Speaker 1: This show contains mature content and adult themes, it may
Speaker 1: not be suitable for young audiences.
Speaker 2: And the mysterious death of actor Phoenix is also shaking
Speaker 2: the film community tonight. The twenty three year old Phoenix
Speaker 2: collapsed early this morning and died a short time later.
Speaker 2: It happened outside of West Hollywood Nightclub.
Speaker 3: From Variety and iHeart Podcasts, this is Variety Confidential, the
Speaker 3: Life and Legend of River Phoenix. I'm Tatiana Siegel, Executive
Speaker 3: editor of Film and Media Variety. In the first two episodes,
Speaker 3: we explored River's rise to fame, his ground baking films,
Speaker 3: and how the filming of My Own Private, Idaho set
Speaker 3: the actor on a dangerous path. Today, we will uncover
Speaker 3: the final days of River's life up until that fateful
Speaker 3: night in October nineteen ninety three when Hollywood lost one
Speaker 3: of its brightest stars. Let's listen to this interview from
Speaker 3: the early nineties.
Speaker 4: How do you see yourself fitting in with the younger
Speaker 4: Hollywood acting?
Speaker 5: I don't see I don't see myselves. Boy, that's I
Speaker 5: wonder what that means selves. Yeah, a few of those
Speaker 5: guys in me, I don't see any of them in
Speaker 5: the perspective or in the limelight idea of Hollywood, or
Speaker 5: I just I really don't ever want to get that
Speaker 5: objective or self conscious of my place in this world
Speaker 5: concerning showbiz, you know.
Speaker 3: By nineteen ninety three, River Phoenix's struggles with substance abuse
Speaker 3: had become an open secret within Hollywood, but the actor
Speaker 3: kept taking on more projects, even as one of his
Speaker 3: closest friends, Matthew Ebert, begged him to take a break
Speaker 3: and focus on sobriety. Despite his friends please, River began
Speaker 3: shooting Dark Blood that fall, the twisty thriller co star
Speaker 3: Jonathan Price and Judy Davis. Matthew remembers of her calling
Speaker 3: him after a difficult day on set.
Speaker 6: He called me during that time, and there's a horrible
Speaker 6: thing that happened between him and Judy Davis, and she
Speaker 6: had just read in the Riot Act one day, and
Speaker 6: he really admired Judy very much, and it just crushed him.
Speaker 6: I remember talking to him about it, and he was
Speaker 6: just devastated, just devastated by what she had said and
Speaker 6: what he could no longer control. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 6: why is no one in that production saying, dude, we're
Speaker 6: gonna get some help. We're gonna close down, We're gonna
Speaker 6: start over. Judy was very disciplined. I think she was
Speaker 6: trying to be hard love. She's being tough love. You
Speaker 6: couldn't not know he was using because he was a mess.
Speaker 6: He had come to set literally fucked up, speedy, not
Speaker 6: the same guy. There was no support for him to
Speaker 6: get sober. It wasn't hey, this is really an illness.
Speaker 6: We got to figure out how quietly and calmly, how
Speaker 6: do you do that with a huge celebrity in nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety ninety one, ninety two, How do you do it
Speaker 6: without the media and everything on top of it back then?
Speaker 6: How do you do it in a culture that only
Speaker 6: wants to shame you, that only wants to point out, Oh,
Speaker 6: he's so healthy. Now look at him. I guess he's
Speaker 6: not so healthy. I guess he's really a scumbag. He's
Speaker 6: not a vegan, and he's a heroin addict. So it
Speaker 6: gave the whole narrative to anyone who was jealous. And
Speaker 6: we know how Hollywood is. You know, if you're up,
Speaker 6: somebody's always got to shive out. In the last year
Speaker 6: of his life, I was really trying to stay stober,
Speaker 6: and he would call me like like let's go do
Speaker 6: this thing, Come go see and I really had to
Speaker 6: avoid it. I had to avoid him. Was heartbreaking to
Speaker 6: me now that I couldn't see him because I was
Speaker 6: trying to clean up.
Speaker 3: River died before Dark Blood was finished. The film has
Speaker 3: never been seen in theaters outside of a few film festivals.
Speaker 6: The speed with which River descended and died, I've never
Speaker 6: seen anyone go that fast. Never. In many years now
Speaker 6: of counseling people and being a sponsor and many many
Speaker 6: years sober, I've never seen anyone deteriorate so quickly in
Speaker 6: my life.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety three, River Phoenix celebrated the Halloween holiday
Speaker 3: at the Viper Room, located on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: The nightclub and music venue, partly owned by actor Johnny Depp,
Speaker 3: quickly became a hotspot among Hollywood's most popular young stars.
Speaker 3: River was there with his girlfriend Samantha Mathis, brother Joaquin,
Speaker 3: and sister Rain. It was meant to be a night
Speaker 3: of celebration, but it ended in tragedy. Michelle Sabrino, Stearn's
Speaker 3: Variety CEO and group publisher, was there that night.
Speaker 7: He was a heart throb, but he also had he
Speaker 7: had a cool factor. He was the cool guy and
Speaker 7: entertainment and I just remember seeing him sitting there. I mean,
Speaker 7: we were all young women. We all had crushes on
Speaker 7: River Phoenix. He was one of the biggest stars in
Speaker 7: the country, if not the world. He had a massive
Speaker 7: fan base, and we were thrilled to be in the
Speaker 7: same room as River Phoenix. I didn't think that this Unfortunately,
Speaker 7: something would happen like him passing away.
Speaker 3: What do you remember when you saw him?
Speaker 7: We were out. It was Saturday night. It was October thirtieth,
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety three. It's a big night in LA. Halloween
Speaker 7: is a big deal. Halloween was actually the next day,
Speaker 7: but everybody was celebrating. It was Saturday night and it
Speaker 7: was vibrant and exciting, and we were all in costumes,
Speaker 7: and you know, when you're young, you really do it up.
Speaker 7: So somebody from the Viber room came over and invited
Speaker 7: us to bypass the line. And this is one of
Speaker 7: those fun LA moments that we took advance, and so
Speaker 7: we did. And I remember walking in and seeing people
Speaker 7: in costumes and it was just fun and music was
Speaker 7: blasting and people were drinking, and it was just very
Speaker 7: exciting and very fun. It was highly exclusive. We didn't
Speaker 7: even think we would try.
Speaker 1: It was that.
Speaker 7: Exclusive, and when we were invited and escorted in, I
Speaker 7: just remember it being and I didn't expect it to
Speaker 7: be fancy. It was actually gritty, and I loved that.
Speaker 7: It was like music was blaring, and everybody kind of
Speaker 7: seemed to know each other, and it was very from
Speaker 7: today's standards now that I'm in the industry. It was
Speaker 7: very Hollywood, if you will. Everybody kind of knew each other.
Speaker 7: Everybody was talking with each other, and I felt comfortable, strangely,
Speaker 7: even though I didn't know anyone in the room and
Speaker 7: I was young. Almost everybody in that room was highly,
Speaker 7: highly intoxicated. It was a bar, and it was a
Speaker 7: very fun party. It was a Halloween party.
Speaker 3: Did it surprise you at all what you saw?
Speaker 7: Yeah, it surprised me. Of course. You see somebody in
Speaker 7: all these movies that you love, and you picture them
Speaker 7: differently than sitting on a couch. But it was obviously him.
Speaker 7: We were all excited to see him, but he looked tired,
Speaker 7: and we just assumed that, like everyone else in that room,
Speaker 7: he had had a few too many drinks. The Viper
Speaker 7: Room was that cool place that all the celebrities hung out,
Speaker 7: and it was private, And to your point, we weren't
Speaker 7: running around with phones taking pictures of each other and
Speaker 7: posting it on social media at the time.
Speaker 3: So how'd you find out the next day that he
Speaker 3: had passed to what?
Speaker 6: I think?
Speaker 7: I remember hearing about it on the news. I actually
Speaker 7: remember my parents talking about it. River Phoenix was an
Speaker 7: incredible actor. So even though all of us young women
Speaker 7: were in love with him, he spanned all generations and
Speaker 7: people admired him for being a tremendous actor. And I
Speaker 7: remember my parents talking about it. I was horrified. My
Speaker 7: girlfriends and I called each other and it was just very,
Speaker 7: very sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, had such a career ahead of him.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he was tremendous.
Speaker 3: A Variety report published on November eighth, nineteen ninety three
Speaker 3: reads as follows. Though it's been said that Fever Phoenix's
Speaker 3: band was going to play at the Viper Room in
Speaker 3: West Hollywood when he died early Sunday morning, they didn't.
Speaker 3: It's more likely he was there to see the band
Speaker 3: that did, called p The combo consisted of Flea of
Speaker 3: the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Gibby Haynes of the
Speaker 3: Butthole Surfers on vocals, Tom Petty keyboardist benmont Tench on organ,
Speaker 3: actor and Viper Room employee Sal Jenko on drums, and
Speaker 3: the unlikely guitar duo of Al Jorgenson Ministry and producer
Speaker 3: of Nirvana's latest effort in Uterow, the Actor club owner
Speaker 3: Johnny Depp. Perhaps the eerious moment of the evening came
Speaker 3: during this second song, when Haines's impromptu vocals turned into
Speaker 3: a meandering ramble about RIM's Michael Stite and River Phoenix.
Speaker 1: Please there again? Gun down over, Okay, what's the other's
Speaker 1: lab at the Viper Road.
Speaker 3: Variety reported at the time that River was leaving the
Speaker 3: Viper Room at about one am when he fell to
Speaker 3: the ground, adding that friends reported that the actor had
Speaker 3: been acting strange. He was rushed to Cedar Sinai Medical Center,
Speaker 3: where he was pronounced dead at one fifty one am
Speaker 3: on November fifteenth. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office confirmed
Speaker 3: to Variety that River had died of a drug overdose.
Speaker 3: Toxicology tests later showed lethal levels of morphine heroin and cocaine.
Speaker 3: Traces of marijuana, vallium, and over the counter cold medication
Speaker 3: were also found. His death was ruled accidental. The actor's
Speaker 3: passing sent shockwaves through Hollywood and beyond. The News of
Speaker 3: his passing reached the front page of Variety, which called
Speaker 3: him quote one of the most versatile and prominent of
Speaker 3: contemporary young actors end quote. Variety's executive editor Brent Lang
Speaker 3: recalls the response from the Hollywood community in the weeks
Speaker 3: following the actor's death.
Speaker 4: Well, I think in a lot of ways, his death,
Speaker 4: because it was so shocking, is analogous to what happened
Speaker 4: with John Belushi, where you had this kind of blazing
Speaker 4: talent that their flame was sort of extinguished at such
Speaker 4: a young age. The impact was really seismic, and it
Speaker 4: was a wake up call too. I think for people
Speaker 4: that if you played around in a certain kind of
Speaker 4: pool with a lot of very very dangerous drugs, this
Speaker 4: was something that could end up happening to you. He
Speaker 4: was both an inspiration for a lot of people in
Speaker 4: the way that he acted on SCO and his kind
Speaker 4: of magnetism, his natural sort of innate charisma. But he
Speaker 4: was also a cautionary tale about the perils and the
Speaker 4: price of fame, and if you look at a kind
Speaker 4: of how people responded in real time, it was I
Speaker 4: think there was sort of a generational shift there that
Speaker 4: happened after. I don't have evidence of this, but I
Speaker 4: would I would assume that a lot of people who
Speaker 4: were sort of moving in the path of doing really,
Speaker 4: really dangerous drugs might have reconsidered that after what happened
Speaker 4: to him.
Speaker 3: River's longtime friend Matthew Ebert still remembers getting the call.
Speaker 6: I got a call from a fellow actor in my
Speaker 6: own private Idaho. He was in tears. It's like, what's
Speaker 6: going on? Ever died? Totally?
Speaker 1: Remember it? You don't.
Speaker 7: You don't forget something like that.
Speaker 6: I felt. I felt a shame that I hadn't worked
Speaker 6: harder to get him out.
Speaker 3: The outpouring of grief highlighted the profound impact he had
Speaker 3: on those who knew him off camera and those who
Speaker 3: admired his on camera work.
Speaker 4: From Afar, he was definitely an environmentalist. He came from
Speaker 4: sort of a hippie family. He was a vegan before
Speaker 4: people really knew what vegans were, and I think that
Speaker 4: was also sort of shocking to people because he seemed
Speaker 4: to have this kind of clean living persona. And I
Speaker 4: know that people in the industry knew that he was
Speaker 4: having drug issues, but the general public was shocked to
Speaker 4: discover that that was something he was grappling with at
Speaker 4: the time because of his kind of persona.
Speaker 3: Matthew Ebert recalls taking Rivers ashes to the Phoenix family.
Speaker 3: During that trip, Matthew remembers feeling angry with Rivers team
Speaker 3: and those around him who could have prevented River's death somehow.
Speaker 6: After he died, I went to mickin Opie, where the
Speaker 6: family is. I spent six weeks there. I brought his
Speaker 6: ashes home to his mother. Never forget that, as long
Speaker 6: as I live. I went with his sister and brought
Speaker 6: him home and she cradled that like a baby. That
Speaker 6: earned Never forget that, as long as I live, or
Speaker 6: what it was like to hear he was dead and
Speaker 6: he's gone on like just gone.
Speaker 1: Like that.
Speaker 4: It's so fast.
Speaker 6: Never ever saw somebody move so quickly from playful drug
Speaker 6: use to death. And it's because you have all this money,
Speaker 6: you have all this power, you have a huge machine
Speaker 6: in the studio. Nobody's saying shit like you know, that's
Speaker 6: an agent's job. That's really like your your manager and
Speaker 6: your agent's job is to watch out for your health
Speaker 6: and your and your welfare. That there's no other place
Speaker 6: to put that. Your agent, your manager, your team, the
Speaker 6: people around you, they're responsible when that happens. That's your
Speaker 6: job to protect that person when the pressures and everything
Speaker 6: from the outside are killing them. You know, that is
Speaker 6: why I was so upset with the team, because it
Speaker 6: was so obvious, it was so self evident. All you
Speaker 6: had to do was go sit in the rushes. You'd
Speaker 6: see a completely different person on that screen than you
Speaker 6: did three years ago. There was all this stuff and
Speaker 6: all these pressures. You take all these different rays of
Speaker 6: light and you put it on the you shine a
Speaker 6: light on it. You realize there was all these different
Speaker 6: things working to make this perfect storm. There were all
Speaker 6: these different pressures, not only from the drugs and the
Speaker 6: people in the community and the study and your friends
Speaker 6: then as now, if you're a celebrity, somebody's going to
Speaker 6: throw you a bag. Somebody's going to do you know,
Speaker 6: people want its currency. Back then, it was the currency
Speaker 6: of cool. You know, you could go you know, I
Speaker 6: could take them to see a band or there was
Speaker 6: just it was everywhere, the night of the viper room.
Speaker 6: Everywhere you want something, here it is and nobody's filtering
Speaker 6: it and saying, you know, back then we didn't have fentanyl,
Speaker 6: but certainly you could mix cocaine and heroin in a
Speaker 6: bag and kill somebody like that and no one. It
Speaker 6: went so fast.
Speaker 3: Nearly a week after River's death, Variety reported that simultaneous
Speaker 3: funeral services were held for River. His family hosted one
Speaker 3: in their home in Gainesville, Florida, while another private service
Speaker 3: was held in La organized by Rivers A Night in
Speaker 3: the Life of Jimmy Rearden co star Ione Sky Matthew,
Speaker 3: can you describe the funerals? How well attended were they?
Speaker 6: They went to La and went to a few one
Speaker 6: or two services there. Remember like all the young actors
Speaker 6: were there, like Ethan Hawk I think was there, and
Speaker 6: a bunch of mother and I spoke a little bit there.
Speaker 6: There were a lot of people there at the farm
Speaker 6: at the compound, and I wouldn't say there was kind
Speaker 6: of a There was definitely like a service and all that,
Speaker 6: but there wasn't like very non traditional outdoor and my
Speaker 6: time there, I remember trying to take care of his father,
Speaker 6: who was really in bad shape. And I would attend
Speaker 6: to his father, it soak his feet, put him to bed.
Speaker 6: His father was really in bad shape. The whole family
Speaker 6: was in bad shape. I stayed six weeks and you
Speaker 6: cry every day, you know, you're just like, oh God,
Speaker 6: you know, they're like, what are we going to do?
Speaker 6: I don't really remember.
Speaker 7: I remember the.
Speaker 6: Vibe around everybody by the water, but I think it
Speaker 6: was just too emotional to have to really lock in
Speaker 6: on any of it, Like it all just seemed like
Speaker 6: a nightmare, a weird dream. To say that he was,
Speaker 6: you know, it just seemed so corny to say all
Speaker 6: the stupid shit people say about him, But it's really true.
Speaker 6: No one else was like him, nobody on that set,
Speaker 6: nobody on that no one had what he had. River
Speaker 6: was really at the peak what would have been the
Speaker 6: peak of his power, and without those drugs, he'd still
Speaker 6: be at the peak of his power.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety three, River Phoenix's death shocked Hollywood and
Speaker 3: the world. Very rarely has his then girlfriend, Samantha Mathis
Speaker 3: spoken about him. Samantha, who was with River when he died.
Speaker 3: Details were memories, including co starring in The Thing called Love.
Speaker 3: His last film was released, and I know you've talked
Speaker 3: about it, but for many years you did not talk
Speaker 3: about River. Correct, Correct? Like decades?
Speaker 1: Like two decades? All right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm very protective of his memory and
Speaker 1: his family and my memories. So I feel it's a
Speaker 1: really delicate matter, and there's some things that I want
Speaker 1: to keep for myself.
Speaker 3: I guess I'll start with heading into this thing called Love.
Speaker 3: You did not know River before signing on. Correct?
Speaker 1: We had met, ever so briefly in a nightclub when
Speaker 1: we were both nineteen. Obviously I was very aware of
Speaker 1: who he was. He was really the one of the
Speaker 1: greatest actors of our generation. But no, we didn't know
Speaker 1: each other when I signed onto the movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, so heading into the film, what were your expectations
Speaker 3: and how did they ultimately turn out to be different
Speaker 3: than what you were expecting.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's hard to speak to what my
Speaker 1: expectations were in nineteen ninety three, when I was nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, when I was twenty two years old. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had seen most of his work and found him
Speaker 1: to be extremely compelling and iconic and really inspiring and
Speaker 1: quite frankly, though I knew who Peter Bogdanovitch was, it
Speaker 1: was really River that compelled me to say yes to
Speaker 1: the movie.
Speaker 3: What were your first impressions when you did meet River
Speaker 3: face to face?
Speaker 1: I mean, he was dazzling. He was just dazzling. He
Speaker 1: had that spirit. He was feisty and smart and quick
Speaker 1: and present. He was such a present person and a
Speaker 1: bit of mischievousness to his personality, with a kind soul
Speaker 1: and a true artist. He was a true artist. He
Speaker 1: was very impressive.
Speaker 3: People often describe him and other actors that they're very
Speaker 3: generous with how they allow you to as the co star,
Speaker 3: to have your breath and space in the scene. Was
Speaker 3: that kind of how it worked in terms of how
Speaker 3: you played opposite one another and off of one another.
Speaker 1: Obviously, we're talking about nineteen ninety two, so it's in
Speaker 1: some ways really hard for me to speak with definitively
Speaker 1: about what my experience was shooting that movie with him.
Speaker 1: What I do remember clearly is that he was incapable
Speaker 1: of being dishonest in his work, and that challenged me
Speaker 1: in a way that I found really exciting and also terrifying.
Speaker 1: I was not a confident performer at that age and
Speaker 1: not as into une with my instrument as he was.
Speaker 1: And it made me, I hope, a better actor because
Speaker 1: he challenged me to be really present in the moment
Speaker 1: and to be spontaneous and to really react to what
Speaker 1: was happening. And I think that at that point I
Speaker 1: was less confident to be able to act in that
Speaker 1: way and more someone who plotted out what I was
Speaker 1: going to do, you know, And so he was exciting
Speaker 1: and generous, and it also felt a little dangerous in
Speaker 1: a really vital way that makes something pop on the screen.
Speaker 1: And we obviously had great chemistry, so that was also
Speaker 1: all there on camera. We were taken by each other
Speaker 1: and enjoyed each other.
Speaker 3: Do you remember where it was in production? Like midway
Speaker 3: towards the beginning, towards the end, when you realize like
Speaker 3: we're in law or I'm trying to love with this person.
Speaker 1: It's complicated. It's complicated. I can't say exactly when it happened,
Speaker 1: but you know, unfortunately I was with someone else at
Speaker 1: the time that it happened, and so it was messy.
Speaker 1: But it was also something that was undeniable between the
Speaker 1: two of us, you know, eventually we did end up together.
Speaker 3: Okay, what was the most memorable scene looking back all
Speaker 3: these years and what do you remember from it? Kind
Speaker 3: of take me back to it.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are many memories that I have that
Speaker 1: are so fond. I don't know which one is the most.
Speaker 1: There's a scene between River and I in the back
Speaker 1: of the pickup truck where we're supposed to be sitting
Speaker 1: outside of Graceland, and it's just such a charming scene
Speaker 1: between the two of us, getting to really let the
Speaker 1: scene breathe and be with each other and be under
Speaker 1: the stars in a romantic moment, and to just be
Speaker 1: with him and and have this sort of languid quality
Speaker 1: and scene where we could really find our beats was
Speaker 1: really exciting. But also this this whole cast was amazing, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we had dermotmulrooney, and we had a then
Speaker 1: unknown Sandra Bullock, and there was an electric energy between
Speaker 1: all of us on set together that was really exciting.
Speaker 1: River thought that Sandy was a star. I remember him
Speaker 1: saying that to me, She's going to be a big star.
Speaker 1: I remember it so clearly, and he was right, he was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could see it in her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it took a while for her to get
Speaker 3: that those roles that really could show her amazing range
Speaker 3: as an actress.
Speaker 1: But well, I think that doing the thing called Love
Speaker 1: gave her the film that helped to get her speed.
Speaker 1: That was a moment in time where her life completely
Speaker 1: completely changed. H yeah, and we could all see it.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was also had this sort of shiny spirit,
Speaker 1: this this undeniable spark of in her case, like a
Speaker 1: great sense of humor and ability to just be fearless
Speaker 1: and make a complete fool out of herself. She could
Speaker 1: make fun of herself and had a sense of humor
Speaker 1: about herself and was just adorable. She was just undeniably adorable.
Speaker 1: So it was a very exciting thing to see her
Speaker 1: ascent into tremendous, tremendous success.
Speaker 3: Did River have a great sense of humor, because if so,
Speaker 3: that would be kind of surprising. He always seemed like
Speaker 3: very you know, very sensitive and like somewhat introverted. But
Speaker 3: that would be interesting to know was he did he
Speaker 3: have a good sense of humor?
Speaker 1: Oh? He I mean he grew up in a big family.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can grow up in a big
Speaker 1: family with a lot of kids without having a sense
Speaker 1: of humor about yourself, or a sense of playfulness at
Speaker 1: least that was true of his family than incredibly loving
Speaker 1: but also playful.
Speaker 3: You know, he.
Speaker 1: As an actor and as a musician was incredibly playful,
Speaker 1: and he had a yeah, he had a mischievous quality.
Speaker 1: He was a very intelligent person and his mind was quick.
Speaker 3: So, Samantha, what ch of River's films would you point
Speaker 3: young audiences and new generations of fans too, maybe people
Speaker 3: who aren't familiar with his work.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, my own Private Idaho was an extraordinary
Speaker 1: performance and an extraordinary movie. So anyone who's interested in
Speaker 1: seeing a really powerful, daring film with really bold work,
Speaker 1: that I would highly highly suggest. Running on Empty was
Speaker 1: something that left an indelible mark on my life. I
Speaker 1: was eighteen and he was playing a young man in
Speaker 1: a family that were activists who were on the run
Speaker 1: for being involved in a political action where someone was killed.
Speaker 1: He and Martha Plimpton played boyfriend girlfriend in that and
Speaker 1: their chemistry was justugh, it was gorgeous. It was just
Speaker 1: they were so alive together and beautiful together, and there
Speaker 1: was a beauty to the dynamic that was created with
Speaker 1: Christine Latti and jud Hirshs' parents and what that family
Speaker 1: was like that as a child of a single parent,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be in that family, even though
Speaker 1: they were on the run. But his journey as a
Speaker 1: young man conflicted in that piece about to stay with
Speaker 1: his family or to go off and make his own
Speaker 1: life was just searingly painful and beautiful in his portrayal.
Speaker 1: So those are two movies that really stand out to me.
Speaker 1: I know he had a great connection with Harrison Ford
Speaker 1: when he made Mosquito Coast. I know that they really
Speaker 1: adored each other. Dan Akwerit was a friend of his
Speaker 1: until the end and someone he adored just loved so much.
Speaker 1: He worked with a lot of iconic people, for sure.
Speaker 3: His pace of working was actually kind of intense, and
Speaker 3: there was a sort of, you know, like most people would,
Speaker 3: I guess, take a longer period of time in between movies.
Speaker 3: Do you think there's any accurate from your perspective.
Speaker 1: I mean, I only knew him for the year year
Speaker 1: and a half that I did, so I can't speak
Speaker 1: to the length of his career and what speed he
Speaker 1: was working. He was very passionate about the work and
Speaker 1: was obviously in great demand. He had been meeting with
Speaker 1: Nashka Holland about doing a movie together right after we finished.
Speaker 1: There were many things that were of interest to him.
Speaker 1: But after we wrapped the thing called Left, we spent
Speaker 1: a month together on vacation, so it wasn't like he
Speaker 1: wasn't capable of doing that. And he also spent a
Speaker 1: great deal of time with his family, who obviously was
Speaker 1: very important to him. Down in Florida. He had certainly
Speaker 1: been working at quite a pace, and he started working
Speaker 1: at a very young age, and we had definitely had
Speaker 1: conversations about taking a pause and our mutual interest in
Speaker 1: perhaps going to college.
Speaker 3: Ill to see River's legacy as an actor and how
Speaker 3: he maybe influenced the generation that came after him.
Speaker 1: Well, he was undeniably one of the most talented, if
Speaker 1: not the most talented young man of his generation. I
Speaker 1: think he challenged all of us to be a better
Speaker 1: actor and to be a better human because he was
Speaker 1: also an activist who was quite outspoken about the environment.
Speaker 1: He was so ahead of his time. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: he was and continues to be a tremendous inspiration to
Speaker 1: his brother, who I find to have startlingly talent, you know,
Speaker 1: so equally present and daring and alive in his work.
Speaker 1: And for those of us who knew him then and
Speaker 1: worked with him or experienced just viewing him on screen,
Speaker 1: he was dazzling in his talent. So I do think
Speaker 1: that there are people of the generation coming up today
Speaker 1: that are becoming aware of him because there is this
Speaker 1: fascination with all things of the nineties, and he was
Speaker 1: certainly emblematic of a lot in the nineties, even though
Speaker 1: he passed away relatively soon into the nineties.
Speaker 3: The nineties were a very unique period and just like
Speaker 3: even in America, like we were out of the eighties,
Speaker 3: where it was like very you know, greed is good,
Speaker 3: like the Reagan era, and like wasn't the seventies either,
Speaker 3: which was like very gritty. How would you describe sort
Speaker 3: of the landscape of Hollywood in the early nineties.
Speaker 1: I feel like in some ways it was a very
Speaker 1: fertile time. Independent cinema had really started to explode in
Speaker 1: the late eighties, and I see the real exciting work
Speaker 1: happening in the nineties. I feel like it was in
Speaker 1: a way, the last Garrah of Hollywood before things became
Speaker 1: so corporate, before boards of directors were deciding strictly about
Speaker 1: shareholders stock options, where people were still invested in cinema,
Speaker 1: in really making movies and being artists. We were really
Speaker 1: the last generation that remembers life for cell phones, and
Speaker 1: there was just an innocence to that, and a purity
Speaker 1: to that, and a freedom to that that led to
Speaker 1: great work and just a freedom, a freedom to be young, certainly,
Speaker 1: and to be creative and to not just be held
Speaker 1: under a lens. I feel so much for young actors
Speaker 1: today and what's required and expected of them to be
Speaker 1: a brand. There was no discussion of brand. You were
Speaker 1: an artist. We wanted to be DeNiro, We wanted to
Speaker 1: be Paccino, We wanted to be Meryl Street, Jessica Lang
Speaker 1: and Ellen Burston, and we wanted to be great artists.
Speaker 1: That's what we wanted to be. There was no discussion
Speaker 1: of a brand. I do remember towards the end of
Speaker 1: the nineties things starting to shift. There was a magazine
Speaker 1: that came along called Maxim and suddenly my representation was like,
Speaker 1: you should really do this, and I was like, would
Speaker 1: Meryl Streep do this? Would should be on the cover
Speaker 1: of a magazine and a bikini. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: That has nothing to do with what I'm interested in
Speaker 1: doing and becoming. Yeah, things changed in the nineties, but
Speaker 1: there was an innocence to the beginning of the nineties
Speaker 1: pre cell phone that I'm so grateful I experienced and
Speaker 1: that I remember and no can exist.
Speaker 3: Do you see sort of similarities with Johnny Depp's career also,
Speaker 3: like I mean, Johnny Depp's another one where he loved
Speaker 3: music and some loves music in some ways that sort
Speaker 3: of like performing. And then they do seem to have
Speaker 3: similarities as careers, I suppose.
Speaker 1: I mean, Johnny's obviously gone on to have a thirty
Speaker 1: more years of a career than River unfortunately had. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that as an artist and as a creative being,
Speaker 1: it's really important to have outlets that you are not monetizing,
Speaker 1: that are not there for anyone to co opt or
Speaker 1: monetize or make something out of or profit from, but
Speaker 1: to have it be your own and be pure and
Speaker 1: true to it. My impression of Johnny is that he
Speaker 1: does it because he loves it. He's ultimately you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't need it to survive, and he's not really
Speaker 1: interested in anyone's opinion. Nor was River. He had a
Speaker 1: really unique style as a musician and was something he
Speaker 1: could lose time doing, being in the studio with his
Speaker 1: with his sister and with his friends, writing music and exploring.
Speaker 3: Was he friends with Johnny at the time. No, who
Speaker 3: were other than his family some of his closest friends
Speaker 3: in the industry? Or were they all outside of the industry.
Speaker 1: He really didn't have a lot of actor friends. No,
Speaker 1: he had some. I mean, Dermott was a friend of his.
Speaker 1: They had worked on a movie together years before, so
Speaker 1: they were kind of like brothers. They were quite close.
Speaker 3: What do you think is the greatest legacy of River
Speaker 3: as an actor?
Speaker 1: River was one of those actors who was incapable of
Speaker 1: being dishonest. He really was so riveting because he was
Speaker 1: so alive on camera. He demanded that of himself, he
Speaker 1: demanded that of other people in scenes with him. He
Speaker 1: was startlingly present. And that kind of courage and confidence
Speaker 1: just eats up the screen. It eats it makes the
Speaker 1: film come to life. It was undeniable.
Speaker 3: Where do you think River's career would have gone? Would
Speaker 3: he have stayed more comfortable in the like indie sphere.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to muse upon and it's impossible to say right.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was also a really passionate musician, and
Speaker 1: music meant the world to him, and he loved the
Speaker 1: work of acting and hated the machine around what was
Speaker 1: expected of you as an actor. That was not interesting
Speaker 1: to him. So it's hard to say if he would
Speaker 1: have continued and become an even bigger movie star, if
Speaker 1: that would have been of interest to him. You know,
Speaker 1: there was an anonymity and an ability to be more
Speaker 1: abstract as an artist in his music, and of course
Speaker 1: environmental work was very, very important to him, so I
Speaker 1: know that would have been a huge part of his journey.
Speaker 3: Tell me a little bit about his animal activism because
Speaker 3: it's such a big part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. I mean I was a
Speaker 1: meat eater when we started dating, and that horrified him
Speaker 1: to no end. I remember driving in Beverly Hills. I
Speaker 1: don't know where we were going or where we were
Speaker 1: coming from what There were people on a street corner
Speaker 1: protesting for animal rights. And he pulled over and pulled
Speaker 1: all these pamphlets and stuck them in my face and
Speaker 1: just said, just look at this, look at this. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh God, okay, okay, okay, I hear you.
Speaker 1: I hear you, and I ended up being vegan for
Speaker 1: several years after that. I mean he changed me. I
Speaker 1: can't say that I stuck with it, unfortunately, but he
Speaker 1: did have that effect on me for several years afterwards.
Speaker 1: He was incredibly sensitive to the suffering of others, including animals.
Speaker 1: Including animals. Yeah, I hope that his legacy as a
Speaker 1: human being overall is one of having been a tremendous
Speaker 1: artist and activist who deeply cared about the world and
Speaker 1: was a sensitive young man who left a mark forever
Speaker 1: in Hollywood and left a mark forever on gen X.
Speaker 1: I think he was an iconic person for our generation,
Speaker 1: just like my parents talk about they knew where they
Speaker 1: were when John F. Kennedy was killed. Pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: I know knows exactly where they were when River died,
Speaker 1: and what a loss of hope that was for our generation.
Speaker 3: But he.
Speaker 1: Leaves behind an incredible body of work that I hope
Speaker 1: is a real inspiration for the generations to come.
Speaker 3: River Phoenix's story is one of brilliance and tragedy, and
Speaker 3: both his life and work illuminated the beauty and the
Speaker 3: darkness of the human experience. In our next episode, we
Speaker 3: discussed River Phoenix's lasting impact on those who knew him best,
Speaker 3: and how his untimely death reshaped the conversation around addiction.
Speaker 3: We'll also examine the tragedy of a Hollywood life taken
Speaker 3: too soon. River was one of Hollywood's brightest young stars
Speaker 3: whose final act was hampered by fame and drug addiction.
Speaker 3: Subscribe to Variety Confidential the Life and Legend of River Phoenix,
Speaker 3: and leave us a review to share your thoughts. Join
Speaker 3: us next time as we continue to honor the legacy
Speaker 3: of a remarkable talent. Variety Confidential is hosted by Tatiana
Speaker 3: Siegel and produced by Karen Mizugucci and Sidney Kramer. Written
Speaker 3: by Anna Mosluin, Karen Mizugucci and Tatiana Siegel, Executive produced
Speaker 3: by Dea Lawrence, Variety's co editor in chief Cynthia Littleton,
Speaker 3: and Ramins A two day edited and mixed by Aaron
Speaker 3: Greenawald Variety Content Studio Executive producer Alex Hughes. Please refer
Speaker 3: to sources and citations on Variety dot com. Attatatatatatatatatatatas