Speaker 1: This show contains mature content and adult themes. It may
Speaker 1: not be suitable for young audiences.
Speaker 2: And he's gone on, just go on.
Speaker 3: Like that.
Speaker 2: It's so fast.
Speaker 4: Never ever saw somebody move so quickly from playful drug.
Speaker 2: Use to death.
Speaker 5: From Variety and iHeart Podcasts, this is Variety Confidential, the
Speaker 5: Life and Legend of River Phoenix. I'm Tacchiana Siegel, Executive
Speaker 5: editor of Film and.
Speaker 1: Media at Variety.
Speaker 5: In episode one, we explored River's unconventional childhood and his
Speaker 5: swift rise to fame. Today, we delve into pivotal moments
Speaker 5: in rivers life, including his time filming Dogfight and my
Speaker 5: own private Idaho.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful having a new name every six months. Why
Speaker 1: aren't we supposed to question authority? You've taught me that
Speaker 1: she turned ourselves in. It's dangerous for you, and it's
Speaker 1: standers for him. I don't apologey Eda, and I came
Speaker 1: all the way back here to take you out to
Speaker 1: dinner and try to make things up to you.
Speaker 2: This is some part of your Dog Fight, I'll kill you.
Speaker 5: We begin with Dogfight director Nancy Sivoka, who worked with
Speaker 5: River from May nineteen ninety through July nineteen ninety. She
Speaker 5: shares the lessons she learned from their time together and
Speaker 5: the potential she saw in him as an aspiring director. Nancy,
Speaker 5: thank you for joining us before we discuss your time
Speaker 5: with River in the early nineties and his death just
Speaker 5: a few years later in nineteen ninety three. I want
Speaker 5: to remind listeners how big of a star he was.
Speaker 5: He had just come off an Oscar nomination for his
Speaker 5: supporting role in that nineteen eighty eight drama Running on Empty.
Speaker 5: Do you think that put him in a different category
Speaker 5: as an actor at the time, to be that young
Speaker 5: and already have accomplished something that few have.
Speaker 1: You know, I was very aware of his filmography, and
Speaker 1: I had seen the movies, really liked his work a lot.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that he was recognized so young
Speaker 1: was well deserved. Because he came in so young and
Speaker 1: so aware of these characters. He had an ability to
Speaker 1: assess people in psychology and situations in a very empathetic way.
Speaker 1: He really did become them, and I think the fact
Speaker 1: that he was recognized did give him then now we're
Speaker 1: getting to the business side in the industry, absolutely gave
Speaker 1: him a power that I think he used wisely. He
Speaker 1: was very mature for nineteen and I know, you know,
Speaker 1: we can get into the abuse of the drugs and
Speaker 1: all that, but I'll start by saying that he was
Speaker 1: a very aware and very mature and his hyper sensitivity
Speaker 1: is usually part of what gets people in trouble with
Speaker 1: substance abuse. He was very sensitive to people in situations
Speaker 1: and highly intelligent that way, and which could set you
Speaker 1: up for that.
Speaker 5: It's a great point because it's like that thing that
Speaker 5: is your greatest asset can also be potentially the thing
Speaker 5: that will undermine you.
Speaker 1: I think part one of the many things that were
Speaker 1: the positives that then could also undermine is he felt
Speaker 1: a great responsibility with his notoriety, his popularity. He was
Speaker 1: very It was very interesting. I remember one day we
Speaker 1: were breaking for lunch and we were on set and
Speaker 1: we had across the street. We were in Seattle filming,
Speaker 1: and we went to his trailer to eat lunch there,
Speaker 1: and as we were crossing a street, the I want
Speaker 1: to say, the Norwegian Day Parade, Northern European Day Parade
Speaker 1: of these lovely young ladies, you know, with batons twirling
Speaker 1: and legs kicking, was coming down the street with a
Speaker 1: band and all this stuff, and when the young girls
Speaker 1: recognized that it was River Phoenix crossing the street, they
Speaker 1: broke the parade and they ran after him, and it
Speaker 1: was like beatlemania, and they chased them to the trailer
Speaker 1: and we all went inside the trailer giggling. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, one of those moments. And he didn't just
Speaker 1: like sit down there and have lunch to go like
Speaker 1: how funny these girls are after me kind of thing.
Speaker 1: He sat with that and he was disturbed by it,
Speaker 1: and he said, I feel bad, like they just the
Speaker 1: whole parade just went to stop, like they were there
Speaker 1: celebrating there, and now they're outside the trailer. Now the
Speaker 1: girls are outside the trailer. So I said, well, maybe
Speaker 1: you want to you want to just go talk to him,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking he'd signed autographs and stuff. He stepped out.
Speaker 1: Of course, he's signing autographs. But when he was done,
Speaker 1: he said, listen, I want you to get back in
Speaker 1: the parade and finish your celebration because there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people there were waiting for this to happen,
Speaker 1: and you're part of that entertainment and stuff. So he
Speaker 1: always was very aware of being having the responsibility that
Speaker 1: there's an audience waiting for him to do what he
Speaker 1: promised to do. And he took that so seriously to
Speaker 1: a point where he might have enjoyed it. But I
Speaker 1: didn't see him enjoy it much. I saw him take
Speaker 1: it very seriously and always like sort of figure out
Speaker 1: how he could make things better through that, Like he
Speaker 1: would talk about kindness to the young girls, or he
Speaker 1: would just add stuff to it to help people's lives
Speaker 1: be better. I mean, he was a really complex and
Speaker 1: deep young guy.
Speaker 5: Take us back to when you first came on board
Speaker 5: for Dogfight as a director, and however was already attached
Speaker 5: as Eddie Birdlace with that challenging Usually the director gets
Speaker 5: to pick the leading actor.
Speaker 1: I read the script soon after the first film I
Speaker 1: did was at Sundance, and I read the script soon
Speaker 1: after that. Peter Newman, who was one of the producers,
Speaker 1: brought it to me, so at that point River was
Speaker 1: not attached. But at that point I wasn't ready to commit.
Speaker 1: I had just had a baby. But I loved the
Speaker 1: story so much, and I was so intrigued by these
Speaker 1: two really opposite people coming together for one night and
Speaker 1: how that very simple premise really was intense. So I
Speaker 1: said to Peter, you know, if this is still available,
Speaker 1: I'll be back, you know, please let me know in
Speaker 1: a year or so. And that's when they came back
Speaker 1: to me with Dogfight and River was attached to it.
Speaker 1: And I spoke to the folks at the studio and
Speaker 1: they seemed good, and they said, listen, now you have
Speaker 1: to speak to River and make sure that he feels
Speaker 1: good about having as a director. And that made a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me because he was on it.
Speaker 1: So we had a phone call that I feel like
Speaker 1: it lasted for a couple of hours, maybe, like you know,
Speaker 1: definitely more than an hour. And he was in Florida
Speaker 1: and I was in the Bronx at that point, and
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about the story. He told me
Speaker 1: why he wanted to do it. He wanted to try
Speaker 1: something different than the films he'd made, the other roles
Speaker 1: he'd had, which were younger characters, And that made a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me for him as an act
Speaker 1: of the fact that he was stretching. He spoke very
Speaker 1: much like a professional actor, did not speak like the
Speaker 1: nineteen year old that he was, because he was both.
Speaker 1: And he spoke a lot about how he found it
Speaker 1: so challenging, this character, and he was asking me what
Speaker 1: did I make of him, because it was so different
Speaker 1: from the way he had been brought up. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had been brought up as a very much bohemian,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of a hippie background, very the opposite
Speaker 1: of conservative. And here was this young man who had
Speaker 1: signed up to be a marine. And I had told
Speaker 1: him that, you know, I grew up with people that
Speaker 1: I had signed up to be in the Armed forces,
Speaker 1: so I was really familiar with that person. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, we were talking about people as people,
Speaker 1: but he knew he was going to be in for
Speaker 1: a challenge. And his discomfort, which I know, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people have spoken about that worked on
Speaker 1: the film or whatever. His discomfort with this character, to
Speaker 1: me was the most beautiful part of the portrayal because
Speaker 1: I think he played a man who was uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: the role that he took on that he chose, and
Speaker 1: it was a role that you know, super manufactured. We
Speaker 1: know that today to talk about this stuff as constructions,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know, back in the day, it's
Speaker 1: like he was just like, you know, my dad said,
Speaker 1: it would make me a man, you know, to join
Speaker 1: the army or the marines, and that's what I'm going
Speaker 1: to do. I got to become a man. And what
Speaker 1: it does to him is this constant You get this
Speaker 1: constant feeling that here's someone who's trying to fit into
Speaker 1: this the skin that's not his, that he didn't even
Speaker 1: know he maybe shouldn't do. And and it was just
Speaker 1: beautiful to watch that process because I think it's universal
Speaker 1: that often will make a choice in our lives that's
Speaker 1: not right for us, and we keep pushing through it
Speaker 1: because we made the choice. And I think Lily's character
Speaker 1: has her own issues of trying to fit into it,
Speaker 1: her stereotype of who this bohemian chick is, you know,
Speaker 1: and the two of them together kind of honestly, kind
Speaker 1: of being trans parent about showing their discomfort is to
Speaker 1: me what I kind of saw a potential in the story.
Speaker 1: But when man, when the two of them showed up,
Speaker 1: that was like, literally, I'm getting goosebumps talking about it now.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a privilege to watch people go through
Speaker 1: this process because we usually want to hide that.
Speaker 5: Were you concerned about River pulling off this role, especially
Speaker 5: given that he was coming off a long list of
Speaker 5: roles where he was basically a child.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I'd seen his movies and I felt
Speaker 1: like I saw the potential in him. I wasn't concerned.
Speaker 1: I was actually really excited. I felt like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who's who's wanting to take a big
Speaker 1: step in a in a in an unknown place, and
Speaker 1: I get to go with him. So I was actually
Speaker 1: very very excited and hopeful that that. You know, I wish,
Speaker 1: I hope that he liked me enough that I could
Speaker 1: be a part of it, because that was what was appealing.
Speaker 5: What was the first day of filming like.
Speaker 1: The first day that I filmed with him. Mind you,
Speaker 1: I had worked with first time actors on my first film,
Speaker 1: so we were all learning together and I thought I
Speaker 1: had a pretty good handle on how to work with actors,
Speaker 1: acting background, from college whatever. We started day one and
Speaker 1: we filmed a scene and that was take one. I
Speaker 1: went over to him and I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: have a little note for you. He says, okay, take two,
Speaker 1: and I had the same note because I didn't really
Speaker 1: see what he did. So I went over and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm won doing a few could whatever, and he's like, Nancy,
Speaker 1: I did it. And I said, I'm sorry, I didn't see.
Speaker 1: And I stood behind. I stood right by the camera.
Speaker 1: I never stood by a monitor, so I was right
Speaker 1: on top of him, and he goes, I did it.
Speaker 1: So I said, I think we did one more take,
Speaker 1: and then he said listen. He said, you'll see it
Speaker 1: in Daily's, you know, when you watch the film and
Speaker 1: you'll see that I did it. And when I saw
Speaker 1: the rushes from that day, by golly, he did it.
Speaker 1: And I learned, and I can't explain how it was
Speaker 1: a shift and focus. It was like literally like a
Speaker 1: rack focus. I learned to watch him and to watch
Speaker 1: actors as if my eyes were a camera, which is
Speaker 1: very different from my eyes. And he taught me that.
Speaker 1: And he was nineteen. He knew what the camera was seeing.
Speaker 1: He knew how to play to the camera. And it
Speaker 1: may not necessarily have been the way I was looking
Speaker 1: at how And then I started saying, oh that's what
Speaker 1: the okay, what the camera seeing? What the camera saying?
Speaker 5: Where do you think that came from?
Speaker 1: With him?
Speaker 5: Because that is not something common.
Speaker 1: Again, he was a child actor, he was a child performer.
Speaker 1: He was always aware of what his performances he would like.
Speaker 1: All I think good child performance is he learned, maybe
Speaker 1: way too young, the impact of what he does to
Speaker 1: other people, like how people react to him. So that's
Speaker 1: a good thing to have. I think it's it's a
Speaker 1: little healthier as you get older, because at least you
Speaker 1: have a sense of yourself first, and then you get
Speaker 1: a sense of what other people need from you. But
Speaker 1: as a child, I think you just go straight to
Speaker 1: what other people need from me, and he always had
Speaker 1: that what other people need for me, think, and if
Speaker 1: he felt like he couldn't deliver it, then there would
Speaker 1: be disappointment in himself. What I really appreciate is that
Speaker 1: he pulled from himself the awkwardness of the roles that
Speaker 1: don't fit him. And they weren't necessarily the marine role,
Speaker 1: but there were other roles that he had that he
Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable with, and he played that awkwardness came through.
Speaker 5: What do you think was awkward in his real life
Speaker 5: that he was able to pull from.
Speaker 1: Well, certainly the notoriety, the feeling responsible because the fans
Speaker 1: I had never really seen it that close at that point,
Speaker 1: and the way that these young people would literally put
Speaker 1: them their whole psychees in your hands, you know, like
Speaker 1: they were like so in awe of him, and he
Speaker 1: need he didn't want that that artifice. He wanted them
Speaker 1: to act to him as a person and then go
Speaker 1: back and be with themselves as people so that they
Speaker 1: don't give them themselves up to something like that. It
Speaker 1: took a lot of I think it was very deep,
Speaker 1: very deep thinking on his part, and he lived it.
Speaker 1: He lived it like every day. I mean, he couldn't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. He's so recognizable.
Speaker 5: I think people don't even remember that, like or the
Speaker 5: people who weren't even alive like he was, what like
Speaker 5: Leonardo DiCaprio was after Titanic.
Speaker 1: It's funny Leonardo DiCaprio reminds me so much of him,
Speaker 1: like that when I saw when I saw Titanic, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, River could have done that, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: there was definitely that kind of It's an attraction that's
Speaker 1: so surreal, but inside there's more So that it's not
Speaker 1: that you don't stop at the very attractive face because
Speaker 1: there's more going on and so you want to stay
Speaker 1: and see more. And they know what to do with
Speaker 1: the camera. River had he had so much When I
Speaker 1: worked with him, he had so much more experience than
Speaker 1: I did. Even though he was like whatever, I think,
Speaker 1: eight years younger than me. He had so much more
Speaker 1: space because he'd been acting, and he understood what he
Speaker 1: looked like and what the camera didn't like, and which,
Speaker 1: you know, how he could perform in a way that
Speaker 1: the camera would accept everything that he did and what
Speaker 1: the movement of an eye I did and what the
Speaker 1: movement of a hand did and he understood. You know.
Speaker 1: He was very and he loved the cinematography. I thought
Speaker 1: we talked a lot because he had so many suggestions.
Speaker 1: At one point, I said, hey, River, when are you
Speaker 1: going to direct me? Because it seems like you want
Speaker 1: to direct this movie? And we used to joke that way,
Speaker 1: and he was like, no, I want to. I want to,
Speaker 1: he says, but I think I have to go away
Speaker 1: to do it because I don't want people to judge
Speaker 1: my early attempts. So again that being in the public
Speaker 1: eye did not come naturally to him, and I understood,
Speaker 1: because I can't imagine taking your first baby steps in
Speaker 1: a new art form and then having the whole world
Speaker 1: on top of you judging it. You know, the way
Speaker 1: they judge the thing that you are more experienced than.
Speaker 5: Something that you said about him feeling this responsibility, this
Speaker 5: great responsibility. It's echoed with various people we've talked to,
Speaker 5: this idea that he was also the breadwinner of his
Speaker 5: family that also had to have been a tremendous burden
Speaker 5: when you're nineteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, it's kind of like the way things
Speaker 1: are set up, right, because you'll get a family that
Speaker 1: to this day where there's kids that have a talent,
Speaker 1: and it's the kids that want to act on that talent.
Speaker 1: They just need to do what they're born needing to
Speaker 1: do this thing, and so the parents will rally around
Speaker 1: in the family. If it's a big family, rallies around,
Speaker 1: and one child might sort of, you know, step up
Speaker 1: first and step out first, and then suddenly everything the
Speaker 1: dynamics of that family, instead of being you know, mom
Speaker 1: and dad at the top or the adults at the
Speaker 1: top and the children being whatever, it gets flipped just
Speaker 1: by the just by the business, by being in this work,
Speaker 1: and part of it you go, you know, well, he
Speaker 1: was born to do this. There was a part of
Speaker 1: him that really loved acting. So it wasn't like he
Speaker 1: was in it against his will. I think the other
Speaker 1: things that come in is usually the business, the responsibility
Speaker 1: of the business, and that to me is the part
Speaker 1: that is hard for all of us, you know, because
Speaker 1: the actual doing the work is play, you know. And
Speaker 1: he probably would have had more resources, although he did
Speaker 1: so well in his roles. But when you're doing that,
Speaker 1: plus you're aware that of the business side, and you've
Speaker 1: got people telling you that you need to do this,
Speaker 1: this and that, and you have to he was aware.
Speaker 1: He was aware of it very much. He at one
Speaker 1: point we were having some issues with the studio and
Speaker 1: he said to me, says, Nancy, pick your battles. He
Speaker 1: was not again, I'll remind you he was nineteen, and
Speaker 1: he was telling me, just know how to pick your
Speaker 1: battles so that you can and you know, get what
Speaker 1: you need at the end. But again he was very aware,
Speaker 1: and he was very aware of what were things that
Speaker 1: can sort of you could let slide some creative things
Speaker 1: so that you can make sure that the things that
Speaker 1: are the most important. Saying again, lesson for me, because
Speaker 1: I was coming from I had never worked in a studio.
Speaker 1: With the first film I did was independent, so there
Speaker 1: was nothing nobody did really that had an answer to
Speaker 1: And this was him teaching me and being very He
Speaker 1: was a very I felt, a very generous teacher with me,
Speaker 1: because he could have been like, oh man, this chick's
Speaker 1: just learning, but he was very It was a true
Speaker 1: collaboration because, like I said, he was very interested in filmmaking.
Speaker 1: So we would talk about, you know, looking at the
Speaker 1: whole picture of it, where whereas his role as bird
Speaker 1: Lace was the role of Birdlace and he had to
Speaker 1: take care of that. And then you know, we would
Speaker 1: talk about how as a director, if he was doing
Speaker 1: this and directing, he would be having to take care
Speaker 1: of his role, but also at the same time at
Speaker 1: looking at the bigger picture and making decisions on the
Speaker 1: bigger picture and thinking about audience, what the audience needs
Speaker 1: in a very different way that he would as an actor.
Speaker 1: So and he was fascinated by that, really interested, and
Speaker 1: I think he would have directed.
Speaker 5: Did you stay in touch with River after the film
Speaker 5: was released?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Actually, he is such a doll. I was
Speaker 1: filming a movie in the summer of ninety two and
Speaker 1: he came I was hugely pregnant at that point with
Speaker 1: my daughter, and River came over and he hugged me,
Speaker 1: and he said, I just want to let you know
Speaker 1: that I quit smoking because I was always after him,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was an ex smoker, so I
Speaker 1: used to smoke three packs of day. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's good, River, it's good for your voice, you know.
Speaker 1: And when we hugged, and I was really happy to
Speaker 1: hear it. And then, you know, it was a couple
Speaker 1: of months later that I learned that he was doing
Speaker 1: heroin at the time that I said that bastard. He
Speaker 1: said to me he quit smoking and he was doing
Speaker 1: hard drugs, and I was ignorant of that. But he
Speaker 1: was like my kid brother, you know. During this time.
Speaker 1: It was just a very generous kid brother. And when
Speaker 1: my daughter was born, she was born, I think two
Speaker 1: weeks before he passed away, he called me and congratulated me.
Speaker 1: So it was just yeah, yeah, that was really yeah,
Speaker 1: it was cool.
Speaker 5: So to your knowledge, he was not doing drugs during Dogfight.
Speaker 1: No, not at all, not at all. And I may
Speaker 1: have gotten the years wrong and maybe he died he
Speaker 1: died in ninety three, didn't correct, So I saw everything
Speaker 1: was a year later. So he had seen me on
Speaker 1: the set in ninety two, and when my daughter turned
Speaker 1: a year old, he called me to say happy birthday
Speaker 1: to her because he had also congratulated me on her birth.
Speaker 1: So he was that kind of guy.
Speaker 5: How did you learn that he was doing heroin?
Speaker 1: I actually I actually learned through people that I knew
Speaker 1: who knew him, And I was really worried because, you know,
Speaker 1: having known other people with heroin addiction, having known a
Speaker 1: lot of people with substance abuse, you know that when
Speaker 1: you're in that when you the darker, the more you
Speaker 1: get into that place, the more that you're the friends
Speaker 1: who are trying to get through to you fall fall
Speaker 1: away out of your view, and who comes in to
Speaker 1: fill in the space are people who are just as troubled.
Speaker 1: And I've really I worried for him for that. I've
Speaker 1: sadly known that situation too much. And it's it's a
Speaker 1: heartbreak to watch somebody get lost like that because they're
Speaker 1: not going to come out until they're ready to come out,
Speaker 1: and some people are just unfolds. It's luck, whether you
Speaker 1: do or don't, it's nothing that you do. It's just
Speaker 1: pure luck. It is pure luck. I know people who
Speaker 1: are heroinautics today who are in their eighties and I'm like, damn,
Speaker 1: I said, what is that a preservative? Like, how is
Speaker 1: it that you're still here? But yeah, no, it's just
Speaker 1: uh it tells you that that you know, and back
Speaker 1: in the day and still to this day. I think
Speaker 1: subsists get so much about blaming the people that are
Speaker 1: ill with it and you know, like alcoholism, like any
Speaker 1: of it. It's just blaming the people that are ill
Speaker 1: and they don't have the willpower and they have that.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, unless you've been there, unless you've
Speaker 1: been there, just a great, great, great loss. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I with Shah to hear it.
Speaker 5: Where would you have seen his career going? Obviously you
Speaker 5: mentioned he would have directed, and you could have seen
Speaker 5: him in Titanic. Overall, what do you think his career
Speaker 5: would have been?
Speaker 1: I think he was really thoughtful about the roles he picked.
Speaker 1: He wasn't that movie star that preserves his image, you know,
Speaker 1: like and nothing wrong with that. There are movie stars
Speaker 1: that really the audience loves this image that they have
Speaker 1: of them, and they work hard in every project they
Speaker 1: pick to make sure that that image stays the way
Speaker 1: you know, that people expect of them. And that's a
Speaker 1: dedicated performer in that sense. But in his case, he
Speaker 1: was stretching. He was I think he was stretching. Look
Speaker 1: at Idaho, Yeah, he was stretching from Dogfight. Oh you
Speaker 1: can't get more different, you know. And he was really,
Speaker 1: I think, trying to explore all these different parts of
Speaker 1: himself and see how he connected to all these different
Speaker 1: unlikely people. And any actor will tell you that they
Speaker 1: live with that character and that character becomes a part
Speaker 1: of them. So he picked these very challenging people to
Speaker 1: live with and we benefited as the audience. We benefited
Speaker 1: because we see ourselves. He did it in a way
Speaker 1: so that we can see ourselves, so you can mirror us.
Speaker 1: And that's I think his gift.
Speaker 5: What do you think was his greatest strength as an actor.
Speaker 1: His ability to mirror, to mirror the complexities of a character.
Speaker 1: Like he's He's very transparent, his face, his body. I
Speaker 1: think it just he really embodies everyone. And the odd
Speaker 1: thing is, you know, when I watch him, I think, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, well, I'm not a hustler. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a marine. You know I'm not a I'm not
Speaker 1: a kid who discovered a body. You know, I'm not this.
Speaker 1: I'm not this young guy, and yet and yet I am.
Speaker 1: When I'm watching him, I am, and I become one
Speaker 1: with him, which is why I think he was beloved
Speaker 1: by people and beloved by young girls. I think not
Speaker 1: just because he was a hottie, but because he really delivered.
Speaker 1: He wasn't mister cool and a tail and bill like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like just the face of the face.
Speaker 1: He really had. He had heart, and so he had
Speaker 1: soul because his end, his ending was so tragic and
Speaker 1: you know, we would like to say, you know, avoidable.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe it does take over his story, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to the day when his full story takes
Speaker 1: the story, because he is a He's a fascinating person
Speaker 1: that took every experience he had from the time he
Speaker 1: was a child until the day he died, and he
Speaker 1: he actively seek down out characters that were at the
Speaker 1: fringe of things because I think he grew up at
Speaker 1: the fringe of things, and he was very appreciative of
Speaker 1: people that most of the people kind of like back
Speaker 1: off from, you know, and he did that really honestly.
Speaker 1: So that part of it. I want to celebrate his
Speaker 1: whole filmography and encourage people to find his work so
Speaker 1: that the last image is not the thing you keep,
Speaker 1: but the work he did, which is what you know,
Speaker 1: is what is the gift.
Speaker 5: Months after wrapping Dogfight, River began work on another independent film,
Speaker 5: My Own Private, Idaho, directed and written by Gus Fanzant,
Speaker 5: that starred River and Keanu Reeves as two queer young
Speaker 5: men and best friends who embark on a journey of
Speaker 5: self discovery. In his nineteen ninety one Variety Review, former
Speaker 5: chief film critic Todd McCarthy said, River cuts a very believable,
Speaker 5: sometimes compelling figure of a young man urgently groping for
Speaker 5: definition and his life.
Speaker 1: What do I mean to you?
Speaker 2: What do you mean to me?
Speaker 6: Mike?
Speaker 2: You're my best friend.
Speaker 3: I know, man, I know your friends.
Speaker 6: We're good friends, and it's good to be good friends.
Speaker 3: That's a good thing.
Speaker 7: So I just.
Speaker 4: That's okay, bring your friends.
Speaker 5: Variety's current chief film critic Owen Gleiberman shares more about
Speaker 5: River's career and star quality in the early nineties.
Speaker 3: I think most of the directors he worked with recognized
Speaker 3: that he was a great camera object, and they would
Speaker 3: just let the camera kind of sit on him and
Speaker 3: drink him in. I mean, Gus Benzan definitely did that
Speaker 3: and my own private Idaho. But I think there was
Speaker 3: this feeling directors had that he could just he could
Speaker 3: rule a scene with his with his presence, I think
Speaker 3: for a while, really starting in the seventies and definitely
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties, young actors in Hollywood were in
Speaker 3: a category of their own, and then you know, they
Speaker 3: would kind of grow up on camera, like the members
Speaker 3: of the Brat Pack did, but they often grew up
Speaker 3: sort of awkwardly, and they kind of, you know, they
Speaker 3: were better as kids than as adults, and some of them,
Speaker 3: like Debbie Moore, were able to really make the make
Speaker 3: the leap. But there's something about kid acting that I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's very punchy, it's very on the nose.
Speaker 3: It's about kids being cute and charming, and that legacy
Speaker 3: had kind of carried through in the eighties where you know,
Speaker 3: the Brat Pack really were the big teen stars of
Speaker 3: the day, and then by the end of the day
Speaker 3: they were growing up awkwardly or not, trying to sustain
Speaker 3: their stardom or not. And then along comes an actor
Speaker 3: like River Phoenix, and he just seemed cut from a
Speaker 3: very different cloth that earlier kind of kid acting. The
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties kind of kid acting was all about pleasing audiences.
Speaker 3: It was about being you know, funny or tough, and
Speaker 3: River Phoenix sort of wasn't going to play that. He
Speaker 3: was a quieter actor. He was always drawn I mean,
Speaker 3: once he got past the after school special period, he
Speaker 3: was drawn to really interesting kind of indie movies, movies
Speaker 3: that touched on themes of alienation, where he was going
Speaker 3: to be sort of on the high wire as an actor,
Speaker 3: not trying to charm you, and you felt that, you
Speaker 3: felt that he was a new breed of star, but
Speaker 3: that maybe did harken back to the seventies or James
Speaker 3: Dean or whatever, where he he was a more serious
Speaker 3: actor in many ways than the actors who had come
Speaker 3: out of the youth movie machine. I mean, some of
Speaker 3: them were serious actors too, but they got caught up
Speaker 3: in the whole blockbuster thing and that desire to please
Speaker 3: audiences that had become such a thing in nineteen eighties movies.
Speaker 3: The nineties, the indie movement right from the start was
Speaker 3: going to be about something different. It was going to
Speaker 3: be about going back to a little bit more of
Speaker 3: what seventies movies were about touching on themes that were darker,
Speaker 3: about alienation, movies that tried to please audiences but also
Speaker 3: challenged them. And I think you felt from the beginning
Speaker 3: that River Phoenix was part of that. But it wasn't
Speaker 3: a movement yet when he started, it was just these
Speaker 3: kinds of little interesting movies, and he got in on
Speaker 3: the ground floor of that.
Speaker 5: Will The film solidified River's reputation as a fearless and
Speaker 5: talented artist. It also marked the beginning of a darker
Speaker 5: chapter for the actor, one that would end in his death.
Speaker 3: River Phoenix was absolutely on the cutting edge of that,
Speaker 3: on the edge of that new attitude, that new way
Speaker 3: to project yourself as an artist, and maybe unfortunately as
Speaker 3: a new way of having almost a kind of self
Speaker 3: destructive attitude about drugs and pleasure and all that sort
Speaker 3: of stuff that had been around for a while. And
Speaker 3: it's not like there weren't casualties before, but it had
Speaker 3: all turned a lot, a lot darker. One of the
Speaker 3: things about My Own Private Idaho is it was this
Speaker 3: very cool movie, and it was about sort of a
Speaker 3: new idea of cool in the culture that had originally
Speaker 3: come up through like you know, the photographs of Larry
Speaker 3: Clark or something like that, and maybe through a movie
Speaker 3: like Drugstar Cowboy in nineteen eighty nine, the movie that
Speaker 3: put Gus Van sant on the on the map, Drugstar
Speaker 3: Cowboy was about these you know, completely disreputable pharmaceutical junkies.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're breaking into drug stores to get their supply,
Speaker 3: but they are in the sort of nineteen seventy spirit.
Speaker 3: They're the heroes. I mean, they're the you know, the
Speaker 3: anti heroes, but we're we're rooting for them. And that's because,
Speaker 3: you know, as played by Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch,
Speaker 3: they are cool. They just have this quality of cool
Speaker 3: that's just part of what the movies impart in a
Speaker 3: story like that, and my own Private Idaho has some
Speaker 3: of that. I mean, it's about you know, these downbeat
Speaker 3: characters and they're alienated, and they are hustlers, and they
Speaker 3: don't have homes and they're you know, just wandering from
Speaker 3: city to city. But part of the magic of movies
Speaker 3: is that the way Gus Van shoots those lives, there's
Speaker 3: a glamor. There's a glamor to them, and River Phoenix,
Speaker 3: I think got caught up during the shooting of that
Speaker 3: movie in the kind of the glamor of that lifestyle
Speaker 3: or the cool of that lifestyle. You know, heroin had
Speaker 3: just been considered this drug that was anathma that you know,
Speaker 3: you didn't do. It was just too too dangerous, it
Speaker 3: was too dark. But by the nineties, for the first time,
Speaker 3: it had become a cool drug. But the warnings about
Speaker 3: it were correct. I mean, it was dangerous, it could
Speaker 3: kill you, and that's kind of what happened. But he
Speaker 3: got he got all, he got all caught up in that,
Speaker 3: and there was a whole subculture of that in la
Speaker 3: around places like the Viper Room, where you know, that
Speaker 3: generation they would gather, they would hang out, Baby would
Speaker 3: do these drugs, and for the first time that was
Speaker 3: kind of cool. The element of self destruction in it,
Speaker 3: of not caring enough about yourself to kind of really
Speaker 3: look after yourself, that had become that had become cool.
Speaker 5: Joining us to unravel this churning point is Matthew Ebert,
Speaker 5: an actor and crew member on the film and one
Speaker 5: of River's closest friends during this tumultuous period. Matthew, thank
Speaker 5: you for joining me. Thanks to the success of Stand
Speaker 5: By Me and Running on Empty, for which he received
Speaker 5: an OSCAR nomination. River Phoenix was already a household name
Speaker 5: by nineteen ninety. That year, he worked on Dogfight, a
Speaker 5: film directed by Nancy Savoca. It was on this set
Speaker 5: that he met Matthew Ebert, a young production assistant and
Speaker 5: aspiring filmmaker, and the two quickly became inseparable.
Speaker 4: I was working with a production designer who had gone
Speaker 4: out to Seattle to work on Dogfight the movie river
Speaker 4: Maid in the spring of nineteen ninety, so I was
Speaker 4: hired as the onset dresser. It was fantastic, and I'm
Speaker 4: twenty four years old, really in a good height of
Speaker 4: my personal powers in terms of creative creativity. And I
Speaker 4: met River in pre production on that film. I remember
Speaker 4: first seeing him and you know, everybody he's a River Phoenix,
Speaker 4: so everybody's you know, around him and swarming.
Speaker 2: But I'm kind of.
Speaker 4: One of those people who when I see celebrities, I
Speaker 4: go in the other room. About a week later, maybe
Speaker 4: not even I'm walking down under the Mono rail in
Speaker 4: Seattle and I hear this, hey, and there he is,
Speaker 4: so I stop and I wave and he runs across
Speaker 4: the street and he's like, I hear.
Speaker 2: Really cool things about you. D d Da Da Da.
Speaker 4: I'm River Phoenix Da Dah. It was on like the
Speaker 4: minute we met, you know, like I just we were
Speaker 4: both young. People often talk about him and his personality
Speaker 4: and his lightness and who he was, and it's really true.
Speaker 4: Prior to what happened with his drug addiction, this was
Speaker 4: a young person who at nineteen years old was buying
Speaker 4: land in Costa Rica to preserve the environment, was putting
Speaker 4: all his money where his mouth was, went to things
Speaker 4: for peta And I mean this guy was fully engaged,
Speaker 4: as was I. We just hit it off like two
Speaker 4: peas in a pod.
Speaker 5: During and after filming, the two stayed in touch and
Speaker 5: built a deep friendship based on their mutual love of
Speaker 5: art and activism.
Speaker 2: He comes up to visit me in New York City.
Speaker 4: I'm living in New York on East third Street in
Speaker 4: the Hell's Angels Block, so it's really fun for him
Speaker 4: to come up run around and me too.
Speaker 2: We're not doing any drug.
Speaker 4: The only thing we're doing is smoking pot, and not
Speaker 4: even in mass quantities. We just had lots of enthusiasm
Speaker 4: and youth and brightness, and we had great careers ahead
Speaker 4: of us. I did, and it wasn't forced, Like I
Speaker 4: didn't feel like I ever had to play another role
Speaker 4: or be another thing to be around River. He was
Speaker 4: just this really open human being and so creative and talented.
Speaker 4: And when it comes in that package where you're beautiful
Speaker 4: and all this stuff and now you're successful.
Speaker 2: He had a difficult.
Speaker 4: Childhood like a lot of people, and it wasn't big
Speaker 4: wealth or privilege or any of that. Once he was discovered,
Speaker 4: he became the breadwinner.
Speaker 2: Of his family.
Speaker 5: Well filming dog site, River was considering signing on to
Speaker 5: Gus van Santz My Own Private Idaho. The project would
Speaker 5: be both a professional challenge and a personal gamble. As
Speaker 5: Matthew Ebert recalls, River came to him for advice one day.
Speaker 4: He said, Oh, I want to do this film with
Speaker 4: Gus van Zantz called my Own Private Ideow and nobody
Speaker 4: in my team mi crew wants me to do it.
Speaker 2: No one, what do you think.
Speaker 4: I'd never met Gus, but I'd seen Malanocci and Drugstore Cowboy.
Speaker 4: I was really impressed, and I really was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's he's great because he just took Matt Dillon and
Speaker 4: made him an adult star, and that's what you're trying
Speaker 4: to do so. He said to me, I'll only do
Speaker 4: it if you'll do with me. You come with me
Speaker 4: and show me how. Now people will speculate, and they
Speaker 4: did then about our relationship. You know, I'm gay, but
Speaker 4: not we never had sex. He was completely open hearted.
Speaker 4: So we would hug and do all this stuff. We
Speaker 4: really like each other genuinely. He knew because I was gay,
Speaker 4: because I had some street experience completely different than the
Speaker 4: kids in Idaho and Oregon. But I wasn't unfamiliar with
Speaker 4: the role. He was going to play.
Speaker 5: The role of Mike Waters, an arcoleptic street hustler, pushed
Speaker 5: River to a new artistic height, but the film's immersive
Speaker 5: and gritty production environment would also have a profound and
Speaker 5: troubling impact on his personal life, something Matthew Ebert sensed
Speaker 5: from the moment he arrived on set in an Oregon.
Speaker 4: River had arrived maybe like a week before I did,
Speaker 4: and when I got there, the production i'mice said, you know,
Speaker 4: we had to take away rivers car like why, Well,
Speaker 4: he went out the other night and got fucked up
Speaker 4: on coke, and you know his agent heard about then
Speaker 4: all that pulled away, and I remember being like he
Speaker 4: went on a coke, Like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: Later on I found out it was not coke, it
Speaker 4: was crystal math. Someone had taken him in his research
Speaker 4: to a house of a known drug dealer.
Speaker 5: According to Matthew Ebert, River assured him that he was
Speaker 5: just doing research for the film, but as production continued,
Speaker 5: Ebert recalls an atmosphere that was chaotic and unregulated, with
Speaker 5: drug use rampant among the cast and crew.
Speaker 4: It was the strangest place in the world for me
Speaker 4: when I think back at now what it takes for
Speaker 4: an entire group of people to normalize the behavior I
Speaker 4: saw every day. How an entire community of independent artists, people, producers, writers,
Speaker 4: how everyone saw the same thing I was seeing, but
Speaker 4: no one did anything to stop it. No matter what
Speaker 4: I did to stop it, I couldn't. And eventually I
Speaker 4: caved and I started using. Within like a month, we
Speaker 4: were all on, We were all hooked. River's first use
Speaker 4: of heroin was on my own private Idaho. Most people
Speaker 4: try it and they're like, oh, it takes them a
Speaker 4: little while to get to the place. But when you
Speaker 4: have all that money and access and all these people
Speaker 4: to clean up the mess, No, that goes much faster.
Speaker 4: The cycle speeds up. So now you have all this
Speaker 4: access to heroin, you have all this access to alcohol.
Speaker 2: Whatever you want math, we can get it for you.
Speaker 4: So by the end of it, we're all using pretty heavily.
Speaker 4: When you're in that sort of situation where it's high pressure,
Speaker 4: everybody else is doing it, it just takes.
Speaker 2: That one little map to burn the whole house down.
Speaker 5: Despite the chaos during this period of his life, River's
Speaker 5: performance in My Own Private, Idaho remains a career defining achievement.
Speaker 5: The film showcased his unique ability to channel vulnerability and
Speaker 5: raw motion into a character, something critics like Roger Ebert
Speaker 5: and fans like actor Norman Rita still remember, maybe not.
Speaker 7: I like the picture. This is a challenging, challenging film,
Speaker 7: and there's I think one of the keys in this
Speaker 7: guy's worked our home movies in both Drugstore Cowboy and
Speaker 7: here we see faded film of the kids's children, and
Speaker 7: I think that what this What's the driving impost that
Speaker 7: makes you want to follow these characters even though you
Speaker 7: don't approve of drug dealing or selling sex, is that
Speaker 7: they are trying in some way to get back to
Speaker 7: they want to know how their life split apart from
Speaker 7: those sweet moments in those scratchy films that now exist
Speaker 7: in that precious child. This is something that has been
Speaker 7: a subject in movies constantly. It's one of it's a dream,
Speaker 7: you see it, Citizen Kane all the way through to
Speaker 7: get back to that space. And I like these journeys.
Speaker 7: I like where this guy says it. No matter what
Speaker 7: they're doing, specifically emotionally, I always know what they're doing
Speaker 7: to trying to recapture a sweeter time.
Speaker 2: This movie, that Gus Benzam movie.
Speaker 6: It's so honest, and this is one of the movies
Speaker 6: that was coming out when I was trying to become
Speaker 6: an actor, and I was like incredibly influenced by River Phoenix.
Speaker 2: I thought it was just like the thing his scene when.
Speaker 6: They're sitting around the campfire and he's trying to tell
Speaker 6: him that he loves him, and Kiddy's talking about, oh,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm your friend, you know that, right, and
Speaker 6: he's like, you know, a friend, being a friend is good,
Speaker 6: but he just he's trying to get there. It goes
Speaker 6: into a kiss, but he was like one of the
Speaker 6: most heart movie scenes and I was like, God, how
Speaker 6: fucking punk rock is the River Phoenix, Like everything is
Speaker 6: honest with this guy, which is which is just beautiful.
Speaker 4: You get this feeling that the culture was trying to
Speaker 4: tell him, Hey, this is how you get in character.
Speaker 4: He didn't need any of that. He was just a natural.
Speaker 4: He just came from the guy. That's what I loved
Speaker 4: about Doc Fay was a difficult role for him. He
Speaker 4: plays a marine who's like really a kind of misogynist and.
Speaker 2: That wasn't like him at all. Oh, it was really
Speaker 2: hard for him to do that.
Speaker 4: In some ways, playing Idaho was more closely to his
Speaker 4: spirit because it comes it's a heart character.
Speaker 5: Production on My Own Private Idaho ended by December nineteen ninety,
Speaker 5: but River continued to struggle with balancing his fame, the
Speaker 5: pressure to keep making films, and his addiction.
Speaker 4: Once that move was over, it never stopped. There was
Speaker 4: no gap. There was no like period of oh, let's
Speaker 4: try to clean up. He would try, but the breaks
Speaker 4: were so short. You know, he would be like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I got to clean up for this movie. Ye, but
Speaker 4: now I gotta You know, you can't. Your mind, your
Speaker 4: body is so addicted to the substance that without it
Speaker 4: you can't function.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: Normally we'd say, okay, we'll take six months off. He
Speaker 4: can take six months off. He's supporting an entire family,
Speaker 4: he's supporting an entire operation of machine. The only person
Speaker 4: I can think of was selling him take six months
Speaker 4: off of me, and I was still using.
Speaker 2: I quit.
Speaker 4: Nineteen ninety two. River was the star. Without River, you
Speaker 4: didn't have a movie. River brought the money. River brought everything,
Speaker 4: the two three million dollars you needed to make that movie.
Speaker 4: You didn't have it without River Phoenix. So you know,
Speaker 4: that's the kind of person he was.
Speaker 2: He was the tent.
Speaker 4: He could make these movies happen, unlike so many people
Speaker 4: who can have that. He was also a really beautiful, loving,
Speaker 4: kind human being. But as we all know, the minute
Speaker 4: you become an addict, all those great qualities start becoming
Speaker 4: less and less, and all your money and all your time,
Speaker 4: you know, all the things you have left, all the
Speaker 4: life and breath all goes into keeping this thing alive
Speaker 4: and protecting yourself from exposure.
Speaker 5: After my own private Idaho, River went on to do
Speaker 5: his final four films, Sneakers, a nineteen ninety two thriller
Speaker 5: starring Robert Redford, Silent Tongue, a western directed by Sam Shephard,
Speaker 5: and The Thing Called Love, a comedy drama directed by
Speaker 5: Peter Bugdanovic and co starring River's girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 5: Samantha Mathis, and Dark Blood, which co starred Judy Davis
Speaker 5: and wasn't completed at the time of River's death.
Speaker 4: Today, we would never let a River Phoenix do the
Speaker 4: two movies that he did after today. I would say, listen, honey,
Speaker 4: you look like shit, you look broken, you tore up.
Speaker 4: We're gonna pull you off. We're gonna give you some time.
Speaker 4: We're gonna take it out of the spotlight so you
Speaker 4: can heal. I feel so bad for him because I
Speaker 4: would hear these comras. He would call me up and say,
Speaker 4: I gotta do this movie, and this is the one
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: It's all these people. You could hear the guy working out.
Speaker 4: How great this would be to meet Judy Davis and
Speaker 4: to work with Bugdanovich and Samantha, all the people in
Speaker 4: his he wanted to work with. But he had this
Speaker 4: huge sack of pus he was dragging around. You know,
Speaker 4: he had this huge problem. Now it was untenable. It
Speaker 4: took me years, and in fact, I only did it
Speaker 4: last year to finally see this thing called love, because
Speaker 4: anytime I saw a clip of it, I was like,
Speaker 4: who is that person? That person is so different from
Speaker 4: the River Phoenix I met on dog Fight.
Speaker 2: That guy his skin is bad.
Speaker 4: He's skinny, he's gone, He's not present in his body here.
Speaker 4: There are times watching that movie where I felt like
Speaker 4: he's craving. It was horrible to watch that movie.
Speaker 1: This is a Fox News update.
Speaker 8: The film World is morning two deaths after River Phoenix
Speaker 8: and director of Federico Fellini. Twenty three year old Phoenix
Speaker 8: collapsed outside a Hollywood nightclub. The cause of death is
Speaker 8: under investigation.
Speaker 5: In the early hours of October thirty first, nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 5: River Phoenix was pronounced dead. He was twenty three years old.
Speaker 5: Matthew still remembers that call with the news.
Speaker 4: The speed with which River descended and died.
Speaker 2: I've never seen anyone go that fast.
Speaker 4: Never many years now of counseling people and being a
Speaker 4: sponsor and many many years sober, I've never seen anyone
Speaker 4: deteriorate so quickly in my life. You know, by the
Speaker 4: time Idahope was over, he was fully hooked.
Speaker 2: I was just really.
Speaker 4: Constantly telling him, listen to me, you gotta stop. You
Speaker 4: can come here to my house. We'll hide out, we'll
Speaker 4: go somewhere, we'll do it together. I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: I'm you know.
Speaker 4: Four months he could say yes to me, but two
Speaker 4: hours later, when he's getting a craving and somebody shows
Speaker 4: up with a bag, what are you gonna do? I
Speaker 4: got a call from a fellow actor in my own
Speaker 4: private adaho. I was living in Seattle. I had made
Speaker 4: the move to try to clean myself up. I answered
Speaker 4: the phone. He was in tears.
Speaker 2: I was like, what's going on? Ever died? Totally? Remember it?
Speaker 2: You don't you don't forget something like that. I felt terrible.
Speaker 2: I felt ashamed that I hadn't worked harder to get
Speaker 2: him out.
Speaker 5: For Matthew Ebert River's legacy is as much about his
Speaker 5: humanity as it is about his artistry.
Speaker 2: No one had what he had.
Speaker 4: River was really at the peak what would have been
Speaker 4: the peak of his power, and without those drugs he'd
Speaker 4: still be at the peak of his power. That film
Speaker 4: provided everything for him to lose it. He was so
Speaker 4: big hearted, God, I keep he just had an expansive nature.
Speaker 4: He could open up and embrace so many different things
Speaker 4: in different ways. There was just something about this guy
Speaker 4: that was here to fix shit. Fame, take it or
Speaker 4: leave it kind of guy. Fame just happened, So if
Speaker 4: he didn't have it, his life would have been great.
Speaker 4: Like he was happy, he loved doing music. He had
Speaker 4: all these other creative qualities that once you become this
Speaker 4: Hollywood slot of an actor who brings in all the dough,
Speaker 4: people only think of you as that person. They don't
Speaker 4: see the whole spectrum that you live on. They don't
Speaker 4: see all the other artistry you create. He was writing music,
Speaker 4: composing his own stuff, He was doing all sorts of
Speaker 4: creative stuff with his life, and.
Speaker 2: That all went away.
Speaker 5: River Phoenix was a star who burned brightly and lived passionately.
Speaker 5: It's clear his time on My Own Private Idaho was
Speaker 5: a major turning point in his life in ways both
Speaker 5: good and bad. While it showcased his brilliance as an actor,
Speaker 5: it also exposed him to the darker side of Hollywood
Speaker 5: and put him on a path that would ultimately to
Speaker 5: his untimely death. In our next episode, we'll hear more
Speaker 5: from Matthew Ebert about River's life in those final years
Speaker 5: and we talk with Samantha Mathis, River's girlfriend at the
Speaker 5: time of his death and his co star in The
Speaker 5: Thing Called Love. Mathis was there on that tragic Halloween night.
Speaker 5: Join us as we can continue to uncover the story
Speaker 5: of a life that ended far too soon. Don't forget
Speaker 5: to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Variety Confidential is
Speaker 5: hosted by Tatiana Siegel and produced by Karen Mizugucci and
Speaker 5: Sidney Kramer. Written by Anna Moslam, Karen Mizagucci and Tatiana Siegal.
Speaker 5: Executive produced by Dea Lawrence, Variety's co editor in chief
Speaker 5: Cynthia Littleton, and Ramin's a two day Edited and mixed
Speaker 5: by Aaron Greenawald Variety Content Studio Executive producer Alex Hughes.
Speaker 5: Please refer to sources incitations on Variety dot com.