他的孩子氣，其他合作的年長演員回憶：

Dan Aykroyd, costar, Sneakers: We called each other Mr. Woach and Mrs. Woach. The catering truck we used to call the Roach Coach. And that somehow evolved into the Woach. And he’d do things like pinch the fat around my waist [or] come up and blow on my bald spot. Just complete, absolute, total irreverence. And he could get away with it.

Carolyn Pfeiffer: He bonded very, very strongly with Richard Harris. River would come and drive Richard to the set, bypassing the film’s drivers. He always wanted to make sure that Richard was fine, that Richard wasn’t lonely. I mean, he was like a mother hen, River.

Richard Harris, costar, Silent Tongue: He looked upon me as a kind of father figure. He’d knock at my door and ask if he could come in and sleep....He’d sleep on the couch. I could hear him rehearsing his lines-at 4 in the morning. I said, ”Fuckin’ go to sleep.” He’d be in the bathroom, taking a crap, doing his lines.

……《A BRIEF LIFE》 PREMIERE March 1994

(附帶一提，Richard Harris就是最近某個魔幻系列電影中演老巫師的演員，年紀很大很大了，是個有個性的老公公。    【註：他後來也去世了....】)


Gus也回憶River的孩子氣(忘了是那篇報導)：“他喜歡從背後偷偷摸摸地抱住我說“我愛你”，我是個低調的人，通常這時會有點不知所措地僵住。他通常會再一次地抱住我，重複地再說一次。”

可愛的孩子氣。也在這篇報導片段中。

River Phoenix has a maddening habit of finishing other people’s sentences for them. Although sometimes annoying, the results are just as often clever and perceptive. The actor is currently seated next to independent film-maker Gus Van Sant on a well-worn couch in the director’s suite at Sunset Boulevard’s funky Chateau Marmont hotel.
We’re here to have a ”serious” discussion about issues -art, gay politics, drugs -raised by their film My Own Private Idaho, which features River as a narcoleptic street hustler in search of his family and the love of a good man. But River is in a hyperkinetic, playful mood (due in part to jetlag, he’s just flown in from winning best actor for the film at the Venice Film Festival), and Van Sant’s slow, measured speech provides plenty of openings for his wordplay. He dodges in and out of the conversation, tossing up verbal smokescreens whenever the opportunity arises. Various unidentified young men with indeterminatefunctions wander in and out of the room vying for the actor’s attention. One in baseball cap and T-shirt, whom River introduces as ”JK, my manager”, carries a wine bucket and seems to be responsible for procuring cold beer.

I knew we were in for an interesting ride when River bounced in ten minutes late looking like James Dean in wrap-around shades (which he kept on throughout the interview) and short brown jeans that revealed several inches of his hairy ankles above side-zip leather pointy boots, and asked to use the bathroom. A few minutes later he returned, introduced himself, and plopped distractedly on to the couch next to Van Sant. My female friends lately had been salivating about what a hunk the 20-year-old had become. Frankly, I never understood what they were talking about until this afternoon.

……(The Face No 42 March 1992)


被強迫著長大，從小男孩一直到青春期，沒有平凡的同儕朋友，總是跟年長的專業演員工作，是家中經濟的唯一重要支柱。二十歲以後反而越來越像個孩子。


很喜歡音樂，想做一個民謠搖滾樂手及吉他手，並且很臭屁地說自己絕對是同齡的人中吉他彈得最好的。除了電影劇照外，最多抱著吉他照相的照片。而且跟吉他在一起時，會露出孩子氣的笑容，他真的很愛他的吉他，看起來。

RIVER PHOENIX AND I ARE GOING DOWNTOWN TO THE MUSIC store so he can buy a twelve-string guitar. On the dashboard of my rented Taurus he is demonstrating his ideas about living in the present. ”If your mind’s up here,” he says, his long fingers sliding up the blue padded dashboard, ”and you’re really down here...”-he thumps the base of the vinyl hill-”then the guy down here isn’t getting any attention.”

(《AHEAD OF THE PACK》PREMIERE April 1988 )