'Stand by Me' oral history: Rob Reiner and cast on River Phoenix and how coming-of-age classic almost didn't happen - best at home skin care devices

Thirty years later, standing by me has become a play that can push the Phoenix river to power and make Rob Reina the rising director, and increase ticket sales with a negligible budget.
Four friends from a small Oregon town hiked to the countryside to find the body of a boy killed by a train, a story that is unlikely to come --of-age tale.
In Reina's sensitive hands, however, it becomes a meditation on death-a meditation that goes beyond 1950 and has universal appeal.
In other ways, it is unique to support me.
On the one hand, it matches 400 strikes in its ability to evoke complex features of young actors.
Not only is Phoenix a spiritual leader, Chris Chambers,
Star Will Wheaton is like sensitive Goldie Rachins, Jerry O'Connell is as sexy as wisecracking Vern Tessio, Corey Feldman
Grumpy Teddy Duchamp, offers a delicate portrait of the boy at the tip of adulthood.
For Reina, it's an opportunity to get out of the shadow of his father's legendary comedian Carl Reina, because he plays Michael "Meathead" Stivic at home, and position yourself as a director of depth and nuance.
When Harry Met Sally, the film started a career, and he will direct films like suffering. . .
And Princess Bride.
But even though it's now considered classic, it's hard to get into the screen by my side.
After the film's frenetic success, the film received funding outside the studio system, and after almost every Hollywood actor passed the script, the film almost derailed after the pre-shoot funding collapsed
It then had to try to find distribution channels.
To mark the 30 th anniversary of the film, Variety spoke to the cast and creative team behind the film. Bruce A.
Producer and co-producer Evans
Writer: every studio in town turned us down.
The consensus is that no one will be on a 12-
A one-year-old boy on a railway track.
It was very dark. there was no girl in it and no one knew how to sell it.
Of course, what attracts us is that this is an upcoming-of-
No girl's age story, no rubber, no first kiss, etc.
It's about the children realizing their death.
Raynold Gideon, producer and partner
We finally went to the embassy.
The embassy was the last stop in front of the desert.
Nothing after that.
Director Rob Reina: Adrian Lane was involved in this initially, he just finished 9 weeks and he was really exhausted.
They sent me the script and I think there are a lot of great characters here, good conversations, but no focus.
For the next four days I rode around Los Angeles trying to figure out how to make it work.
Trying to figure this out gives me a headache.
Producer Andrew sheynman: The big turning point is to realize that the focus on the script needs to be placed on Gordon, not on Chris.
It's a story where a little child feels like he's not appreciated by his father, and then he realizes it's a problem with his father, not with him.
Reiner: in the original version, Gordie was just one of the four characters.
He's an observer.
He is not the main focus.
Then I think this is about a child who is insecure about himself.
He drove to see the body because he had never cried at his brother's funeral, and his father always paid more attention to his dead brother.
Evans: We resisted at first, and then we saw where he was going.
Rob did a good job.
Perhaps it was part of his character and grew up with a very famous father.
Gordie Lachance: it feels like the audition process is going on forever.
They found a dozen potential actors and mixed us up.
I was taken to an actor coach a few years ago and I remember asking what you would do if you couldn't cry in a movie, he said, they put lemon juice or onions in your eyes.
This is a terrible answer.
Really scared me.
I remember saying in an interview, 'I don't feel well crying in a movie.
Then I walked out of the room and one of the writers, Ray Gidean, said: "You have to go and tell the director that you are joking because it is an important part of the role.
I almost lost the role because of the bad acting coach.
We see a lot of people.
I can't remember.
Most of the time, I remember when he came in and read for Chris Chambers, I was incredibly moved by the river.
Jerry O'Connell (Vern Tessio): I practiced with my mom and dad and they said, "you're going to meet with everyone at home.
I thought I was going to meet Carol O'Connor.
Jerry is amazing. it's natural.
He came in and said, 'Hey, you're the guy on Channel 5.
That's all they show in the home replay.
Evans: The hardest part is Corey Feldman.
We can't find someone so angry.
River was so nice. We wanted to transfer him to that place at one point.
Corey Feldman (Teddy Duchamp): When I did, Rob was impressed with the reality of my delivery.
I have no problem going to emotional places.
My life is so chaotic and chaotic.
I don't have the best family life.
I have never had a normal life.
I have realized this since I was very young.
I remember when I was 7, when I came home from school, I was thinking, will I be abused today? Will I be defeated today? Most children don't have to think about this kind of thing.
They don't think they will be hit by their parents for not doing well enough at school, which will prevent them from getting a work permit, which will prevent them from becoming actors.
Reina: It's tricky to find the narrator.
There was a man named David dux who did a great job, but his voice was not what I wanted.
It has no correct tone.
So I tried other actors, my friends.
Ted Bessell of that girl came in, Michael McKean came in, but their voice was never right.
Then I thought of Rick Dreyfuss.
He said, 'Why don't I shoot it directly?
I don't need just a voice.
I will be the last person.
I really don't remember. "Richard dreyforth (older Gordon, narrator ).
30 years ago, if you asked me yesterday if I made voiceover, I would say "yes ".
If I were to show up, I would say, I don't think so.
Wheaton: Our goal is to get us out of our way so we can relax.
You never knew there were children.
They have no craft.
Sometimes they have a lot of intuition, but they have no craft.
Rob was great with the kids.
He's like the fifth boy standing next to me.
We didn't say a word two weeks ago.
We did not rehearse.
He locked us in a room and we just played games and went out to play and we became friends.
Reina: Two weeks later, when we started shooting, they were already fine. oiled machine.
There's a scene in it that doesn't look like anything because you're just watching a movie and you don't know what it has to do with it.
"Teddy is going crazy, he yelled at the trash man," My father attacked the beach in Normandy.
"They're leaving. it's four shots.
No cuts until the end.
If you look at the way they talk to each other, they will find their own clues at the right time.
The rhythm is just right.
With a little pause, Vern started singing "guns will travel ".
"It's like the timing of comedy.
Professionals who know when to come in.
We did it once.
Wheaton: The four of us are very much like the characters we play.
I'm a strange child.
I am very shy, I am very sensitive, I am really embarrassed.
It's really easy for me to cry.
They chose me.
Corey was so picky about me that it was cruel.
I remember River telling him to stop and I remember Rob or one of the producers telling him not to bother me anymore.
I don't feel at all about Corey.
We are not very close, but I don't hate him or want him to get sick.
He has a real f--
He suffered a lot from his childhood. As a 44-
I can see that he is a young father and he is very painful and there is no way to deal with it.
Feldman: Will is protected by his parents.
When I ran around the hotel with River and left it to our own equipment, Wil and his parents were locked together.
O'Connell: One of my best childhood memories was in the House of the Phoenix River in July 4.
We bought a car of fireworks because you can get it legally in Oregon.
We lit them all night and we all slept.
Standing beside me has never walked out of the station.
A few days before filming began, embassy owners Jerry perancio and Norman Lear sold the company to Colombia.
The studio was owned by Coca.
Coca-Cola and the company's executives are not interested in the upcoming --of-
There is no age story of major stars and questionable business prospects.
Lear and Reina work together in the family that Lear created.
Dean: We got the news three days before we shot and shut them off. Come home.
We were in Oregon.
All the actors and staff are there and we have built anything we need.
They decided they didn't want the picture.
So we have nothing.
The whole budget is $7. 5 million. It was nerve-
Because we have gathered all these people here, and we have nothing.
We have no funds.
[Disney film director] Alan Horn is the chief financial officer of the embassy.
He said: "You don't have a distribution channel, Norman, God.
You don't have a video deal.
You have nothing.
You were completely exposed.
Economically, it's a garbage shoot.
'I like the script,' said Norman. I like Rob.
I like boys.
He took out seven million dollars from his pocket and made the film for us.
With the avoidance of a financial disaster, Reina and the company began to record the boy's journey through rural Oregon.
There will be action sequences, especially a large train that rushes down when four friends cross a narrow bridge,
Scenes, such as a sequence, find teenagers peel off and pull out le honeycomb from private areas after wading through the swamp.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for Reina is to have his young actor open up at a critical moment.
One difficult scenario is that Phoenix discussed his family's bad reputation in town and eventually collapsed, while telling Wheaton that it was punished for trying to return the stolen milk money.
Reina: River did [Milk Money scene] several times and it didn't have that kind of emotion for it.
I just pulled him aside and said, "you don't have to tell me what it is, but think of an adult, someone who is important to you, and let you down, you don't think they're by your side.
The next one is the one in the movie.
I never knew what he thought.
I think it's his father or his mother, but I don't know.
He never said anything to me.
O'Connell: On the first day of the set, I was there, and it was the scene of a fight between Corey Feldman and the people at the dump.
We're standing there. Corey's going to attack him.
I don't know what it was called at the time, but we were doing master, big team shots, Rob Reiner called me, "cut" and he came up to me.
He said, "What are you doing ? " I said, "nothing.
I did nothing in this scene.
I have no lines.
He said, if your friend fights, I don't care if you have any lines, what would you do? You are as part of the scene as all the people who are talking.
You have to listen and I want to see how you understand it as your character.
Feldman: the dump scene is my big scene and it's cut off what it was supposed to be like.
I was frustrated because I thought I would show off my acting skills, but I didn't feel safe because I never did a real tear in front of the camera.
I 've been thinking, I don't think I'm successful. how can you make yourself cry?
I finally pretended to pass it.
Reina: I lost it one time.
It is an act for me to do so.
The scene where they were running on the trestle, the train came.
The fact is that the boys and the train are never on the trestle at the same time.
I used such a long shot, so the boys had jumped off the train track before the train entered the trestle.
They are not afraid of being so far away from them.
We have some people, the weather is very hot, there are 90 degrees, these people push the car to the runway and run with these boys, they should be hysterical, just cry and panic.
We did it many times, but they never cheered up.
At the end of the day, I started screaming, "these guys, the crew, are exhausted because you 've been messing around and I'll kill you if you're not worried that the train will kill you.
They started crying, we started rolling, and then they ran off the runway and hugged me and said, we did. We did it Rob.
Feldman: For the scene of le honeycomb, they said, we have a clean lake in the middle of the forest.
It's all we do, it's all movie stuff, movie water, movie dirt.
We dug a hole, wrapped it in plastic and filled it with fresh water.
What they didn't realize was that they built this at the beginning of the shoot, and when we really got to that scene, six weeks later, they found it.
As for all the bugs, the leaves and the racoons, they are all there, and it is no longer artificial.
Nature is natural.
Wheaton: it's cold and disgusting. I'm dizzy.
There was a water slide in this mall, and on the day we shot le honeycomb, we went to play with the water slide as usual and they didn't let us in because they thought we had open damage to our skin.
Feldman: you see a group of young boys running around in their underwear, reaching out to get their pants and pulling things off their testicles.
This is something advanced, a little gay.
This is a sensitive thing.
I don't know if they will get away with it in the cinema today.
Reina: In the book, when they have faces --
Finally, they stared at the big boys who wanted to get their bodies back, and Chris Chambers picked up the gun.
When we went through it, Andy Sherman said, 'If Goldie picks up the gun, 'it's consistent with Goldie's journey.
When we showed it for Stephen King
"When you asked Gordon to pick up the gun, I thought, why didn't I do that ? " Did Chris die as an adult?
I think this is one of the ways Rob has improved on this story.
You don't know this until the end, it breaks your heart.
After filming in the summer of 1985, Reina and producers faced another hurdle.
The sale of the embassy left them with no dealer to support me.
We sent it to every studio.
Everyone refused.
Everyone passed.
Paramount pass
Frank Price, GM's head, went half way. Warner Bros.
It feels like this is not their movie.
Guy McElwaine told [CAA] founder Mike Ovitz that he was helping us at the time and I passed.
"Why should I change my mind ? " Mike said, "Look, I got you the job.
You're on the street again.
I think you should watch the movie.
Reina: the last place we went was Colombia, because they had already passed it on to us.
They wouldn't want it, we thought, but it was a new studio leader who came in.
He was not part of the original decision.
He showed the film for some friends at home and he cried when he saw it.
'I just want this picture,' he said.
I don't know if it will make money.
Evans: What happened was that melvaine didn't feel very good, so he showed the film at home.
He brought all the marketers and executives, but the key audience was his two daughters.
They fell in love with the Phoenix River about halfway.
This is the only way we can get distribution.
Otherwise, we will open on Vista here and the movie will disappear in a week.
Reina: this is the first time I have done anything closely related to my own personality.
It has some melancholy and some humor.
I think if people don't like it, they won't like what I like to do.
Feldman: I remember talking to Michael Jackson at some point.
Right after we got home.
He sent me a message saying, "Hey, I just watched your movie. Great work.
They asked if they could use one of my songs in the movie or he would write an original song for it and at about that time they decided to take one with them50s soundtrack.
O'Connell: they don't have the premiere of this movie or any other movie.
My grandparents and I watched a noon show on Fifth Avenue.
This is an empty house.
The lady who sold the tickets said, 'isn't it you in the movie? "My grandfather said," We are all there.
We're here to shoot.
She brought us back to the window and said, "the movie star doesn't pay.
She also paid the money back to my grandfather and grandmother.
I am in a movie that is about to become a classic, and my grandfather will tell people how the lady at the cinema gave us our money back.
Scheinman: it goes to $3 or $5 million and does the same thing week after week.
It's nearby.
Wheaton: one of the things I didn't have ready was to go home with my family one night and there were three boxes at my doorstep filled with fan emails sent to the studio to me.
We are Princess brides in London.
We were not there when it came out.
When Rob returned to the United States, he was the director who supported me.
People treat him completely differently.
There is a new respect.
With my support, several actors lined up. Phoenix co-
Starring Harrison Ford on the Mosquito Coast, he was nominated for an Oscar for the run.
Before writing, Whitton became an actor for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Feldman scored with the lost boy, but his career was threatened by fighting addiction.
He's clean and sober.
Recently released a new album, the heart of Angel 2, to become a musician.
O'Connell, who attended New York University, then played an important role in Scream 2 and through Jordan.
He recently starred in the billionaire.
Even though Phoenix appeared to me in the highest image, it gave up the clean-
As a child of hippie's parents, he has always maintained a living image.
In 1993, he fainted outside VIP Room, a famous club in Hollywood, and died of a drug overdose.
He is 23 years old.
Gidean: when we shoot around me, River won't drink any chlorine water.
He must be so natural and pure.
What exactly happened to Reina: I was in touch with River.
I have seen him several times.
He's already on drugs.
I remember he came to see me at a hotel somewhere, he was very tall, I think Aiyi, what the hell is going on with this kid: I was mad at him for a long time.
He will be the protagonist of Tom Hanks's career.
He will become a movie star for $20 million.
I was angry because I worked hard and didn't even reach the level of opportunity he had, I was angry that he wouldn't use it, and then I was really angry that no one around me saved him.
I have lived in this industry, especially around young people, with a group of f--
A parasite around a person who will get them close.
These people should help that person, don't let them in f--ing Viper Room.
But they don't want the ship to shake.
They want to get as much as they can from it.
Because when a person is sick and you tell them to ask for help, you are eliminated.
I don't know who was next to him at the time, but I hope it will wake them up.
Feldman: I got into trouble and went to the rehab center.
I was told after I came out that River had a serious drug problem and a risk of losing something.
A told me. D.
I am making a movie.
She just did my own private Idaho with River and said he was not in good shape.
I reached out to help him because I was stronger at 12-step program.
We did talk on the phone several times.
I spoke to him for the first time and he didn't believe it was me.
He sounded very unhappy.
I said, I heard you have a problem, I have already experienced it and I want to help.
He was the only one to speak when I was arrested.
He said to People magazine, "You know Corey is a very good person.
No one wants to see him go to jail for personal problems.
I want to be rewarded.
The plan is for us to get together in Los Angeles. A.
When I was shooting back from my location.
He died about three months after I came back.
There are some actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman.
When Philip died, we were sad not only that he died, but that he had taken a well-known future from us.
We know he will have many wonderful performances.
Left a big hole.
So is the Phoenix River.
There is no doubt that he was the best of the group of actors who showed up at the time.
Movie stars are more than acting.
It's not just your ability to move the audience.
This is a combination of many things. And he had it.
He died so young. it was a theft. A real robbery.
In its 30 years of opening, standing by me continues to enjoy the reputation of a carefully crafted portrait of a difficult transition from childhood to adulthood.
Actors and Reiner say that people approach them almost every day, talking about the impact of the film on their lives and their love for the characters in the film.
O'Connell: I married Rebecca romien, a beautiful model.
She's Out of My League, out of my league, millions of times.
Three months after the date my wife was from Berkeley and I went there to meet her high school friends.
We were a little drunk and her best friend from high school said to me, you know, standing by me was Rebecca's favorite movie.
You know there are posters all over her room.
She never told me.
Feldman: it has become a classic cult.
It's been brought up all the time, "Why don't you make a sequel ? ".
Only when Rob wants to do it will it be made.
I'm not saying there should be one, but it's definitely worth it.
Dreyfuss: It's one of those movies where you get caught whenever you happen to catch it and you can't turn around and leave.
This is complicated.
How lucky I am, how wonderful it is to have this incredible movie in my work and have been there since I was a child.
Some actors will finish their entire career without a chance to play a movie like standing by me.
On the other hand, it basically turned the rest of my life into a sophomore jinx.
The longest time I really struggled with how to accept it and make it my own thing instead of feeling that this obligation and survival needs to go beyond it, to be equal to it or the best of it.
O'Connell: It's amazing to make.
Just with these guys.
This is a bond.
As the movie says, you never have friends like you did when you were 12.