Stand by Me Reunion: Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman & Jerry O’Connell Honor River Phoenix & Rob Reiner

The movie is called Stand By Me, and there's four of us, and we can't stand by River, because he's not here. So there is this whole bittersweet thing that comes with it, because every time we're together, I just want River to be with us so badly. And now with Rob missing, too, I'm sorry I'm going to get a little emotional, but I was so hoping that he would be able to join us for this. We had been on tour in December of last year, and we had just an incredible time. It was so special. We had so much fun. On stage was great, but there were lots of times when we were in a bus eight hours a day, and we were just talking about stuff, and hanging out, and catching up, and very much bringing right to the surface all of the most wonderful, treasured memories we all had from 1985. And we talked about Rob, and we talked about River, of course. And remember, when I talk about him, you feel it, right? When we talk about him, I remember how good it felt when he was directing us. And I was so grateful, and it is so personal, that we had essentially gotten as close to 1985 as I think I'm ever going to get in my life right before Rob was gone. And I'm so grateful that I got to be so close to the man that I knew 40 years ago, and so heartbroken that I don't get to experience that again. Like, I don't get to go sometime this year and have, with Rob, what we have together. Gordy, Teddy, and Vern, Will Wheaton, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell. The idea was, it's 40 years. What if we did a screening with a Q&A afterward? Maybe we take some pictures with some people. But ultimately, what it is really about, it's about celebrating something that is so precious to us that happens to be equally precious in a slightly different way to an uncountable number of people. And it is such a blessing, and it's such a privilege to be in the theater and celebrate this thing that we are all so proud of, that is the reason we even know each other all these years later with people who, like, really get it. Isn't it funny how we all fell into, basically, who we were when we were 11, and 12, and 13? Like, we immediately became those people. We do these things, and they're- We just start kidding around. I mean, we have so much fun together, the three of us. It's crazy. And I mean, like, when I get together with the Goonies guys, or I'm sure you guys have other film reunions, you feel that still love, you know? You feel that connection. But with the three of us, it's different because we had so much fun on that set together, you know? Yeah, I feel completely comfortable with you guys, you know? Yeah, like, really safe and really supportive, just like, you know? Yeah. The movie is called Stand By Me, and there's four of us, and we can't stand by River because he's not here. So there is this whole bittersweet thing that comes with it, because every time we're together, I just want River to be with us so badly. And now with Rob missing, too, it's, I'm sorry, I'm gonna get a little emotional, but it's like, I was so hoping that he would be able to join us for this. I was counting on it. I was, too. I just expected that we were going to be on set. He would be there, and it's just, it's really heartbreaking but bittersweet because we do love each other. We have this instant connection, and it's there. The camaraderie is there. The jokes are there. We have so much fun. But there's this, like, looming thing hanging over us, you know? You can't, for me, I can't not feel the love. Yeah. I can't not be aware of the absence of people I love. Yeah. I was so grateful immediately when the news came around. I was so grateful that we were all reconnected because we really helped each other out, especially those immediate moments when it was shocking. Well, people don't know this, but the three of us hadn't talked all together in 40 years. So, like, Jerry and I have talked. Will and I have run into each other. And then we've all gotten together for, you know, the 25th anniversary. But beyond that, the three of us hadn't been in the same room or really expressed any kind of communication with each other since. And so, because of these screenings happening at the timing that they did, we just so happened to be, like, having this text conversation, this thread that we, you know, we just chime in from time to time. We were on a bus for four days with each other. Right, but I'm saying- You and I shared a bathroom. Right. We don't tell those stories. No, but anyway. So, you know, we were on this text thread. And literally, the day, the moment that it happened, it was the first night of Hanukkah. I'm lighting my candles. I'm dealing with some personal issues at home, some very intense family issues. And then, all of a sudden, I start getting this thread of, like, hey, did you hear the news? It looks like it could be one of Rob's homes. And that's where it started. And then we're all watching the news. And as it's breaking, we're, like, giving each other these clues. And it's, like, getting worse and worse and worse. And that is so surreal that the three of us would just happen to have reconnected, that we're having this thread right before, as it turns out- And dissecting it as it happened. We're gonna, turns out that we really needed each other in those days. Like, I really needed you guys. Yeah. And that we had, just before, reforged the bonds that I feel like are gonna hold us together for the rest of our lives. It was a real blessing. It was awful, but I am so grateful. It's like a brotherhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just, I'm so grateful that we have each other. But you know what's really interesting is now, when we take this Stand By Me Live on the road, I feel like we have a duty to remind everybody who River was, who Rob was, what they meant, how much they helped us, how much they changed us, how giving they were. Well, they have to be part of it in a living body. You know, even if they can't physically be in the room, their presence will be felt. And we have to make sure of that. That's our, you know, personal obligation, our moral obligation to the moment. It's really emotional. The last time we were all together, we were at the Gary Marshall Theater when it was still called the Falcon Theater. It was the three of us and Rob and Rick Dreyfuss was there. And they put up a bunch of chairs on the stage for us and we all went out and sat up on the chairs. And Rob said, I really feel like there should be a chair here for River. And he was right. And when we started putting together Stand By Me Live, we started talking immediately. We really need, there needs to be a chair for River on the stage. And we don't need to make a big deal out of it, but we need it to be there and we need to remember him. Hey guys, I bet you anything that if we find him, we'll get our pictures in the paper. Yeah, yeah, we can even be on TV. Sure, we'll be heroes, yeah! We know how special he was, what a unique and talented actor he was. And the way that he kind of held us together in this way that I still don't understand. I think for different reasons, all of us kind of like leaned on him in different ways. You know, if you look at the similarity with the characters, me with the pain and suffering, Will with the isolation and kind of the thinker, the writer in his own head. Jerry, obnoxious, funny, hysterical. Never not funny, the funniest person in the room. Can't take a serious beat. Every time. And River was the pillar. River was the serious one. River was the one who kind of brought us all together. And that was his character. But there was that reality of each of us within our characters, which is what makes this an inseparable bond. Like the four of us were a unit that worked as a unit. And without that piece there, we're like the broken pieces that have somehow found our way to glue ourselves back together. Mom, do you know where my canteen is? Mom! I am Cordy Lachance. I was the invisible kid in my house. My dad hated me and didn't make a secret of it. I had a really hard time. I was lonely and I was sad. And I just wanted a family. I just wanted a place to fit in, right? And that's really Gordy. And I think it's why I'm good in the movie because it's just who I was. And over the years, I've met, at this point, thousands of people who have said, you know, I was Gordy. And we look at each other and we can see in one another. Oh, we all. And we usually hug. And then they tell me how it was so important to them that they felt seen, that they felt represented, and that Gordy has sort of a happy ending in this, right? Like he gets to tell the story of these guys who meant so much to him. And it is those moments where I'm reminded why I have chosen a life in the arts, why I believe art is so incredibly important. This movie, man, like it means so much to people because it tells a story that everyone can relate to in one way or another. It doesn't matter which one of us you were. You were one of us. It doesn't matter if you grew up in the woods or in the city, you snuck out and did a cool thing together. And our generation comes to see this movie now and remember those things. Kids who are the Stranger Things generation, they love the 80s, stand by me, Goonies, like such a huge part of their, that's the 80s experience. They're coming to the movie and then they're seeing, oh, I'm this guy, I'm that guy, I'm that guy. All we ever hope as artists is to create art that matters, that helps people, that challenges people. And we've done that. And like, it's incredible that we get to celebrate together one of the times we did that. It's really funny also to hear which of my friends are like really into this movie too, because when we go around from city to city doing the Stand By Me Live thing, I'll get like a random text from someone I haven't talked to in a couple of years, like, dude, I gotta come to this thing. You have no idea, I've got to come to this movie. And I think a lot of people befriend me simply because they're so into this movie and they wanna like hang, it's so funny. Maybe we gotta help you vet people. I think it's because of your wife. Exactly, probably. My children are because of this movie. Are you saying Stand By Me got you laid? Beyond that, it got me a family, like more than laid. My wife is a supermodel. Very famous actress. What we call an 11, okay? My wife, out of a crowded party, somehow picked me out and got our phone number, we started dating, more things happened. That's usually how kids come along, you know? We became very close. Every time I was intimate with my wife, in my head, I wouldn't say it out loud because that would not be cool, but in my head, I was like, I can't believe I'm with Rebecca Romijn. I can't believe, I can't believe this. Or maybe I'd have a private moment in the bathroom by myself, and I'd be like, I can't believe. And you didn't know that she was doing the same thing? Is in this other room. She's going, I can't believe I'm with Vern. I can't believe I'm with Vern. I can't believe I'm with the fat kid from Stand By Me. But anyway, a holiday came around and my wife said, would you like to come up to my house? My wife is from Northern California and meet my family. And I said, yeah, sure, I'd love that. Then I'd go in the bathroom and be like, I can't believe Rebecca Romijn is asking me to meet. I'm gonna meet the in-laws. I can't believe how well this is going. Get off the plane, meet her sister at a coffee place. Her sister's really funny and her sister sits back and it's me, Chris, younger sister, and my wife. And her younger sister goes, you know Stand By Me's her favorite movie, right? And my wife was like, shut up. She had posters of it all over her room. Like she saw it maybe a hundred times in the theater. And my wife had never, we had been dating for months at this point. It was five months and my wife had never mentioned it. I brought a comb. What do we need a comb for? Well, if we get on TV, we wanna look good, don't we? I would say being that Stand By Me being my first job, it really spoiled me, not only from like sort of a friendship-making standpoint, but also from, I mean, like talking about something 40 years later, you know? I mean, no offense to other things I've done. I'm not sure I'm gonna be doing a live tour of any of those other projects 40 years later. The movie means so much to people. And it means a lot to me because it's like such fond memories of hanging with these guys and hanging with Rob and hanging with River. It's not so much the film that's so important. It's the memories of going dune buggy riding with you, lighting fireworks with you, Will, you know? But it is such an important part of people's lives and we gotta take it on the road. We just have to. What are we gonna do? Like, we have to, you know? Thing is about the first shows, it was so funny and it was so much fun. I mean, that was some of the funniest memories of my life. But the problem is, the problem is, to me, it's really hard to kind of figure out like, how are we going to be able to keep it so whimsical when there's this heavy, heavy tone of grief and sadness around it? And we gotta think about Rob. Rob would love to laugh. I mean, are you kidding me? If we could make him laugh on set, wasn't that like the biggest? Man, if you could make Rob laugh, oh boy. If you got a laugh out of Rob off camera, that was like, that was the money right there. Something that I loved about Rob and something that was unique to Rob in my experience as a child actor, he didn't just tell us what to do. He never gave us line readings. He never had us just mimic things. No. He never once physically moved me to one place or another on the set. When he directed us, he always came to, what's going on with your character right now? What is your character feeling? How does Gordy feel about that? So what would you do? Okay, what do you think Gordy would do? Okay, why does Gordy do that? There was no wrong answer. I lived in a house where everything I said was wrong. So to be with a male authority figure, a father figure who was our captain, you know? Mentor. And our mentor, yeah. For him to choose to be a mentor, right? To choose to tell us, hey you guys, you're kids, you have a ton of experience, way more experience than any of us being on the set, but you're kids. And let me help get you to the next level. Let me show you. And I loved it. It wasn't just about directing for Rob. You know, Rob was great at directing and connecting with us and getting on our level and helping us to understand the scene or the moment. But more importantly to me was the fact that because I didn't have a father that was around, my mother was very abusive and I lived with my grandparents. So the whole idea of family was just a disconnected idea for me. All I ever wanted was to raise my own family and I'm grateful that I eventually got to. But at that time, Rob was a human kind of father figure almost. I mean, before that, Richard Donner was my father figure. And him and I became very, very close and he became kind of like a surrogate father to me. So it was almost like, you know, cheating on Dick to put this trust in Rob. But then it was like, okay, well, one of them's the uncle and one of them's the dad. I don't know, but I know that they both have equal importance in that transitional moment in my life. I mean, even after the film, I remember us talking on the phone and staying close for a while. And it was just that human connection that I got from him that he was, you know, he had those real moments with us. Something that I think is very important just to mention. Rob was safe. Yeah, we felt safe all the time. We could make mistakes and it wasn't a big deal. We could take chances. And if it didn't work, okay. He could run out of patience. And then I only felt he ran out of patience with me two times and it was super reasonable, you know? What was? And running, you and me running away from- Oh yeah, he was trying to get a performance out of us, yeah. From the train. Run! Oh, ----. We were doing the running from the train scene and I guess I wasn't bringing it and he was like- I wasn't bringing it either. Like, we were acting scared because we were very, very safe, you know? And it was, there was so much energy on the set that day. It was fun. It was exciting. It was electric, you know? But we were supposed to be scared for our lives and Rob, man, yelled at us. His face was red and just like, and we looked at each other and like, just burst into tears. I could see Rob go, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, he got such a great performance out of us, though. And that the next take is the take in the movie. And when we finished that take, we kept running. We ran to Rob, who hugged us and kissed us on our heads and told us he loved us and said that was such a great job. And I couldn't stop crying. Like, it was just so much for me. And I remember walking to Ray Gideon, one of the screenwriters, and just putting my arms around him and Ray just let me cry until I didn't need to cry anymore. A soldier of fortune is a man called Paladin. We had a couple of real fun full cast and crew outings. When I would talk about this over the years, I would always feel like, I never got to go to summer camp and this feels kind of like the closest to having fun activities, making friends. You know, at summer camp, you're building wallets. We were building a movie. But you get to work on things and make things and then create memories together. And something that I think is wonderful about Rob is that we got the work. We took the work seriously. We all knew why we were there. He really ensured that we were having fun and he made sure that there was time and space for us to also be kids. Like, just didn't take that away from us. He was a big kid. He had fun. He really was, yeah. He loved stuff, activities, going out. He was always like, he was fun. Well, he planned something, you know. He planned these adventures for us every weekend. So, you know, most movies, especially in those days, we were working six day weeks. So we would work on Saturdays and then you only had one day off. But Rob made sure that we always had weekends off. So we would work the five days and then we would have the weekend off. And on the weekend, he would plan extracurricular family type activities for us. So one weekend we went river rafting. One weekend we did dune buggies. I mean, one weekend we had a softball game. It was just always something fun. Special guy. He rented out a movie theater that was down the street from the hotel. And we all went and we watched Goonies in the movie theater. Yeah. All of us. Then we all went and we watched Explorers that River was in. So we got to see one of Cory's movies. We got to see one of River's movies. And I've always felt guilty that we never got to see Star Trek all together. It hadn't happened yet. Oh, okay. It hadn't happened. And then that was the summer that Back to the Future came out. So we all went to see Back to the Future together. I remember that. So dude, we're in a movie that's like set in 1959, right? We're like the music and the clothing and the cars and the props and the vibe. And then we go see Back to the Future. And if you're a kid in 1985, Back to the Future is the biggest thing. They were very special and it was very authentic. For an example, on Goonies, we had fun together. We did some extracurricular activities. But was Richard Donner there? No. Richard Donner had his world and his adult world. And when he went into his trailer, then we didn't bother him. You know what I mean? When he came out of his trailer, then we all bothered him. But that was kind of the chemistry of that. Like a normal set. And even though we did have this connection and we did have this bond, and he was like a dad to me, but they didn't do that. We were on three months in Astoria, Oregon, and we didn't do any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, I know. It was a special thing. But this is all Stand By Me stuff. You keep bringing up Goonies, dude. Like save that. Oh, I'm sorry. Save that for another one. I'm so sorry. Oh my God. I'm so proud of this guy. Yeah. Did you hear this? He is now narrating our movie. Will Wheaton is narrating. Stand By Me is based on a short story called The Body, written by Stephen King. Like all great movies are, short stories that are Stephen King's short stories. See Shawshank. Well, by the way, Stephen thinks this is his favorite. And he told Rob that. So the fact that he, did he ask you personally? God, I wish. No, but he did announce it. He wrote my name. I saw it on Twitter. He wrote my name on Instagram. I saw it. This guy is. I work as an audio book narrator. That's kind of like my main job these days. And I do an audio book podcast. And I love it. It's a really wonderful life. And one of the great privileges of my audio book career is that I recorded a narration of The Body. Where I'm, I get to be Gordy as an adult. Wow, man. Yeah, it was a trip. There was a moment, because you brought it up, there was a moment when I was reading, when I was narrating, the scene where we're walking on the train tracks and Teddy and Vera having the great Mighty Mouse Superman conversation. And Gordy and Chris are having a, you know, you're gonna go to college courses conversation. In the book, all the dialogue between the two of them isn't there. In the book, Teddy and Verna are not as clearly drawn as they are in the movie. They are so much more interesting in the movie. They're just like much more developed characters in the movie. So in the book, it's really just about Gordy and Chris. And in the book, Chris treats Gordy and says, Which the hell I was your dad. Just like in the movie. As I was narrating, I had a full sensory flashback, standing on the train tracks, rivers across from me, the crew is behind him. I can see the sound guy in his like short, 1985 blue corduroy shorts. And his socks up to his knees. I could see the camera. I could see the focus puller. I could hear the cicadas. I could feel the humidity in the air. All of it. And it all just crashed down on me in a matter of just a couple of seconds. I was right back there, you know? And I came out of that weird kind of thing and felt like this intense connection to the material that I think was there, but I wasn't aware of how strongly I felt it. I mean, you are the material. At the end of the day, you are. It's such a privilege and it's such a pleasure. And yeah, I'm really excited. I'm gonna listen on, I'm not gonna, a lot of times I listen to audio books like at fast speed. You're gonna listen at regular speed? I'm gonna listen at regular speed, dude. I'm gonna listen to you. Wow, I can't believe I heard regular speed. Will has always been the smartest. Corey, this is the truth. I'm not insulting anyone. But Will, when we got to set on Stand By Me, was reading the original book, The Body. He was reading it, the book. And I was like, Will, what are you doing? And he was like, I'm reading the book. And I was like, the book of what? And Will was like, this is based on a story. And I was like, okay. And Will said, hey, I'll save it for you to read afterwards. And I was like, nah, I'm not reading it. Just tell me, just give me the synopsis. I'll see the movie. Wait, did you ever read it? I've still never read it, come on, man. And I've never read it. I'll read it to you. So isn't it only official and authentic that Will would be the leader? Oh, I'm gonna listen. I love listening. And who else could do it? I'll see you, not if I see you first. The novella's very interesting. The narrator says over and over again, he's frustrated, he's trying so hard to communicate to the reader what these guys meant to him and what that time in his life meant. And what he keeps coming back to is, he says this a couple of times, the most important things to say are the hardest things to say, because the words ruin them. It has a very different tone. Stand By Me has a warmth and a nostalgia as he's so fondly remembering it, and it's so different. It's such a credit to Ray and to Bruce and to Rob to have taken something that's a beautiful, wonderful story, but is dark, and just lightening it up just a little bit, just enough to fill it out, to put archetypes in these roles so that every single person who sees this movie has something that they can connect to and something that they can relate to. That is why we're talking about this 40 years later and not a lot of the other things that we've done, except for Goonies. Ha!