Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara welcome their first baby named ‘River’

Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix and fiancée Rooney Mara reportedly welcomed their first child, a baby boy they named River, in honor of Phoenix’s late brother.

Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky shared the news during a Q&A portion at the screening of the movie Gunda, in which Phoenix is an executive producer, at the 2020 Zurich Film Festival on Sept. 27.

According to Kossakovsky, Phoenix “just had a baby… a beautiful son called River, so he cannot promote it (the movie) right now.”

Mara, 35, and the Joker actor, 45,  first met while filming Her in mid-2012, and started dating reportedly after they filmed the movie Mary Magdalene, and got engaged in 2019. Early this year, it was reported that the couple were expecting a baby, though neither Mara nor Phoenix has commented on the news.

Joaquin's brother River Phoenix, best known for his film Stand by Me, died of drug overdose in 1993 at the age of 23.

In his speech during this year’s Oscars where he won Best Actor for the box-office hit Joker, Joaquin Phoenix spoke about a lyric his late brother wrote: “When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. He said, 'Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.’”

Banner photo from Reuters