weren’t going to eat meat anymore.
The animal rights conversation continued as Phoenix
recalled how the family cut out dairy after going vegetarian. “Then my brother,
a few months later, said: ‘We shouldn’t be using dairy either. It’s not killing
them, but …’ Then we became vegan and my sister Summer was born vegan.
The actor’s story of compassion is truly
inspiring. And Phoenix is the real deal. The actor narrated our 2014 undercover
investigation into a Walmart pork supplier and presented an award at our annual gala in 2015.
What’s more, MFA spotlighted the actor in our
summer 2016 edition of Compassionate
Living magazine. And last year, Phoenix and his partner, actress Rooney
Mara, attended MFA’s all-vegan music and food festival, Circle V.
As if that weren’t enough, he narrated the
powerful documentary Earthlings and is an
executive producer of What the Health,
now streaming on Netflix.
Phoenix has dedicated his life to creating a
kinder world for farmed animals. By going vegan, you too can spare countless
animals a lifetime of misery at factory farms. Pigs, cows, chickens, and other
farmed animals suffer horribly. These innocent animals face unimaginable cruelties,
from painful mutilations and restrictive confinement to violent handling and
gruesome deaths.
Phoenix once said, “It takes nothing away from a
human to be kind to an animal. So what are you waiting for? Join the millions
of people who are helping protect farmed animals by switching to a
compassionate vegan lifestyle. Click here for vegan tips and tricks. Also check out
our Pinterest page for thousands of recipe ideas.