Southland animal rights activists were praising actor Joaquin Phoenix Monday for taking time out of his big night in Hollywood this weekend to held bring comfort and attention to pigs on their way to a Vernon slaughterhouse.
Still clad in the tuxedo he wore while winning a best actor prize for “Joker” at the Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium, Phoenix showed up late Sunday to a vigil in front of the Farmer John’s processing plant at 3049 E Vernon Ave.
Los Angeles Animal Save conducts regular vigils in front of the facility, where volunteers provide water and whatever physical comfort they can to the pigs as the animals sit in trucks idling outside the gates, before heading inside.
“Most people don’t really know of the torture and murder in the meat and dairy industry,” the actor told the website Jane Unchained on Sunday. “I’ve seen it for what it is, so I have to be here. We have moral obligations to talk about it and expose it for what it really is.”
“Joaquin Phoenix — still in his tux — came to the vigil tonight. Congrats to him on his SAG award for Best Male Actor in a Leading Role! We are so grateful for all you do for the animals!” the group tweeted.
Phoenix, who also won a Golden Globe award for best actor earlier this month, is a longtime vegan activists who was credited with helping influence the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to offer a meatless dinner at this year’s Golden Globes ceremony for the first time. The move was later copied by the Critics Choice Awards.