TOO SOON

Oscar Nominee Reveals River Phoenix’s Early Struggles in Hollywood

Ethan Hawke opened up about his friend and former co-star.

Four-time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke said that the tragically short career of his childhood friend River Phoenix was filled with disdain for Hollywood fakery. “He was met with success much earlier than I was,” Hawke told Entertainment Weekly, speaking on Phoenix’s breakout role in 1986’s Stand By Me, which “launched this huge career at an extremely young age.” Hawke met Phoenix on the set of 1985’s Explorers when they were both 14 and has previously said his friend was “the brightest light and this industry chewed him up.” Noting the pressures of “a life in the performing arts,” Hawke told EW that Phoenix was “struggling” with fame. River, the older brother of fellow actor Joaquin Phoenix, died of a drug overdose in Hollywood in 1993 at the age of 23. Hawke continued that Phoenix was “vibrating off of how phony [success] was, whenever you’re getting a lot of accolades and you’re not even in control of your own art.” He added that “people are trying to make money off you [and] if you’re self-aware at all, you understand how dangerous that is.” Hawke’s latest film, Blue Moon, will hit the big screen next month.