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The boys of ‘Stand by Me’ remember Rob Reiner

The celebrated director was a father figure to the young cast, and was also one of the boys

By Dan Heching

(from left) Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, director Rob Reiner and Jerry O'Connell on the set of 1986's "Stand by Me." Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock

Rob Reiner once called directing “Stand by Me” the “richest experience” he had making a film, a big statement from a man who gave the world some of its most beloved movies.

The 1986 film almost didn’t get made before rocketing to cult status and helping launch the careers of its young stars, including Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell and Corey Feldman. The film also helped make a star of River Phoenix, who died at the age of 23 from an overdose in October 1993.

Phoenix’s fellow “Stand By Me” cast members are now in mourning once again, after Reiner was found dead this weekend with his wife in their Brentwood, California home. Their son, Nick Reiner, was being charged with two counts of first degree murder on Tuesday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney said at a press conference.

O’Connell told CBS Mornings on Monday that Reiner “was like a father” to him. In a passionate all-caps post on Instagram, Feldman said the same, calling Reiner a father to all on set during the summer they filmed the movie, and a “surrogate father” to him and Phoenix in particular.

“Stand by Me,” based on the Stephen King short story “The Body,” follows four young friends in a small town who venture into the wilderness to find the body of a missing boy. Their travels bring them face-to-face with the prospect of their own mortality and the realities of what it is to grow up, becoming a formative experience that brings them closer.

Reiner and much of the cast have said in the past that the four main characters – Gordie, played by Wheaton, Chris, by Phoenix, Teddy portrayed by Corey Feldman and Vern by O’Connell – were very similar to the actors who portrayed them.

Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, River Phoenix and Jerry O'Connell for "Stand By Me." Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock

“He chose me because he saw so much of Gordie in me,” Wheaton wrote in a heartfelt blog post on Monday following Reiner’s death. “Back then, I didn’t know what that meant, only that he made me feel like I was enough.”

O’Connell echoed that thought on CBS Mornings, telling a moving story from set to show how Reiner allowed him to be himself. Hyperactive as a child, O’Connell was often told by his mother to “just sit on your hands and shut up.” At one point on the set of “Stand by Me,” he was ad-libbing and getting into character during a scene before Reiner yelled “Cut,” called out his name and came over, causing O’Connell to think he had yet again spoken out of turn.

“And he goes, ‘Jerry, Keep going man. That’s what I’m talking about right there. Keep going. More,’” O’Connell remembered.

Wheaton described how Reiner made sure the young cast “got to be kids” when they weren’t shooting. In an oral history published in Variety for the film’s 30th anniversary in 2016, O’Connell even called Reiner “the fifth boy in ‘Stand by Me.’”

Reiner talked at length in that history about the work he did to get the best out of his young actors, calling kids people who can have “great instincts” but who as yet have “no craft.”

Recalling one of the movie’s pivotal scenes, when Phoenix must break down while talking about stealing milk money, Reiner explained what he did to help the young actor access his emotion. “I just took him aside and said, ‘you don’t have to tell me what it is, but think about a time that an adult, somebody important to you, let you down and you felt like they weren’t there for you,’” Reiner said. “The next take is the one that’s in the movie.”

Speaking to People earlier this month in a piece about the film before Reiner was killed, Feldman said the director helped him as an actor with his first experience developing a character, since much of the work he’d done up to that point was just him “being a kid.”

“It was such a treat and such a pleasure to have Rob there as the director and acting coach, who really worked with us on developing these skills that most 13, 14-year-old boys wouldn’t even be thinking about,” he said.

In an essay in the New York Times on Tuesday, King wrote about his relationship with Reiner, and how he reacted after watching “Stand by Me,” based on “the only nakedly autobiographical story” he’d ever written. He said he was moved to hug Reiner after the movie was over, and after stepping away into the men’s room to get himself “under control,” he came back and Reiner asked if he had any notes.

“I had none. I had just let the whole thing wash over me. I marveled at what a good story the truth could make in the right hands.”

“In Rob’s hands, it all rang true,” King wrote in reference to Reiner, who also directed the Oscar-winning adaptation of his novel “Misery” starring Kathy Bates. “The funny parts were really funny (including the barf-o-rama) and the dramatic parts hit me where I lived.”

“Stand by Me,” in turn, meant a great deal to Reiner. “It was the first time that I did anything that was closely connected to my own personality,” he told Variety in 2016. “It had some melancholy in it and also had some humor in it. It was more reflective, and I thought, if people don’t like this, they’re not going to like what I like to do.”

(from left) Jerry O'Connell, Richard Dreyfuss, Corey Feldman, director of "Stand By Me' Rob Reiner and Will Wheaton attend the 25th Anniversary of "Stand By Me' at the Falcon Theater. John M. Heller/Getty Images

“Stand by Me” will mark its 40th anniversary next year, and in his post this week, Wheaton wrote how as a result, “ironically, tragically,” Reiner was already on his mind in the weeks before his death.

Speaking of Feldman and O’Connell, he described recently spending “entire days together in a tour bus, catching up on 40 years of life and work, and fondly remembering that one magical summer we spent together, that will tie us to each other for the rest of our lives.”

“We talked extensively about how much we all loved Rob, and how much he loved us,” Wheaton wrote. “The world knows Rob as a generational talent, a storyteller and humanitarian activist who made a difference with his art, his voice, and his influence. I knew that man, but I also knew a knew a man who treated me with more kindness, care, and love than my own father ever did. And it is the loss of that man that is piercing my heart right now.”