While many familiar faces from Rob Reiner‘s storied film career came together to pay tribute to the late director and his wife Michele during the 98th Academy Awards, one person was missing.
Corey Feldman, who starred in Reiner’s 1986 coming-of-age film Stand by Me, said “it is what it is” as he reacted to his exclusion from the onstage cast reunion with co-stars Jerry O’Connell and Wil Wheaton.
“I think Jerry and Wil did what had to be done,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “It was a fleeting moment, so I don’t feel like I missed much at all. I personally was probably maybe a little bothered by the fact that nobody got to speak or do or say anything from their own heart. Although they did a wonderful job, I would’ve liked to have heard from Wil and Jerry and a few other people up there.”
Feldman added that he was happy the Oscars chose to “honor the great memory of Rob” at all, with Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Fred Savage, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Carol Kane, Kiefer Sutherland, Demi Moore, Kevin Pollak, Kathy Bates, Annette Bening, John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga also appearing onstage for the tribute.
“Personally, it felt a little bit like a family reunion I wasn’t invited to, but we’re not going to use this time to go into my feeling about that,” said Feldman. “Instead I just want to say that I’m with the rest of us, we’re all very destroyed that things went down the way they did, losing Rob when we all thought he’d be joining us at some point for this tour and it’s a tragedy.”
Jerry O’Connell, River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton and Corey Feldman in ‘Stand by Me’ (1986) (Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Columbia Pictures / Courtesy: Everett Collection
The Goonies actor noted that “we all would’ve loved to be able to say goodbye in our own ways. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The best way we can say goodbye is honoring him and his work and his film through these tours that we’re doing and these interviews and getting people to take the moment and time to acknowledge the history of his work and art that he created, and hopefully going out there to celebrate him one last time on a big screen where it deserves to be seen.”
Feldman’s comments come as Stand by Me returns to theaters for one week, starting Friday, in celebration of the film’s 40th anniversary.
After Rob and Michele were found dead in December, their son Nick Reiner was arrested for allegedly killing his parents. Last month, he entered a not guilty plea ahead of his trial, during which he faces a possible life sentence or the death penalty.
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