I stood in the lobby of the Falcon Theater in Toluca Lake, and looked at Twitter while I waited for the rest of the guys to arrive. The walls were covered with posters from productions like CHiPs: The Musical and It's A Stevie Wonderful Life. Being in a theater during the day, when it's just a building with a stage, instead of the performance space it becomes when an audience fills the seats makes me feel like I'm getting to see The Haunted Mansion with all the lights on, like I'm in a secret place that few people get to see, and I felt an almost imperceptible longing to perform in a play tug gently but insistently at that thing in my being that makes me an actor.
Someone came over and started talking to me. I made polite conversation, but I don't remember what or who we talked about. This was an emotional day for me (though I didn’t know precisely how emotional it would be until later), and while I didn’t want to be rude, I wasn’t in a particularly chatty mood. It was the first time Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell and I would be in the same place since 1986 or 1987. We were technically there to give some interviews to promote Stand By Me’s blu-ray release, but — for me at least — it was much more than that. It was a reunion.
We made Stand By Me twenty-five years ago. To commemorate the anniversary, a special blu-ray disc has been produced. Among the obligatory special features is a feature-length commentary that Rob Reiner, Corey, and I did together while watching the movie a couple months ago. On that day, I was apprehensive: what would they think of me? Would our memories match up? Would the commentary be entertaining and informative? …who would be the first to talk about River, and how would we all react to it?
It turns out that I had nothing to worry about then. It was a joy to watch the movie with them, and I was especially happy to discover that, after a very troubled life, Corey seems to be doing really well. Rob made me feel like he was a proud father and we were his kids, and when we talked about River, it was … well, private. I’ll leave it at that.
So as I stood there in the lobby, waiting for a familiar face to come through the door, I was happy and looking forward to our reunion without nervousness or apprehension. This stood in marked contrast to all the times I reunited with my friends from TNG when I was younger (my problem, not theirs), and I was grateful for that.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and an incredibly tall, handsome, well-dressed man walked through it.
“Holy crap,” I thought, “Jerry grew up.”
It was such a stupid thought, but there it was. I see Jerry on television all the time, and I knew that he was tall and handsome and only two years younger than me, but I had that strange disconnect in my mind that can only come from not seeing someone for about twenty years and I simultaneously did and did not recognize him.
I was standing near some food on a table, and Jerry walked up to grab a sandwich. As he reached toward the table, we made eye contact.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi, I’m Jerry,” he said, with a friendly smile.
“I’m Wil,” I said, “We worked on this movie together twenty-five years ago.”
In a few seconds that seemed to go on for minutes, I saw him look at me in disbelief, surprise, recognition, and joy. He flashed a smile that lit up the room and wrapped me in a hug.
“Oh my God, dude,” he said, “I can’t believe it’s … wow! You’re — I — Jesus, look at you!”
I smiled back, and strangely noted that my son is taller than him. “Look at you!” I said.
We talked as much as we could, trying to compress two decades into ten minutes, before he had to go to the make-up chair. As he walked away, my brain tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You know, he’s married to Rebecca Romijn. When he’s talking about his wife, that’s who he means.” “I know, brain. I know,” I thought back, “don’t be weird. Be cool, man.” A moment later, Richard Dreyfuss walked into the lobby, followed fairly quickly by Rob and then Corey.
Before I had time to do more than Twitter about how surreal it felt to see them all, we were all gathered together and directed from the lobby into the theater for our first interview. On the way in, I said to Corey, “I feel like there are all these famous, successful people here … and me.”
He laughed and said, “I was thinking exactly the same thing!”
Before I could make a witty zinger, he clarified, “about myself, I mean. Famous people and me, not, like, famous people and you.”
I laughed. “I knew what you meant, man,” I said.
It was the kind of friendly, enjoyable, effortless conversation we couldn’t have when we were younger, and I was glad for it.
There were five chairs set up for us in a semi circle. Our names were on pieces of paper so we knew where to sit. I was between Rob and Corey, and Jerry and Richard sat to Corey’s left. When we all sat down, Rob looked down the row of seats and softly said to me, “it feels like there should be an empty seat here for River.”
People ask me about River all the time. He and I were close during filming, and for about a year or so after filming, but the sad truth is that he got sucked into a lifestyle that I just don’t have room in my life for, and we drifted apart. When he died, I was shocked and horrified, but I wasn’t completely surprised. I didn’t feel a real sense of loss at the time — the River I knew and loved had been gone for a long time at that point — but I felt sad for his family, and angry at the people around him who didn’t do more to help him help himself. Since he died, when I've talked about him, I've felt like I’m talking about the idea of him, instead of the person I knew, if that makes sense.
But when Rob said that to me, with such sadness in his eyes, it was like I’d been punched in the stomach by eighteen years of suppressed grief. I knew that if I tried to say anything, all I would do was cry, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop. I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and nodded. “Yeah,” I whispered.
Later that day, when I’d had time to think about it and was recounting the whole thing to my wife, Anne, I said, “I think that having all of us together — the surviving members of the cast — made me feel like he really wasn’t there for the first time since he died. I don’t mean to be callous or anything like that, but that’s what it took to make his death and his absence a real thing that I could feel, instead of an event that I wasn’t part of but am forced to talk about more often than I’d like.”
I spent much of the next few days remembering all the things we did together during production, thinking about how much I looked up to him and how much I loved his entire family. I don’t know what would have happened to us if he hadn’t overdosed, if he ever would have come back from the edge, or if we would even have had anything in common … but when he was fifteen and I was thirteen, he was my friend. That’s the person I knew, and that’s the person I miss.
We talked about River in the interview, of course, and I think Richard put it best when he said that there is this monster in Hollywood that everyone knows about. It lurks just out of view, and occasionally it reaches up and snatches someone … and it got River.
Richard also talked about why we are actors, and what it means to him to be creative. It was so poetic and inspiring, that almost imperceptible longing to perform in a play I felt in the lobby turned into an overwhelming compulsion. Distracted by the responsibilities of every day life, it’s easy for me to forget why I love and need to perform. It’s easy to forget how satisfying it is to create a character, to discover something magnificent in a script or a scene, and then bring those things to life with other actors in front of an audience.
The entire interview lasted for close to an hour, I guess, and will be edited down to something between three and six minutes. I hope that the producers will cut together something longer, or even run the entire thing online somewhere, because it was one of the rare conversations that I think a lot of people, especially artists, would enjoy listening to.
When all of our interviews were done, I asked Jerry if he’d like to get together when he was on hiatus to have a proper conversation and really catch up on stuff. He said he’d like that, so we traded e-mail addresses. I didn’t expect him to actually want to see me once the glow of seeing each other for the first time in two decades faded, but we’re actually planning it, which delights me. Rob hugged me and made me feel like he was proud of me, and Richard blew me away with the work he’s doing for The Dreyfuss Initiative.
As I drove home from the theater I was overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. It was wonderful to see those guys again, and especially to reconnect with Jerry, but it was also tremendously sad to truly feel River’s loss for the first time. That turbulent mix of joy and sorrow stayed with me for several days, which is why I haven’t been able to write about it for almost a week.
Most actors will go their entire careers without doing a movie like Stand By Me, or working with a director like Rob Reiner. I got to do both when I was 12. For a long, long time, I felt like I needed to top or equal that, and it wasn’t until I was in my early 30s that I accepted that it’s unlikely to happen — movies like Stand By Me come along once in a generation.
But getting to spend a few hours remembering the experience with Rob, Jerry, Corey and Richard, free of the burden to prove to them that I was worthy of Stand By Me’s legacy, was something I will cherish for years. I just wish that River was here to enjoy it with us.
It’s terribly sad and tragic to lose someone to the monster. But it’s reaffirming to know that life can produce someone as talented and yet down-to-earth as you.
Thank you for sharing this experience.
Wil – this is by far my favorite blog post you’ve done. It was very personal, and must have been very difficult to write. Thanks for sharing.
:’)
I read your blog but this is my first comment. I was 10 when Stand By Me came out and it remains one of the few movies that can actually make me cry. All of this is irrelevant to my point which is this: what a beautiful post.
I love Richard Dreyfus, but wouldn’t it be fun to have you play the adult-Gordie and edit you into his role for the 25 year Bluray?
Thanks for posting this, Wil. You have a gift for conveying emotion that by being understated, is stated perfectly.
Thank you for writing that. I’m sure it was difficult.
That was hauntingly beautiful. Thank you for this insight.
Stand by Me was and always will be the best Stephen King adaptation for me. Not even the ones for which King wrote or helped write the script came close.
I actually choked up when I read your tweet last week. Stand By Me was a Very Big Deal to me when I was a kid, and River was definitely one of my “heroes” back then.
I’m not feeling terribly eloquent right now, but this was a beautiful post Wil… thank you so much for sharing.
Thanks for sharing something this personal and honest. it was fascinating, and I hope you come to a feeling of peace with your thoughts of River.
You’re only a few years older than me, so I’ve had the pleasure (and shared the Wesley pain) to watch you grow and become such an amazingly witty, intelligently gifted man. I realize this might be a bit gauche to say as I’ve followed you on twitter and have delighted ever anti-Sheldon escapade you have on BBT, but I seriously have to say it: Thank You. You are, at least at virtual arm’s length (don’t worry, I’m in Canada, so don’t think I’m stealing your banana peels or things LOL) a very interesting, fun, cool geek. Someone that us geek girls don’t get a chance to see be our ambassador very often in such a “I grew up with him” kind of way. Thank you for sharing that incredibly poignant and touching story with us. And why wouldn’t Rob Reiner be proud of you?? LOL
As someone who is haunted by the idea of several people, thank you for sharing this.
Thank you> 🙂
I thought about Stand By Me the morning of your tweet. Out of nowhere, Richard Dreyfus’s voice was in my head – as happens so often – talking about how he never had friends like the ones he had when he was young. That led to the small sadness that always comes when I remember that River died.
Thanks for sharing.
I hope it’s cool with you that I read this whole piece with Dreyfuss’ voice in my head.
a precious experience and memory.
thank you for sharing.
Man, I love and hate it when you write and it breaks my freakin’ heart a little.
Wow…
It’s easy to forget that famous people are real people. Thank you Wil, for sharing your perspective –and for doing so with such beautiful & honest clarity.
Wil,
Just wanted to say thanks for being real and heartfelt regarding that previously uncatalogued moment from your past, River, seeing Corey, Jerry and Rob again and being completely honest about it without being jaded.
Time has a way of mangling things, or creating unnecessary levels of drywall over feelings and emotions. However, judging from what you wrote, it didn’t. That’s not an easy thing to do.
I watch that film probably once a year, for my own reasons, and I look forward to the Blu-ray release and hearing everyone’s commentary.
Time flies for most of us, but yet stands still for others and sometimes for far too long.
All the best …
Steffan
“I had that strange disconnect in my mind that can only come from not seeing someone for about twenty years and I simultaneously did and did not recognize him.”
that hit home. just last week i ran into my best friend from childhood for the first time in almost 30 years. i told her how wonderful it was to see her, but how strange because in my head she was still 10. we had about 15 minutes before she had to leave.
Thank you for writing this Wil. I know it’s not easy to convey how you feel about something that is so personal. It made me tear up. But also feel so thankful that you have gone on to have a healthy career that has given so many people joy.
Just recently in the middle of the night I was standing on the sidewalk where River died with a friend of mine who is a famous rockstar whose battled drug addiction his whole adult life. We had this strange moment of realizing where we were about the same time and we began to hug. I got a little choked up thinking about how sad it was when River died, but it really hit home when I was hugging my friend and realized if I lost him that way it would just crush part of my heart. It went from the death of a part of my childhood to really thinking about how his death affected the people that really knew and loved him. He became more then just a name to me. I had always admired him as an actor, but in that moment I felt so much for him as a person.
This thought has crossed my mind. I think it could be a pretty amusing fan edit if I did it, yeah.
I happened to be on Twitter the day of the reunion and followed your tweets during this experience. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings with us all. I’m typing now with tears in my eyes and thinking, “What a lovely man.” Thanks for that too.
Will, I would really like to see a BLOG about how you reallytruly felt in the past and in the present regarding the TNG cast… did your nerves differ depending on WHAT cast member it was you would be with? Same for all? I think it would be an informative blog yet personal I know.
I dont read every blog, but usually when I do I enjoy them.
Amazing post. I shivered a little at Richard’s description of the monster. It make me think of Pennywise, given the Stephen King connection.
Thank you for sharing this, Wil. I’m in tears, unsure what to say. I think I can relate in some ways. I’ve had one death that I’ve yet to fully deal with. I also feel terrible now for bringing up River during our interview. Maybe that is just silly for me but had I known this, I wouldn’t have brought it up.
I think this took guts to share. Thank you, again, for sharing it.
I was wondering how this all went. Stand By Me isn’t just a movie, for me. It’s part of my DNA. I can pretty much recite the whole thing verbatim, which is probably a bit scary to someone who was in it. 🙂 It’s the reason why my best friend and I are friends – both outcasts, we bonded over the love of this movie and have been inseparable ever since. Even now, we speak in movie quotes as kind of a shorthand for things. Sometimes when I write about my childhood, Richard Dreyfuss is the voice I hear in my head. It’s so weird, but it’s right, you know?
As for River, we mourn what he could have been while we struggle to remember what he was. So much promise, silenced too soon, his passing was a tragedy in so many ways. The best we can do is mean it when we say “never again.”
So much minus-3 to you, Wil. 🙂 I hope you and Jerry have a great time hanging out.
Wil great post, its always refreshing to get a real perspective combined with the way you write. That movie was awesome and emotional too. Sometimes its good to go back and relive those times no matter how emotional we get. Great work man!
I always enjoy your writing, though I must say this particular piece was incredibly poignant. Reading about the moment you accepted that River is gone on such a deep, core level touched me-only those of us who have experienced the loss of someone who has impacted our lives in a profound way can truly comprehend that sense of a void within the Universe that hadn’t been there before. We all experience that moment, to varying degrees.
Stand By Me was an important part of my childhood and upbringing, as I am of the generation in which that movie was originally released. It was one of the few movies of the time that portrayed the emotional turmoil of that age in such an honest way. Thank you for your part in conveying that.
Many blessings to you.
Stand By Me is my favorite movie. I remember everything leading up to the movie’s release, the cast interviews, the extended trailers, things that were so rare back the 80s. It was special to me because the actors were my age, so I could relate to them both as a child actor and as a young teenager. I grew up doing theater so the fact that these guys were all film actors made me admire them that much more. Some people find their childhood hero in a fireman, policeman, teacher, or racecar driver. My childhood heroes were Wil, River, Corey, and Jerry. Even after all of this time, I still miss River and wonder what could have been. Even though we’ll never have the chance to meet him, Wil has given us the gift of knowing him through his own personal memories. This is such a precious gift and I am so thankful he choose to share it with his fans. Thank you, Wil, from the bottom of my heart. You have grown into such an amazing man, you will always be a hero to me.
Well hell, … damn it Wil, you had to do it didn’t you? I’m on my fourth tissue and can’t breathe. Thanks a lot!
I jest but I am profoundly saddened when I think of River and a few others who suffered similar fates. When I was a teenager (I’m your age btw) I was over the moon for River and followed his career eagerly. I guess when he died it was like a piece of my youth died with him.
So thanks.. for sharing the River you knew and loved and for the good cry. I guess I needed that today.
Please let us know if they put the whole thing up somewhere, won’t you? That was lovely, Wil.
That is too funny because I did the exact same thing. I was reading it out loud as if I was Dreyfuss.
Memories, meeting and missing. What a great reunion story.
What a heartfelt and honest post! Thank you for sharing such a personal experience. (I was in tears myself, so I can only imagine how difficult it was for you to write and share.) That’s something I’ve enjoyed about reading your blog, your genuine and down-to-earth approach to things (mixed with your nerdiness and silliness). I hope they do make the entire interview available at some point because I think that’s something people need to see. Performers and creators being themselves and expressing their thoughts on their craft and how it effects them.
Those memories that get boxed up and thrown in the corner of the brain can be unbelievably fresh when the box is opened back up. I’m sorry for your loss.
Just reading this made me cry, and I am a big sweaty mens with no connection to you or any of the others who were in this move exept that it was and is still one of my favorite movies ever. Once again, Wil, you’ve managed to nail the emotion of the thing for the rest of us. Thank you!
This is a really moving post, Wil. Thank you for sharing.
Cheers.
This was such an emotional post, I pretty much cried the whole time while reading this. I grew up watching Stand By Me all the time. That was and will always be my favorite movie ever. I felt like I grew up with y’all and when River died I felt like my best friend died. Thank you so much for continuing to grow with your fans and letting us be a part of your life.
Great story. I can only imagine what it’s like to reunite with people and not have the one person be absent, not only then but for eternity. Still, setting up the opportunity to catch up with Jerry O’Connell is a bit of a silver lining.
On another note, I totally get what you mean by that niggling itch that you need to scratch as a performer. It’s partially what brought me to community theatre last year.
thank you alot for this Wil, puts friendship into perspective, as does stand by me. This film will always be with me, and will be one of the first films I will show my children (with editing of the finding of the body and smoking of cource!). It taught me alot about life, in a way I never thought film or books ever could, so thank you!
‘I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anybody?’
RIP river
On Sunday, March 13, I sat down with my teenage kids and watched Stand By Me. After just seeing all of you as boys in the film, I got a lump in my throat when I read your March 16th Tweet. Thanks for sharing your story, I can only imagine the swirl of emotions you experienced while writing it.
Wil – Thank you for your honesty and openness in this post. Heartfelt and well written sir…
Me and my best friend were 16 when Stand by Me came out and we went and saw it 8 times in the theater. We just loved all of the guys, but you were our favorite. I really enjoyed reading your post about the reunion. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing. I really hope Ripley likes the movie when he is old enough to watch it. I look forward to the interviews.
Wow, thank you for sharing this. Although I realize this must have been very difficult for you to write (and perhaps because it was), this is the kind of blog/writing/post that inspires me to keep writing. I really appreciate how candid and simultaneously understated you are, giving a real and passionate voice to situations that would otherwise go undocumented and unfortunately unnoticed. Thanks again for sharing such a personal moment with all of us.
The other King adaptation I really love is The Shawshank Redemption, curiously also from Four Seasons. It’s not really a horror story, though.
Oh, wow, yeah. Thank you for this post, Wil. It’s beautiful, and yeah… I know about that monster. He hangs out around where I work, too.
…I think you got all my words.
Wil – Thanks so much for your heartfelt post. It surely must have been both difficult and liberating to share such personal feelings about not only those living members of Stand By Me, but also your feelings about (the gone far too soon) River Phoenix. It caused more than a few tears for me which just reminded me how deeply both the movie and all of you involved affected me all those years ago.
I’ve been waiting to see if you’d post about this and now I understand what took so long. River is a wonder on screen, and at a young age I was drawn to his films, especially Stand By Me. The film, and the novella have been my favorites for a huge portion of my life. My dad was friends with River but we rarely talk about him, I think the loss of him both in the profession of acting and to those whom were in his life no matter when is overwhelming.