Joaquin Phoenix has been very busy this awards season.
After winning Best Actor at the Oscars 2020, he continued his awards-season trend of talking about sociopolitical issues like social inequality, systemic inequality, cancel culture and animal rights. And now, he’s been reported to be ‘out there’, ready to walk his talk.
Everything happened just two days after his Academy Award win, where he told everyone in his acceptance speech to quit drinking cow’s milk.
Phoenix said in his speech:
“We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. 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.”
Now, the actor and champion of animal rights accompanied Los Angeles Animal Save, a nonprofit organization that does peaceful vigils at local slaughterhouses, to save a calf and its mother from certain death.
On his fifth outing with the group, Phoenix targeted a cow named ‘Liberty’, who’d given birth in her holding area to a calf called ‘Indigo’.
The actor said he met the owner of the beef packer and opened his heart to him. The owner ultimately agreed to let the actor and the rescue team take both Liberty and Indigo with them in tow.
Phoenix said in a statement:
“I never thought I’d find friendship in a slaughterhouse.”
Joaquin Phoenix, together with his Oscar-nominated fiancée, Rooney Mara, and the rest of the rescue squad carted the mother and calf over to Farm Sanctuary in north Los Angeles County.
The actor said:
“My hope is, as we watch baby Indigo grow up with her mom Liberty at Farm Sanctuary, that we’ll always remember that friendship can emerge in the most unexpected places.”
“And no matter our differences, kindness and compassion should rule everything around us.”
If you happen to follow all of Phoenix’s many acceptance speeches this year, his recent rescue sticks with the environmental messages he’s talking about all season.
Reports said that earlier this awards season, Phoenix joined Los Angeles Animal Save to comfort pigs on their way to the slaughterhouse. He’d arrived just in time to see them off, still wearing the tuxedo he’d donned to the Screen Actors Guild Awards that day.