Joaquin Phoenix wins Best Actor at 2020 Oscars, implores viewers to rail against injustice

Best Actor winner Joaquin Phoenix implores world to rail against injustice against animals, environment.

Joaquin Phoenix accepts the Best Actor Oscar for Joker. Picture: Getty Images

Joaquin Phoenix has won the best actor Academy Award for his role as a wanna-be-comedian destined to become a supervillain in Joker.

It is Phoenix’s first Oscar and fourth nomination. Widely praised for performances in films ranging from Gladiator to the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, a best actor win had proved elusive for Phoenix.

In his acceptance speech, Phoenix said he did not feel elevated above any of his fellow nominees, saying he said he didn’t know what he would be if not for acting.

“Now I have been a scoundrel in my life. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been cruel at times. Hard to work with. And ungrateful. But so many of you in this room have given me a second chance and I think that’s when we are at our best, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of humanity,” he said.

Phoenix — a vegan — implored viewers to rail against injustice, whether that be against animals, the environment or each other.

Speciesism is an oppressive belief promoting the false idea that other animals are inferior to humans.#Joker star Joaquin Phoenix is looking over #LosAngeles atop of PETA's office to remind the city that WE ARE ALL ANIMALS! pic.twitter.com/YIswRvHH7F

— PETA (@peta) November 1, 2019

“Whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism, or queer rights or indigenous rights, or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice,” he said.

“We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.

Joaquin Phoenix: ‘we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world’. Picture: Getty Images

“I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world and many of us are guilty of an egocentric point of view.

“We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and then 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.

“We fear the idea of personal change because we think we have to sacrifice something to give something up, but human beings at our best are so inventive and creative and I think that when we use love and compassion as your guiding principals we can institute change that is beneficial to all our sentient beings.”

Phoenix had been seen as the front-runner for the award heading in to today’s ceremony. Joker won the best original score Oscar as well, and is up for the night’s final prize, best picture.

He becomes the second actor to win an Oscar for playing the notorious DC Comics villain. Heath Ledger won a posthumous Oscar for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight in 2008.

Photos: Glitz, glamour on Oscars red carpet

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with AP