“Stand by Me” cast felt instant bond reuniting as adults after 40 years with 'bittersweet sadness' over missing costar

Jillian SederholmFri, March 27, 2026 at 5:53 PM UTC

0

Jerry O'Connell, River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman in 'Stand by Me'Credit: Sony PicturesKey Points -

Stand by Me costars Wil Wheaton, Jerry O'Connell, and Corey Feldman are touring together to celebrate film's 40th anniversary.

The beloved coming-of-age film is also back in select theaters this weekend.

The stars tell EW they leaned on each other amid the shocking death of their director, Rob Reiner.

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?

Four decades after Stand by Me first hit theaters, its three surviving child stars have reunited as adults and found the message of the movie as profound as ever.

"We're three guys who share something. Each of us, there's two people in this world we can talk to about some things, and it's the three of us right here," star Wil Wheaton tells EW on a virtual call with childhood costars Jerry O'Connell and Corey Feldman, as the group embarks on a national tour to celebrate the beloved coming-of-age film's 40th anniversary (tickets available now).

"That's such a blessing all these years later to have this and to have this time together to celebrate the movie," says the actor who played 12-year-old Gordie Lachance, the film's main protagonist (played briefly as an adult by Richard Dreyfuss).

Based on a 1982 Stephen King novella, Stand by Me tells the story of four boys — Gordie, Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Feldman), and Vern (O'Connell) — who embark on an adventure in 1959 to see the body of a missing boy found dead near the train tracks, forming a tight bond along the way.

"It didn't take a minute, it didn't take an hour, it was instant," Wheaton says of the actors coming back together all these years later. "It was like we had never left. It was like we had never walked off the set."

O'Connell concurs. "I just can't believe it's 40 years," he marvels. "When we watch this movie in the theater and we're all sitting next to each other, doesn't it feel like we were just doing it yesterday, fellas?"

In addition to the reunion tour, Stand by Me returns to select theaters for one week, beginning today. The big anniversary celebration is not without some sadness coming just three months after the shocking killings of director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele. (The couple's son, Nick Reiner, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection to their deaths. He pleaded not guilty.)

"I was so grateful, and how grateful were you all, that the three of us had each other after this Rob and Michele passing?" O'Connell says to his childhood costars. "We still are in communication a lot. We didn't have to grieve alone. Thank God for you two."

Advertisement

Wheaton agrees, saying that their reunion "really softened the blow and gave me a place to land when we all found out so unexpectedly and horrifically that we had lost Rob."

Of course, this isn't the three actors' first brush with tragedy tied to their film family. Phoenix died at age 23 in 1993 of a drug overdose.

"There's that kind of bittersweet sadness for all of us that River's not here to experience all this," Feldman says. "I just wish so badly that he could be part of this. I mean, the fun that we would be having right now on these tours if it was all four of us is incalculable, literally because I couldn't even imagine how much fun we would be having if we didn't have these terrible sad points to our story. But of course, what story is rich and flavorful without those sad points, I guess."

Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Jerry O'Connell, Corey Feldman in 'Stand by Me'Credit: Sony Pictures

He points out the parallels between the fate of Phoenix's character in the movie and real life.

"The irony is still very deep in the telling of Stand by Me in which River's character, Chris, unfortunately, meets with his passing at a very young age, and we are left, the three of us, to grieve about it."

Wheaton says rewatching the movie in theaters with his costars has also allowed him to "feel closer to my memories of River" and tap right back into the boy stars' shared experience as kids.

"When we are watching this movie in a theater with an audience, and we're sitting next to each other for the first time in 40 years, we have these wonderful moments of asking, 'Do you remember blah, blah, blah about this?' or 'Wow, I had totally forgotten about that,'" Wheaton shares. "And we've had a lot of those moments and they've been really special to me."

Stand by Me returns to select theaters beginning today. Wheaton, O'Connell, and Feldman's tour has upcoming stops in Anaheim, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Indianapolis; and Chicago.

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”