Speaker 1: This show contains mature content and adult themes, it may
Speaker 1: not be suitable for young audiences.
Speaker 2: It's not about career.
Speaker 3: It's about believing in something. It's about prosperity, and it's
Speaker 3: about caring and empathizing and wanting to create the best,
Speaker 3: the most true to life, the most real.
Speaker 4: Well, that's something that you wouldn't hear a lot of
Speaker 4: Hollywood people say.
Speaker 3: That's why I don't hang out and talk to those
Speaker 3: Hollywood people, because they're there to hurt me.
Speaker 1: Hurt my view from Variety and iHeart Podcasts. This is
Speaker 1: Variety Confidential, The Life and Legend of River Phoenix. I'm
Speaker 1: Tatiana Siegel, Executive editor of Film and Media at Variety.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the past three episodes, we've explored
Speaker 1: the life of the late actor, musician, and activist River Phoenix,
Speaker 1: from his unconventional upbringing to the once in a generation
Speaker 1: talent that led to a promising career in Hollywood. We
Speaker 1: also went deep into the events surrounding his untimely passing
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty three, and all these years later,
Speaker 1: River Phoenix's death is still shocking. On the thirtieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of Standby Me, Rivers co star Richard Dreyfus told Variety, quote,
Speaker 1: there are certain actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman. When Philip died,
Speaker 1: what we were grieving about was not only that he died,
Speaker 1: but that he took a very well known future away
Speaker 1: from us. We knew he had all these great performances
Speaker 1: to come. That left a big hole. The same thing
Speaker 1: is true of River Phoenix. He was, without question, the
Speaker 1: best of that group of actors that came up at
Speaker 1: that time. Movie stardom is not just acting talent. It's
Speaker 1: not just your ability to move an audience. It's a
Speaker 1: combination of a lot of things, and he had it.
Speaker 1: He died so young that it was a real theft,
Speaker 1: a real robbery end quote. In our final episode, we'll
Speaker 1: unpack how with only fourteen film credits, River Phoenix has
Speaker 1: left an indelible mark in Hollywood and beyond. We begin
Speaker 1: with addiction specialist and former host of Celebrity Rehab, doctor
Speaker 1: Drew Pinsky, who joins us to discuss the deadly combination
Speaker 1: that his celebrity status and opioids, and how River's tragic
Speaker 1: death should be viewed as a cautionary tale. Doctor Drew
Speaker 1: provides his perspective as a professional who has worked with
Speaker 1: a range of Hollywood actors but did not treat River
Speaker 1: Phoenix personally. Doctor Drew, You've seen more than your fair
Speaker 1: share of celebrities struggling with addiction. Were you familiar with
Speaker 1: the circumstances of River Phoenix's death back in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 5: I was aware of it, and I knew people that
Speaker 5: were around him, who had been around him that I
Speaker 5: treated later.
Speaker 1: He was only twenty three when he died, vising famous
Speaker 1: that young put one at a greater risk.
Speaker 5: Yes, and no. I mean we all are aware of
Speaker 5: childhood stars and the potential for adverse outcomes there. And
Speaker 5: as my friend Danny Bonaducci always schooled me, the child
Speaker 5: stars that he saw did poorly came from childhood trauma,
Speaker 5: came from problematic family systems. And then you add to
Speaker 5: that the parentalization, the adultifying of kids, you know, making
Speaker 5: them work in an adult environment, have adult responsibilities, that
Speaker 5: in itself is traumatizing to kids. Kids need to be kids,
Speaker 5: and when you put them in adult roles, it's not
Speaker 5: good for them. And on top of that, many of
Speaker 5: these productions are so tight and sort of intimate that
Speaker 5: they feel like a surrogate family to these young people oftentimes,
Speaker 5: and then when the project ends, everyone just goes their
Speaker 5: separate way, and it's often very startling to young people.
Speaker 5: It feels like another abandonment, another loss. So those were
Speaker 5: the risks come from. Then, if you have addictive netics
Speaker 5: on hand, they have a tendency to manifest in that
Speaker 5: the kids starts looking for solutions to their pain and
Speaker 5: they find their way to substances, and then they have
Speaker 5: a second problem now, and that is the problem of addiction.
Speaker 5: And if they're very famous and can keep people around
Speaker 5: them or have you know who who either endorse or
Speaker 5: can't restrain the use, then it will progress. Now were
Speaker 5: things that was sort of a strange case. It was
Speaker 5: stimulants and he had clearly had a cardiac arrhythmia and
Speaker 5: went down, and there was a lot of I don't know's,
Speaker 5: I don't know the details of the event, but it
Speaker 5: seemed like more could have been done, but everyone was
Speaker 5: so fearful that his addiction, you know, his drug use
Speaker 5: would be exposed, that he didn't quite get the care
Speaker 5: he should have in the time, the manner he should have,
Speaker 5: and he certainly didn't get addiction treatment that was effective.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through how celebrity drug use often
Speaker 1: starts like.
Speaker 5: Everybody else le me Drake, like everybody else, everybody any added,
Speaker 5: any addict. It typically starts an adolescence in young adulthood
Speaker 5: that typically starts with cannabis. Alcohol use typically starts in
Speaker 5: the home. That's where they get their first drink typically,
Speaker 5: and a genetic disorder is activated. And if you add
Speaker 5: trauma into that, then they for the first time in.
Speaker 4: Their lives feel well because of the drugs, and they
Speaker 4: keep using and then they trigger this progression we call addiction,
Speaker 4: which takes.
Speaker 5: Over all the other priorities in their life. I mean,
Speaker 5: the best example of the history of this and the
Speaker 5: recovery is Robert Daddy Junior. He is by far had
Speaker 5: the most serious life threatening addiction and did what he
Speaker 5: needed to do, which was drop out, focused on his recovery,
Speaker 5: and nothing but his recovery, not even contemplate coming back,
Speaker 5: and then came back slowly with the direction of his
Speaker 5: recovery community and staying in the program to this day.
Speaker 5: And you know, he was in prison and he was
Speaker 5: dying of opiate addiction, and he now has a flourishing
Speaker 5: career because he did what he needed to do, but
Speaker 5: when he was in his recovery, he didn't know if
Speaker 5: he was ever going to act again. And the problem
Speaker 5: with a lot of celebrities and treatment these days is
Speaker 5: they don't stay in treatment long enough and they return
Speaker 5: to work prematurely, both because they love their work and
Speaker 5: it gives them a lot of sort of narcissistic gratification,
Speaker 5: but also because they make a lot of money for
Speaker 5: themselves and other people, and so they push to bring
Speaker 5: them back to work, and that's the biggest liability for
Speaker 5: recovery for treatment with celebrities.
Speaker 1: According to the autopsy, River had been speedballing the night
Speaker 1: of his death, Doctor Drew, can you explain what speedballing is?
Speaker 5: People is mixing a stimulant with heroin. It sort of
Speaker 5: enhances and sustains the high. Very popular cocaine and heroin
Speaker 5: is very popular back then. Unusual there usually hard to
Speaker 5: know how he progress, but usually heroin is the primary
Speaker 5: drug and then cocaine is just used as an adjuvant
Speaker 5: trying to enhance things.
Speaker 1: So, in your opinion, why do you think many of
Speaker 1: these young celebrities like a River Phoenix are uniquely vulnerable
Speaker 1: to drug addiction.
Speaker 5: They're not unique that there is nothing special about celebrity.
Speaker 5: I cannot say that strongly enough. It's not as though
Speaker 5: I have a separate diagnostic manual for celebrities. They are
Speaker 5: the same. It's just like everybody. There's a context for
Speaker 5: their addiction, and their context is if it's child's stardom.
Speaker 5: I explained how parentifying. You heard all that, right, So
Speaker 5: they have some trauma coming in, then if they have
Speaker 5: the genetics, then they go. And if then if they
Speaker 5: have the power to avoid consequences, they progress. If they
Speaker 5: are still dependent, or if they have people in their
Speaker 5: lives like employers and things who can pull them asides
Speaker 5: and put them in treatment, well they do better.
Speaker 1: River's overdose death predates Matthew Perry's by a few decades.
Speaker 1: It also comes after John Belushi's. And yet whenever these
Speaker 1: celebrity drug overdose deaths happen, including Philip Seymour Hoffmann and
Speaker 1: Chris Barley and Heath Ledger and more recently Angus Cloud,
Speaker 1: it comes as such a shock, but it shouldn't.
Speaker 5: Right right, Yes, recognitions, they potentially fatal illness, and I
Speaker 5: have the only published research on this, and what we
Speaker 5: were able to show in our research very clearly is
Speaker 5: that people that seek celebrity have more childhood trauma, have
Speaker 5: more narcissistic defense strategies, and tend to have more addictions.
Speaker 5: And the big celebrities, the very powerful celebrities, construct their
Speaker 5: lives in such a way that they dismiss people from
Speaker 5: their inner circles who attempt to pull them aside and
Speaker 5: get them to do something about their addictions. So the
Speaker 5: addiction is able to spiral unrestricted, and when addiction progresses
Speaker 5: without any constraints, it leads to death typically, And you
Speaker 5: can't force people into treatment in this country. You know
Speaker 5: that maybe people tried. I wouldn't be surprised if they did.
Speaker 5: There are two aspects of addiction that everyone doesn't seem
Speaker 5: to understand. It's progressive and it's potentially fatal commonly, so
Speaker 5: a surprise when a drug addict dies is a lack
Speaker 5: of understanding of what this disease is. Your probability, if
Speaker 5: you're an opiate addict, your probability of dying is significantly
Speaker 5: worse than the majority of cancer patients. Why we can't
Speaker 5: get that through to people, I don't know the fact
Speaker 5: that we hand out drugs to people on the street
Speaker 5: is nothing short of manslaughter. They will die. It progresses
Speaker 5: no matter where you get the drug, no matter how
Speaker 5: you get the drug. It's a progressive illness.
Speaker 1: Matthew Perry and River Phoenix were after working together in
Speaker 1: a Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardan. Do you
Speaker 1: think it makes any difference to someone who sees a
Speaker 1: friend go through addiction or even overdose in terms of
Speaker 1: their own drug usage?
Speaker 5: I mean, it doesn't stop their addictions. Sometimes it gets
Speaker 5: them to come to treatment because they you know, it
Speaker 5: gets through their denial a little bit. What can happen?
Speaker 5: But drug addicts are concerned with one thing and one
Speaker 5: thing only, and that is doing drugs, and every other
Speaker 5: brain system, all their other good judgment, all their other
Speaker 5: good intentions, serves that distorted motivation. So to get through
Speaker 5: that requires a lot, and somebody else's death sometimes gets there,
Speaker 5: but not not necessarily. Not necessarily, And maybe it slowed
Speaker 5: Matthew's down and he had a very different, very different
Speaker 5: course of addiction than really Phoenix and Matthew Perry struggled
Speaker 5: with treatment. Matthew tried treatment, tried very hard. Maybe that's
Speaker 5: that's why he lived as long as he did. I
Speaker 5: don't know, but there was some obviously some missteps along
Speaker 5: the way.
Speaker 1: In your opinion, has anything gotten better in Hollywood since
Speaker 1: River's death, in terms of studios, producers, agents, all of
Speaker 1: them being more supportive of young stars and getting them
Speaker 1: help when they need it.
Speaker 5: You mentioned John Belushi early, right, And then people did
Speaker 5: not understand addiction. Dan Eckert has talked about that. He's
Speaker 5: talked about how well we knew we had did drugs,
Speaker 5: but we didn't understand what addiction was. We didn't know
Speaker 5: what was necessary to get better. And so since that era, yes,
Speaker 5: things have gotten a lot better, and so we've come
Speaker 5: to a more modern understanding of addiction. But I think
Speaker 5: people still have this sense that people should be able
Speaker 5: to be fixed or if they would just do treatment. Look,
Speaker 5: on average, on average, for a bad alcoholic, it takes
Speaker 5: four treatments and five years to get one year of sobriety.
Speaker 5: That is on average, and that's alcohol and alcohol it
Speaker 5: can be really horrible, of course, but not opiate addiction.
Speaker 5: And so there's still a great deal of confusion about
Speaker 5: the progressivity of these things and the seriousness of them,
Speaker 5: and what's required to get well.
Speaker 1: For anyone listening, whether it's a parent or a friend
Speaker 1: or a family member, or around someone who has substance
Speaker 1: abuse issues, what would you advise, what would you caution against?
Speaker 5: Do not walk on eggshells, address it very directly, do
Speaker 5: it from a place of love and concern. And there's
Speaker 5: only and I mean only one thing you can do
Speaker 5: that will contribute to the outcome, and that is you yourself.
Speaker 5: Go to alan On or another codependency program, get a sponsor,
Speaker 5: and work your program. Because the disease is interpersonal. It
Speaker 5: takes every strength in every weakness, including other people in
Speaker 5: that person's life, and pulls them in. The Audrey to
Speaker 5: the plant in the little Shop of Horror is a
Speaker 5: perfect model for addiction. If you go near the plant,
Speaker 5: it eats you. That's how addiction works. Unless you have
Speaker 5: somebody else there pulling you back, and that is your
Speaker 5: sponsor or therapist or things like that. On your own,
Speaker 5: it will find a way under your skin and every
Speaker 5: good instinct you have will be used to maintain the disease.
Speaker 5: So you must if you're actually care or you have
Speaker 5: to leave with love and care, and don't leave out
Speaker 5: of anger and rejection, because sometimes loss is something that
Speaker 5: will catch their attention, but ideally in their lives, stay
Speaker 5: in their life, but change the dance. And the only
Speaker 5: way to change that dance is by your codependency being managed.
Speaker 5: If somebody has a first ree relative with addictionary alcoholism
Speaker 5: and they are starting to use, lose control of their
Speaker 5: relationship with any substance, or they're using dangerous iliciit substances
Speaker 5: can kill you. On their own, you're in big, big, big,
Speaker 5: big trouble and they need treatment immediately, and to not
Speaker 5: treat them as certain certain progressions, certain trouble and possible
Speaker 5: death you yourself. The non addicts have to also have
Speaker 5: a support system because you will get sucked in. It's
Speaker 5: a cunning illness and it just gets it drags you in,
Speaker 5: not intentionally, there's no intention behind it. It's all the
Speaker 5: brain systems, including it or personal are directed towards getting drugs,
Speaker 5: and so you'll get dragged in, I promise without without
Speaker 5: some help. And that's why parents can't do this alone.
Speaker 5: That's why I loved ones can't do this alone. You
Speaker 5: can't because every good instinct you have, every important feeling
Speaker 5: you have about that person will get used to get
Speaker 5: to drugs. Period.
Speaker 1: At the time of River Phoenix's death in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: the actor had about a month left of filming on
Speaker 1: Dark Blood and had been slated to play the reporter
Speaker 1: in Interview with a Vampire, a role that Christian Slater
Speaker 1: eventually stepped in to phil These unfinished works were a
Speaker 1: stark reminder of a life taken too soon. The large
Speaker 1: and very public outpouring of grief surrounding Phoenix's passing was
Speaker 1: also a testament to the actor's impact. According to Variety
Speaker 1: reports published in the weeks following his death, simultaneous private
Speaker 1: memorial services were held for him on November fourth. Actor
Speaker 1: Ione Sky, who co starred with River in A Night
Speaker 1: in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, organized one in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: while his family held another at their home in Gainesville, Florida.
Speaker 1: River's longtime agent Iris Burton called Variety after the memorial
Speaker 1: service in Gainesville and described it as a quote love
Speaker 1: in end quote end quote, a meeting of a circle
Speaker 1: of friends end quote. In addition to family, those there
Speaker 1: included girlfriend Samantha Mathis, his Sneakers co star Dan Ackroyd,
Speaker 1: and The Thing Called Love co star Dermott Moloney, Red
Speaker 1: Hot Chili Pepper's bassist Fleet and Rim frontman Michael Stipe.
Speaker 1: As for the circumstances surrounding River's death, Burton told Variety
Speaker 1: the following quote, Being a young actor growing up so fast,
Speaker 1: with so much being offered, and doing so many things
Speaker 1: is insanity. They should stop playing the field, stop playing around,
Speaker 1: stop the partying, just concentrate on their work and their
Speaker 1: good fortune. I hope they will all learn from this
Speaker 1: tragedy end quote. A private, invitation only tribute was held
Speaker 1: two weeks later, on November nineteenth, nineteen ninety three, at
Speaker 1: the Paramount Theater. Variety reported that the guest speakers included
Speaker 1: Sydney Poitier, Rob Reiner, Jerry O'Connell, Naomi Fohoner, Richard Benjamin,
Speaker 1: John Borman, Christine Lati, Peter Bogdanovich, Helen Mirren, Iris Burton,
Speaker 1: and River's mother Heart Phoenix. Tom Cruise, who was on
Speaker 1: location for interview with a Vampire, sent a note quote,
Speaker 1: I'll miss never having the opportunity to work with him.
Speaker 1: End quote. Jonathan Price, who co starred with River in
Speaker 1: the uncompleted Dark Blood, wrote a touching paternal note, saying quote,
Speaker 1: I only knew him for eight weeks, but I felt
Speaker 1: I could know him forever end quote. Nearly three decades
Speaker 1: after his death, River Phoenix's influence continues to reverberate throughout Hollywood.
Speaker 1: From his fearless choice of roles to his commitment to activism,
Speaker 1: he set a precedent for young actors to pursue meaningful
Speaker 1: work while staying true to their values. To help us
Speaker 1: understand the actor's lasting impact, Variety's executive editor Brent Lang
Speaker 1: and chief film critic Owen Gleiberman join us now. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll discuss River's influence on the film industry, his enduring
Speaker 1: cultural resonance, and the lessons his life and death have imparted.
Speaker 1: Oh On, when you think back to the nineties, who
Speaker 1: were the other actors who were in the same league
Speaker 1: as River.
Speaker 6: There was definitely a new generation of actors coming together
Speaker 6: in the nineties. I guess you could sort of say
Speaker 6: that their forbear with Sean pen because he was that
Speaker 6: one actor in the nineties who'd come up through that
Speaker 6: kind of cheeseball culture but was much more serious, much
Speaker 6: more moody, much darker. So the new generation was darker.
Speaker 6: But then you had people like Matt Damon come Along
Speaker 6: in a sense, who was a very serious actor but
Speaker 6: also kind of an old school young leading man in
Speaker 6: a way. I think someone like River Phoenix probably had
Speaker 6: the potential to be that and might have become that.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think it's so interesting to talk about
Speaker 6: what would have happened had he not died. I think,
Speaker 6: you know, he could have gone anywhere. He could have
Speaker 6: been a very very big star. He could have had
Speaker 6: leading man roles. I think the best way to think
Speaker 6: about what would have happened to River Phoenix had he
Speaker 6: lived is to follow the prototype of Brad Pitt. You know,
Speaker 6: he went after the role. River Phoenix went after the
Speaker 6: role that Brad Pitt got in A River runs through it,
Speaker 6: and you can sort of see him following that trajectory
Speaker 6: being this kind of good looking movie young star. And
Speaker 6: people didn't take Brad Pitt that seriously at the start,
Speaker 6: but he proved himself as an actor in movie after movie,
Speaker 6: and I think River Phoenix would have had I'm not
Speaker 6: saying he would have had the exact same kind of career,
Speaker 6: but I think he would have had those kinds of
Speaker 6: opportunity to be the leading man, to be in popcorn
Speaker 6: movies to be in deadly serious indie movies the whole thing,
Speaker 6: or Phoenix had ever made comic book blockbusters or something.
Speaker 6: I can't predict yes or no, but what I can
Speaker 6: say is he would have had that opportunity. They would
Speaker 6: have rolled out the red carpet for him to play
Speaker 6: those kinds of roles, and at a certain point he
Speaker 6: would have probably had to make a choice, you know,
Speaker 6: am I going to Am I gonna do that mainstream
Speaker 6: Hollywood thing. My guess is that he would have because
Speaker 6: I don't think he had the kind of chip on
Speaker 6: his shoulder about that stuff that someone like Sean Penn does.
Speaker 6: And I'm not dissing Sean Penn by saying that, because
Speaker 6: Sean Penn, in a way has walked the straight and
Speaker 6: arrow for decades as an actor, always taking just roles
Speaker 6: that he thinks are are interesting, and there's a tremendous
Speaker 6: integrity to the way that he's done that. But then
Speaker 6: there's also the thing that just says, all right, let's
Speaker 6: go let's do a blockbuster, let's do a comic book movie.
Speaker 6: Let's try that on. Let's see what it looks like.
Speaker 6: Plenty of great actors have done that.
Speaker 5: Phoenix. I could see.
Speaker 6: I could see him going that way because I just
Speaker 6: think he had that kind of spark. I think he
Speaker 6: was a very serious actor who didn't take himself that seriously.
Speaker 6: He was not pretentious about himself, and I think he
Speaker 6: kind of went with the flow.
Speaker 1: And Brad, how about you.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think if you look at basically Leonardo
Speaker 7: DiCaprio's career, there's no reason that River couldn't have played
Speaker 7: almost any of those roles. And I would assume he
Speaker 7: would have been up for most of them. I mean,
Speaker 7: I could have seen him. He was such a good
Speaker 7: actor that he could have played the role that Leo
Speaker 7: played in Titanic, or he could have played the role
Speaker 7: that Leo nearly played in Boogie Knights that ultimately Mark
Speaker 7: Wahlberg played. I mean, I think he would have been
Speaker 7: up for basically anything.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: I don't think he would have been sort of the
Speaker 7: Russell Crowe burly man. It would have been more of
Speaker 7: the kind of the sensitive star. But he really could
Speaker 7: have done it all. And I think he also could
Speaker 7: have straddled that gap between kind of the more commercially
Speaker 7: minded fair and the more director driven stuff, because already
Speaker 7: he had worked with really great filmmakers. He'd worked with Spielberg,
Speaker 7: He'd worked with Sidney Lamett, He'd worked with Gus van Sand,
Speaker 7: He'd worked with Rob Reiner. I mean, all of these
Speaker 7: people are very serious minded directors, and it sort of
Speaker 7: showed how in demand he was. He worked with Peter
Speaker 7: Weir at Mosquito Coast. He was a Harrison Ford had
Speaker 7: sort of had told Spielberg to cast him in the
Speaker 7: Indiana Jones film, so he had the endorsement of a
Speaker 7: lot of major industry figures at the time of his death.
Speaker 1: Thanks Brent. Now, let's listen to this interview from the
Speaker 1: early nineties.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: I started acting through auditioning and trial by uh basically.
Speaker 6: Howl do you then when you started ten does that?
Speaker 3: Some television commercials and then later you get cast in
Speaker 3: the film if you're lucky.
Speaker 2: Really explain why I understand what I understand, I just do,
Speaker 2: and to try to figure it out I think would
Speaker 2: kind of ruin it, you know. I want to leave
Speaker 2: it like a mine of gold, you know, without ever
Speaker 2: mining it, you know, and selling it. I want to
Speaker 2: sell it off. I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to understand it.
Speaker 6: In a way that will.
Speaker 2: Exploit the pureness.
Speaker 5: So I just leave it.
Speaker 2: I don't understand it, but I believe it.
Speaker 6: You're a natural.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying anything.
Speaker 5: I'd say, Okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: In many ways, River Phoenix's legacy continues through his brother Joaquin,
Speaker 1: who was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood and
Speaker 1: won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Joker in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: In his acceptance speech, Joaquin dedicated the award to his
Speaker 1: late brother and even teared up toward the end when
Speaker 1: he spoke about a lyric.
Speaker 8: River wrote, Now, I've been I've been a scoundrel in
Speaker 8: my life. I've been selfish, I've been cruel at times,
Speaker 8: hard to work with, and ungrateful. But so many of
Speaker 8: you in this room have given me a second chance.
Speaker 8: And I think that's when we're at our best. When
Speaker 8: we support each other, not when we cancel each other
Speaker 8: out for past mistakes, but when we help each other
Speaker 8: to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide
Speaker 8: each other towards redemption. That is the best of humanity.
Speaker 8: I just want to he was when he was when
Speaker 8: he was seventeen, My brother wrote this lyric. He said,
Speaker 8: run to the rescue with love and peace will follow.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That was one of the most memorable Oscar moments that year. Brent,
Speaker 1: what impact did River's death have on Joaquin's career.
Speaker 7: I don't actually really know what the impact was on
Speaker 7: ja Quin's career, other than you know, when Joaquin Phoenix
Speaker 7: accepted his Oscar, he quoted his brother and that sort
Speaker 7: of says in a song that his brother had written,
Speaker 7: and so that indicates that that his impact on his
Speaker 7: brother was pretty seismic, and it continues. And I think
Speaker 7: if you if you look at Laquin Phoenix and how
Speaker 7: talented he is and just sort of generationally gifted he is,
Speaker 7: it's it's possible that River Phoenix would have had an
Speaker 7: even bigger career because I think that he had all
Speaker 7: of the Jaquini ja Quing Phoenix's kind of chameleonic talents
Speaker 7: and his ability to really like have this unearthed, this
Speaker 7: kind of rich emotional life with his characters. But he
Speaker 7: was a little more forward facing and a little more
Speaker 7: charming frankly in a conventional sense. So I think he
Speaker 7: could have had an even bigger career than his brother.
Speaker 1: And Owen, what are your impressions of the Phoenix brothers
Speaker 1: performances side by side.
Speaker 6: Well, it's fascinating to think Hed River lived, you know,
Speaker 6: of the idea of these side by side brothers both
Speaker 6: having these blossoming careers, But I think it easily could
Speaker 6: have happened because they're really such different actors. Joaquin Phoenix
Speaker 6: from the beginning, My first memory of him was seeing
Speaker 6: him in To Die For. He had that very Joaquin
Speaker 6: quality that he still has. There is something dark about him.
Speaker 6: He's drawn to playing you know, kind of twisted characters,
Speaker 6: not that there was not a core of normality and
Speaker 6: empathy to him. I mean he has that, That's why
Speaker 6: he's a great actor. But you know, he definitely likes
Speaker 6: to dance on the edge and on the edge of
Speaker 6: darkness and all of that, and I think that River
Speaker 6: Phoenix has some of that. I mean, they came from
Speaker 6: the same family, and I think both of them reflect
Speaker 6: that strange upbringing they had, where you know, they were
Speaker 6: raised by hippie parents who moved around all the time.
Speaker 6: When River was three, his family joined the Children of
Speaker 6: God religious cult. They were missionaries in Venezuela. He talked
Speaker 6: about being sexually abused and was very negative about that.
Speaker 5: Cult later on.
Speaker 6: You know, it was a family with a very you know,
Speaker 6: eccentric upbringing that I think left its mark. But I
Speaker 6: think that River Phoenix probably could have ended up being
Speaker 6: more of the leading man. But you know, to the
Speaker 6: extent that he had this James Dean quality that is
Speaker 6: very much a leading man quality. It's it's it is
Speaker 6: the classic Hollywood tradition that goes back to Dean and
Speaker 6: then through Robert Redford, actors like Brad Pitt. I think
Speaker 6: River Phoenix was, you know, was on that spectrum. And
Speaker 6: I think he would have had a lot of opportunities,
Speaker 6: not just because he was very good looking, but because
Speaker 6: he had it's that magical charisma that makes a star,
Speaker 6: you know. He he could have had the opportunities to
Speaker 6: do in the nineties, let's say, a romantic comedy. Would
Speaker 6: he have taken that? Maybe, maybe not, but I think
Speaker 6: he could have done it in a way that Joaquin
Speaker 6: Phoenix was just not going to do that. I think
Speaker 6: Joaquin would have ended up being, you know, relatively speaking,
Speaker 6: the darker of the two. But who knows, because River
Speaker 6: Phoenix was, as I said, very drawn to playing alienated characters.
Speaker 6: It's just hard to say, but I think I think
Speaker 6: he would have been He would have blossomed into a
Speaker 6: true leading man. If that's not an outdated phrase.
Speaker 1: Brent, let me ask you, do you think River influenced
Speaker 1: the generation of actors that came after him.
Speaker 7: I think of him as being really one of the
Speaker 7: leaders of that generation of young stars who kind of
Speaker 7: emerged in the latter half of the nineteen eighties. And
Speaker 7: what he'd done very successfully was he'd shown that he
Speaker 7: could do a number of different genres. He wasn't a
Speaker 7: certifiable box office draw yet, but he was kind of
Speaker 7: putting all the pieces together where you could see him
Speaker 7: having a career that kind of was able to move
Speaker 7: seamlessly between sort of more adult oriented, artistic types of
Speaker 7: films and maybe some more commercially minded stuff. Of course,
Speaker 7: that kind of depended on like the choice he made
Speaker 7: in his career, and I think he was still sort
Speaker 7: of trying to figure himself out as an artist. My
Speaker 7: Own Private Idaho was really a very important film for
Speaker 7: him because it gave him a kind of like underground
Speaker 7: edgy cred, and it moved him from being a sort
Speaker 7: of pin up for people to being a kind of
Speaker 7: a more dangerous star. He was kind of reinventing himself
Speaker 7: with that movie, but it's definitely not inconceivable that he
Speaker 7: would have had a career that was very similar to
Speaker 7: Leonardo DiCaprio, where you sort of started off with these
Speaker 7: showy performances and then you kind of moved more into
Speaker 7: mainstream fair And even at the time he died, he
Speaker 7: was about to do interview with the Vampire, playing the
Speaker 7: role that Christian Slater ended up playing, and that sort
Speaker 7: of shows that Hollywood still saw him as one of
Speaker 7: his kind of most promising twenty somethings year old stars.
Speaker 7: If you look at this generation of actors. I mean,
Speaker 7: first of all, I think what's interesting is if you
Speaker 7: talk to a lot of this generation of actors, they
Speaker 7: would probably cite River Phoenix as an influence of them,
Speaker 7: which sort of shows just the extent of his impact,
Speaker 7: not just on his death, which I'm sure people remember,
Speaker 7: but also his life and his work. And I do
Speaker 7: think that, you know, Timothy Shallomy definitely has a sort
Speaker 7: of a similar appeal to River Phoenix. He's he seems sensitive,
Speaker 7: sort of artistically minded, He's you know, obviously he's very attractive,
Speaker 7: and there's almost a certain like femininity and to both
Speaker 7: of them that is really appealing and I think really
Speaker 7: comes through on film well. And actually, if you look
Speaker 7: at a lot of the great stars, there is a
Speaker 7: certain like femininity to them, even Rando and Dean, a
Speaker 7: kind of a gentleness that all of those those actors share,
Speaker 7: and I think River Phoenix really had that too. You
Speaker 7: want to kind of protect him when you see him
Speaker 7: on screen, and that's why when he's in certain movies
Speaker 7: and he you know, there's this scene and stand by
Speaker 7: Me where he talks about the milk money being stolen
Speaker 7: and he kind of breaks down, and it's a very
Speaker 7: it really sticks with you because because because you do
Speaker 7: want the best for that character, because there is something,
Speaker 7: some quality in the actor saying those words that allows
Speaker 7: you to forge this kind of like very intense connection
Speaker 7: with him.
Speaker 1: In addition to Timothy Shallomey, who else do you think
Speaker 1: closely resembles River's acting style?
Speaker 7: Definitely Jacob ELORDI. I mean, there's there's a lot of
Speaker 7: other actors that, I mean, even Tom Holland a little bit,
Speaker 7: although I think River Phoenix was probably a better actor.
Speaker 7: No offense to Tom Holland, but just that he kind
Speaker 7: of had more range, but you know, definitely Tom Holland.
Speaker 7: I think Barry Kyogan is probably a little more eccentric
Speaker 7: than River Phoenix, but more aligned with Joaquin. Probably Chalomey
Speaker 7: is probably the one who's the most most similar.
Speaker 1: Oh one, How do you think River influenced the generation
Speaker 1: of actors that came after him, including Joaquin.
Speaker 6: I think River Phoenix might have had a real influence
Speaker 6: on the actors who came after him in that his few,
Speaker 6: sadly few years of prominence really did overlap with the
Speaker 6: start of the American independent film movement, the American independent
Speaker 6: film revolution. I mean, the American independent film movement had
Speaker 6: gone back to the nineteen fifties, but I'm talking about
Speaker 6: the revolution that started in the nineties, where these films
Speaker 6: suddenly became talked about in a much bigger way. They
Speaker 6: got seen, they became big movies, even as they were
Speaker 6: carrying through a lot of the darker themes and themes
Speaker 6: of alienation and questioning authority and questioning just everything about
Speaker 6: life that you saw in the films of the seventies.
Speaker 6: And so he kind of dovetailed with that, and I
Speaker 6: think in that small handful of extraordinary performances that he
Speaker 6: gave us. He showed the way for young actors. He
Speaker 6: showed that young actors could embrace these kinds of roles
Speaker 6: and find a kind of truth in them, because that
Speaker 6: is what American independent film was supposed to be about.
Speaker 6: Hollywood was about, you know, projecting a certain fantasy, but
Speaker 6: indie movies were going to return us to the idea
Speaker 6: of cinema really trying to find, you know, put its
Speaker 6: finger on certain truths about things. And that happens with actors.
Speaker 6: That's what actors do. It's actors who take us into
Speaker 6: the truth of what they're showing us. And he just
Speaker 6: had that quality. There was something very very pure about it.
Speaker 6: I first noticed him and noticed his talent in stand
Speaker 6: By Me. But the movie that really made me wake
Speaker 6: up and say, oh my gosh, I mean this guy
Speaker 6: is a major actor was running on empty in nineteen
Speaker 6: eighty eight. And the whole soul of that in the
Speaker 6: movie is River Phoenix in his performance, because he is
Speaker 6: the son who has now essentially grown up and he
Speaker 6: wants to go to college and can he do that.
Speaker 6: It's like he can't, he can't do that without putting
Speaker 6: his family in danger. So it actually becomes this very
Speaker 6: very interesting situation and River Phoenix's performance, where I would
Speaker 6: say it's very James dem like, is that this is
Speaker 6: exactly the kind of role where you would expect the
Speaker 6: kid to be kind of a rebel or now rebelling
Speaker 6: against his parents, saying, you know, I want to go
Speaker 6: to college. You know, you can take your hippie stuff
Speaker 6: and I don't care about that. But he doesn't play
Speaker 6: it like that at all.
Speaker 5: He plays the.
Speaker 6: Character as extraordinarily sincere and it's really very sleeve young man,
Speaker 6: and there's something just very authentic about his performance. He
Speaker 6: roots you in that movie. He makes the whole movie
Speaker 6: work and it becomes actually a powerful experience. And I
Speaker 6: think when you watch his acting in that movie where
Speaker 6: he was only seventeen or eighteen when he shot it,
Speaker 6: you see not only his extraordinary skill as an actor,
Speaker 6: you just see the quality he had as an actor,
Speaker 6: this quality of sincerity where he could be I don't
Speaker 6: know what the word is, the everyman, the person where
Speaker 6: you know you just identify with him. He is. He's real,
Speaker 6: but he's also in a way your best self. That
Speaker 6: is part of the magic of what stardom is, where
Speaker 6: you want to watch this person, but he's also projecting
Speaker 6: almost this kind of down to earth moral quality he
Speaker 6: had that I think had River Phoenix lived and thrived
Speaker 6: into the nineties, the only thing I can predict about
Speaker 6: his career is that he would have been extraordinarily successful,
Speaker 6: because I think he had that double edged thing of
Speaker 6: he was a fantastic actor and he was a very sexy,
Speaker 6: good looking, glamorous star, and that gives you a lot
Speaker 6: of power in both directions. I think any number of
Speaker 6: filmmakers would have wanted to work with him. But beyond that,
Speaker 6: I think by definition it's unpredictable because the way the
Speaker 6: movie business works is you do a certain movie and
Speaker 6: it becomes big. Let's say, might be an indie film,
Speaker 6: might be a Hollywood film, and then that role defines
Speaker 6: you in a certain way, and everything you do after
Speaker 6: that it doesn't have to necessarily just repeat that. But
Speaker 6: then you're kind of taking off from that in this direction.
Speaker 6: But I think he would have been huge.
Speaker 1: River Phoenix's story is one of brilliant and heartbreak. He
Speaker 1: serves as both an inspiration and a cautionary tale, reminding
Speaker 1: us of the beauty and fragility of human life. As
Speaker 1: we close this season of Variety Confidential. We honor River
Speaker 1: not just as an actor, but as a person whose
Speaker 1: light continues to shine through the lives he touched and
Speaker 1: the art he created. Thank you for joining us for
Speaker 1: this season of Variety Confidential, the life and legend of
Speaker 1: River Phoenix. Don't forget to subscribe and read more at
Speaker 1: Variety dot com. Variety Confidential is hosted by Tatiana Siegel
Speaker 1: and produced by Karen Mizugucci and Sidney Kramer. Written by
Speaker 1: Anna Moslim, Karen Mizugucci and Tatiana Siegal. Executive produced by
Speaker 1: Dea Lawrence, Variety's co editor in chief Cynthia Littleton, and
Speaker 1: Ramins A two day edited and mixed by Aaron Greenawald
Speaker 1: Variety Content Studio Executive Producer Alex Hughes. Please refer to
Speaker 1: sources and citations on Variety dot com.