Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix’s Full Relationship Timeline

On Friday, February 16, Rooney Mara revealed she is expecting her second child with fiancé Joaquin Phoenix at the premiere of her new film La Cocina during the Berlinale International Film Festival. The actress was wearing a strapless black dress with a long skirt that moved in folds against her baby bump, which she posed holding on the red carpet.

The couple met in 2012, and became friends while working on the set of Her. They began dating four years later and already share one child, a son named River. Here’s the couple’s full relationship timeline so far.

2012

The couple met on the set of Her, a movie about a man who falls in love with a computer operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson. In the movie, Mara plays Phoenix’s ex-wife.

2016

The pair were reunited on screen in 2018’s Mary Magdalene, in which she played the titular role and Phoenix was cast as Jesus. The movie started filming in 2016, but its release was delayed until late 2018. However, it was good timing for them in other ways. In 2017, Phoenix told T Magazine that when they reconnected, “I was looking for something meaningful…I was looking for an experience. I was friends with Rooney.”

May 2017

A year later, Phoenix and Mara made their red carpet debut as a couple at the Cannes Film Festival on May 28, 2017. Phoenix won for best actor for his role in 2017’s You Were Never Really Here.

“They were talking to one another nonstop,” a source at the event said to People. “Small talk between them. Then they went for their car, and he’s holding her hand like it was unconscious. Like it fits. They seem a totally natural and easy couple.”

September 2017

Also in his interview with T Magazine, Phoenix revealed they were living together in the Hollywood Hills, though he did not say how long they’d been cohabitating.

May 2019

Mara was first photographed wearing an engagement ring in May of 2019, but the couple never made a comment about when they exactly became engaged.

August 2019

The pair attended the world premiere of Joker at the Venice Film Festival, arriving by boat. The movie won the festival’s biggest award, the Golden Lion, for best film.

September 2019

On September 9, 2019, Phoenix won the inaugural TIFF Tribute Actor Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. In his acceptance speech, he said to his fiancée, “I love you. Thank you.”

They also attended a premiere for Joker in Hollywood.

November 2019

In 2019, Phoenix told Vanity Fair that at first he thought Mara didn’t like him because she was shy.

“She’s the only girl I ever looked up on the internet,” he said. “We were just friends, e-mail friends. I’d never done that. Never looked up a girl online.”

January 2020

The couple walked the 2020 Golden Globes red carpet together, where Phoenix won for best performance in a motion picture drama for Joker.

February 2020

On February 9, 2020, they attended the Oscars together where Phoenix won Best Actor for his performance in Joker.

September 2020

The couple welcomed their first child, who they named River, after Phoenix’s late brother, who passed away in 1993.

May 2021

Mara spoke openly about baby River to support a cause that is dear to both her and Phoenix on Mother’s Day 2021: animal rights.

She wrote in an open letter for Farm Sanctuary’s Mother’s Day campaign, “As a new mom, Mother’s Day has taken on a special meaning this year. Raising our baby, River, has opened my heart to a whole new life filled with hope and more determination than ever to create a kinder and more sustainable world.”

She continued, “I feel so fortunate to be able to nurture my son in all of the ways that nature intended, and I wish all mothers in the animal kingdom could experience that sacred maternal bond with their young, devoid of exploitation by humans.”

Mara concluded, “As I celebrate my first Mother’s Day, I hope you will join me in honoring all of the inspiring moms and maternal figures who’ve made a difference in your life. With love, Rooney Mara.”

October 2022

In October 2022, it was announced that Mara and Phoenix would return to the screen together for Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Island.

December 2022

On the LaunchLeft podcast, Mara shared some intimate details about parenting with Phoenix while in conversation with his sister, Rain

“It doesn’t feel like a two-actor house because I didn’t work for the first three and a half years we were together,” Mara said. “Basically since we’ve been together, I only worked one or two times and one was really small and short. It feels like a creative household, we’re constantly talking about creative things.”

October 2023

On October 13, they hosted a screening of The Smell of Money in Los Angeles, a documentary produced by Mara’s sister, Kate, about a North Carolina town in a a dispute with a pork company.

February 2023

Mara debuted her second pregnancy at the Berlinale International Film Festival.