Special: Stand by me | Interview Wil Wheaton (Gordie Lachance)

By Paul Russell
August 29, 2000

Wil Wheaton has been in the public eye as an actor for a great many years. Getting his big break in one of Bill Cosby’s Jell-O commercials back in 1981 the world has watched him evolve into the man he is today. Perhaps best remembered for his role as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation it was a Steven King story, several years earlier, that showed the first sign of his true potential. Stand By Me has remained an endearing, heartwarming, and touching movie for well over a decade.

Now, Columbia/Tristar has decided Stand By Me deserved a better treatment on DVD than their original 1997 release had presented. Featuring a new audio and video transfer along with a commentary and a featurette this special edition treatment couldn’t come to a better movie. I had a chance to talk with Wil about his past, present, and future. As luck would have it he’s a DVD enthusiast just like all of us. Take a look at what he had to say…

DVD Angle: It has now been 14 years since Stand By Me. When you were cast, being the young lad that you were, what was it like to be the center of attention on a big-budget movie?

Wil: That’s interesting. I never really considered myself to be the center of attention, I never felt like I was. Looking back on the making of the movie and especially after listening to Rob Reiner’s commentary on the DVD, he felt that it was really Gordie’s story and told from Gordie’s point of view and all of that. And I guess, obviously looking at the movie now it was pretty clear, but at the time I never considered it like that. It never really entered into my mind… Remember, I was twelve years old at the time. It never entered into my mind that I was starring in a big movie. It never felt like that. I just didn’t have the capacity to think that way at the time. I knew that we all felt like we were doing something really special and really wonderful and that no matter what happened we were all going to take something really terrific away from the experience. But none of us, when we were making the movie, knew that it was going to be what it became. No one had any idea. So I didn’t really have that feeling like “I’m a movie star in a big important movie.”

DVD Angle: When you were with the three other cast members who were all around the same age – it was pretty much like hanging out with your friends and that’s how it comes across in the movie.

Wil: It is. Rob brought us up to Oregon two weeks before we ever started principal photography. And we spent a great deal of time together for those first two weeks playing theater games and rehearsing and Rob really putting us through our paces and, you know, teaching us how to act his way so that he could communicate to us effectively. We learned in that time how to relate to him and we all formed friendships together, the four of us. You’re right, it totally comes though in the movie. I give a lot of credit for the movie’s success to Rob Reiner. He had the presence of mind to cast actors who were not too far away from their roles and he had the patience and everything else that it takes to work with twelve-year-old boys. He did a great job.

DVD Angle: As you said in the featurette included with the DVD he is an “actor’s director.”

Wil: Yeah!

DVD Angle: Before this movie had you had any formal training?

Wil: I’d done a lot of commercial workshops, but I’d never done anything dramatic. I had never had any formal training, and as a matter of fact, I never had any formal acting training at all up until I was like twenty.

DVD Angle: After you left Star Trek…

Wil: Yeah, after I left Star Trek and after I had left the entertainment industry all together for about two and a half years. When I came back to Los Angeles, after taking a sabbatical I guess, I went and took acting classes and really honed my craft for the next four years or so.

DVD Angle: So before that it was more acting on instinct?

Wil: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been blessed with really good instincts. Acting runs in my family. It’s definitely in my blood. I was always really lucky. I always had great directors and I’ve been told that I’m a very directable actor. For a movie to really work – in order for a director and an actor to really communicate with each other and bring across a great performance and make a great movie they both have to understand the material and they both have to understand it in the same way. Everything’s open to interpretation, but you have to be painting the same picture. If I’m working in watercolors and the director’s working in oils it’s not going to go together at all and that’s happened in the past. But I was really lucky up until that point. I had always found myself working with directors who spoke the same language and felt the same way about the material and it came together really, really well. Pretty much all I would do is just show up. Like Spencer Tracy says, “Know my lines and don’t trip over the furniture.” Then I reached an age where I was competing with people who had more than just instincts to go on. When you’re young, young actors you just have to cast kids who can go on their instincts and that will do what you tell them to do. But with adults, now you’re dealing with people who have been trained and have been able to get more subtleties out of their performances. The challenge for me in the last six years or so has been to not over intellectualize my auditions and my work because I studied for so long and also to find that good mix of trusting my instincts and then really digging deep into a role so I can bring more out of it than I would if I just went in and read it cold.

DVD Angle: Since that point you’ve done a fair number of movies.

Wil: Yeah, I’ve been pretty lucky.

DVD Angle: Jumping to the current, the most recent one that’s just hit theaters in Australia now is Python.

Wil: Oh really, it is out in Australia?

DVD Angle: It was released on the ninth.

Wil: Cool!

DVD Angle: You were working with some pretty notable actors on that.

Wil: That was fun. I was standing with Dana Barron and Billy Zabka on the first day of production and I said “Look at us, we’re like an 80’s triad.” That was really a lot of fun. I took that role because I thought it would be really, really fun to play. The character as written was not this like crazy punk-rocker guy. He was just a guy. I said to the producer of the movie, who’s a friend of mine, “You know, I can bring something to this and it would be a lot of fun for me.” Obviously this movie is not moving my career forward so I can do something with this that would be a lot of fun and show a different side of myself. He said, “What did you have in mind” and I said, “Well, let me come back and show you.” And I came back with my hair purple and, you know, put all my earrings back in, and dug all my punk-rocker clothes out of my closet and I said, “This is what this guy’s going to be like.” Yeah, and it was really a lot of fun.

DVD Angle: Hopefully it makes it to theaters in North America.

Wil: We’ll see, I don’t know. I really enjoy Python. I think that it’s very funny and it’s a movie that does not take itself too seriously. In America, we call them “midnight movies.” Where you go with your friends and you go out to the bar and have a couple of drinks then you go and watch some crazy movie. I think this is totally one of those movies.

DVD Angle: I hope it makes it to theaters… What else are we going to talk about here? Let’s go back to Stand By Me, what the heck. Columbia/Tristar obviously came to you and said “We’re going to do a special edition and we want to do a featurette and put you on it, etc., etc. How did all that come about?

Wil: This is very funny. A friend of mine worked for Columbia/Tristar, I guess it’s Sony now. I don’t know, it’s all this corporate bullshit these days. I don’t know who owns who anymore. But she called me and said “Hey, it’s Muffy” and I was like “Hey, what’s going on?” I just figured she was calling to talk to my wife because they’re friends and I was like “Hold on and I’ll get Anne” and she goes “No, actually this is a business call.” I said, “Okay, how?” (laughing) And she said, “We’re doing this DVD and are you interested?” I jumped up – I was sitting on the kitchen counter when the phone call came in. I jumped up and said, “Would I!” I was so disappointed in the first release, you know I have the old DVD, and I said “It’s got nothing on it. It totally sucks. Of course, yes! Let’s do it!” I said “I want to do a commentary and I want to do an interview and I’m gonna give ‘em pictures.” And I had this huge list of things. And I said, “You know, I’d even been practicing.” And it’s true! I had been watching the DVD and practicing so I could do a running commentary because, the truth is, I love Stand By Me. I absolutely love it. I’m fiercely proud of it. I think it is a brilliant movie and I never get tired of seeing it. I didn’t always feel that way. When I was younger, I was like “Stand By Me, let’s talk about what I’ve done now” because I felt enough about talking about the told stuff let’s see what I’ve done now. But over the years, it’s taken me fifteen years to get away from it, but I actually feel like I’m really, really proud of it. It’s a really great thing and it touched a lot of people’s lives. So I was just thrilled to do it and I said “Yeah, whatever it takes! I’ll do whatever they want me to do”

DVD Angle: So how come you weren’t on the commentary track?

Wil: I guess they just wanted Rob, but you know what I’m thinking about doing? I’m thinking that I might sit down with a tape recorder and watch my DVD and make a commentary and sell the tapes on my website.

DVD Angle: Ooo! That would work.

Wil: And I think a lot of actor’s should do that. I think that’s a good idea. Then you can get everybody. Hell, the key grip could do that. Everybody who worked on a movie has a different take on it.

DVD Angle: Well that would work. Like Warner Brothers does the simulcast. You can do the same thing!

Wil: Yeah, the same thing…

DVD Angle: As it stands the DVD is a considerably better presentation over the first one.

Wil: Oh, it rules. The transfer is beautiful and the sound is fantastic. The menus are great. I’ve been looking for Easter Egg’s, but I haven’t found any.

DVD Angle: I haven’t found any, but the menus are a huge step up from that old crap “blue block.”

Wil: Yeah, it’s great. The old ones were awful.

DVD Angle: It’s actually thematic! Hey, wouldn’t you know it.

Wil: Well Michael Gillis is a wonderful guy. Michael Gillis kicks ass. He produced the whole thing. He did the documentary and he did all my interviews and he’s just the coolest guy who ever lived. I think he did a fantastic job putting all that stuff together.

DVD Angle: Yeah he did. The fans of the movie are really going to be impressed by it.

Wil: I watched the interview yesterday and I was a little nervous. I had that sort of trepidation that you have when you go to a high school reunion. You don’t know who’s going to be there and what they’re going to say and how they’re going to feel about you. What was so cool is that we’re all – everyone who’s being interviewed is saying all these wonderful things about each other. Yeah, we all really loved each other and we all remembered things exactly the same. I thought that was so funny. Jerry and I are talking about running on the train tracks and we both remember almost word-for-word Rob screaming at us, you know, to get the performance out of us. I thought it was great that all that stuff came across. I was very, very touched that Rob said some very nice things about me in the interview.

DVD Angle: So have you ever given any thought to working with him again?

Wil: I would love to work with him again. I love all of his movies. I think that Rob is one of the finest directors ever and I would absolutely love to work with him again – for sure. I’ve made some efforts to get in touch with him and so far none of them have been successful. But we were part of something really special together and I will always have that.

DVD Angle: And it shows. The movie has withstood the test of time. For me, it probably has a different meaning from the “older” people because I’m around the same age as you. Watching it for the first time, for me, was watching it though the eyes of a child.

Wil: So you probably saw it like in high school – like in the early years.

DVD Angle: I saw it when it actually came out in theaters.

Wil: What, you were about thirteen/fourteen?

DVD Angle: Yep!

Wil: Me too. Um, it’s different. It’s totally different. I watch it with my step-kids now and my wife and I have a completely different take on it than they do.

DVD Angle: There are many levels and that’s one of the things with Steven King’s writing and Rob Reiner’s direction, it plays for all levels. It’s entertaining to a child as an action/adventure with a little bit of comedy/humor and a little bit of scariness thrown in and then for the adults the satirical side.

Wil: I completely agree. It’s interesting now – I didn’t realize this, but Richard Dreyfuss pointed it out. Stand By Me was the first movie that really had kids talking about things that kids talk about, but really referential to the audience. And now that’s just become sort of standard. A lot of movies do that. You know, we’re going to throw it back to the 80’s and do this sort of thing and I think it totally rules that we were the first movie to do that. I didn’t even realize that until yesterday afternoon. That’s kind of exciting to have that sort of ensures.

DVD Angle: And it shows. It’s not a movie that you take lightly. It’s a movie that really has some substance to it… So what are you working on now?

Wil: In Los Angeles I do a show called the J. Keith van Straaten Show every Saturday night. It’s a live late night talk show in a theatre and we do it in front of an audience at the Acme Comedy Theatre. And there’s a website www.jkeith.net and there’s all sorts of information about it there. I’ve been considering going and doing some Star Trek conventions because I’ve been getting lots of requests from people to go do that. I’ve been studying improv and I do improv at in LA, also at the Bitter Truth Theatre, and also in the Acme Comedy Theatre Bravo Company. I do a show there every Saturday – starting in November I’ll be doing shows there every Sunday. Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of that. I’ve just been doing a lot of live theater. I changed agents in spring of this year and my new agents are getting me in on things I need to get in on. Right now, we have just a ton of things piled up. We’re in a great position where we have to pick what I’m gonna do. So I can’t yet know for sure what exactly is going to happen, but I should have some exciting news in the next couple of weeks.

Wil Wheaton has had a long and illustrious career already and it’s clear we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the future. No matter what happens down the road Stand By Me will always be something he can be proud of. Most actors wait their whole lives for a movie that becomes an indelible classic. Wil was fortunate to have that happen at a very young age. Fourteen years later a new generation has a chance to experience the movie. Now that Columbia/Tristar has given this movie a befitting treatment there is no reason not to have this DVD in your collection. Stand By Me: Special Edition is a great disc filled with wonderful extras and a breathtaking transfer. Do yourself a favor and pick it up – and, if you’re ever in LA, stop by and see Wil at the J. Keith van Straaten Show on Saturday’s and Acme Comedy Theatre Bravo Company on Sunday’s.