River Phoenix

“Of all my photos of River Phoenix, this was his favorite. Actually he said this was his favorite all time photograph, because it was the ‘darkest’ and that left me wondering why my seeing the darkness in him made him happy. River was complicated for sure, and I doubt many people ever knew him totally… I didn’t. Aug 23rd is his birthday. So I’m posting it in his honor”

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?

“He often said he wished he couId just be anonymous. But he never was. When he wasn’t a movie star, he was a missionary. There’s a beauty in that- the man with the cause, the leader- but there’s also a deep loneliness"

“On set (River) would throw himself on you and say, ‘I like you so much,’ and you never meet people like that. But when I met Keanu, I was like, ‘Oh my God. This is exactly like River’"

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

“Commercials were too phony for me. It was selling a product, and who owns the product? I mean, are they supporting apartheid? I just didn’t like the whole thing, even though it helped us pay the rent. How could I tell anybody to drink canned cranberry juice? I didn’t drink it. I didn’t believe in what I was saying. I guess what I was zeroing in on was that performing was more about telling the truth through a different character’s eyes. I felt that the constant lying, the smiling on cue, and the product naming was going to drive me crazy or numb me to a not-yet-developed craft that I was beginning to feel staring me in the face”

danny: they need me.

lorna: i need you.