Joaquin Pheonix and fiancée Rooney Mara have become parents last month amid the lockdown. The news was confirmed by director Victor Kossakovsky at the 2020 Zurich Film Festival.
Joaquin served as the executive producer for the director’s latest documentary Gunda. When asked about the Oscar winning actor, Kossakvosky said, “He just got a baby by the way... A beautiful son called River.”
Joaquin, 45, and Rooney, 35, who remained tight-lipped about their pregnancy, have yet to announce the birth of their first born.
The couple named their baby boy after his late uncle River Pheonix, who took Hollywood by storm during his very brief, illustrious career with memorable roles in Stand by Me, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and My Own Private Idaho.
Joaquin recently said in an interview with Anderson Cooper, 'I feel like in virtually every movie that I made, there was a connection to River in some way. And I think that we've all felt his presence and guidance in our lives in numerous ways.'
Joaquin and River Collected
During his Oscar acceptance speech, Joaquin paid tribute to his older brother and reflected on his legacy, "When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric, he said, 'Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow'.”
Oscar nominee Rooney Mara began dating Joaquin after they had met on the sets of Spike Jonze’s Her, in which they played a couple going through a painful divorce. Joaquin joked in a Vanity Fair interview that he thought Rooney initially 'despised' him.
The couple's engagement was confirmed last July.
