Wheaton says he still misses Phoenix, who died in 1993.

Wil Wheaton says he channeled River Phoenix while narrating new audiobook of Stand by Me source material

Wheaton says he still misses Phoenix, who died in 1993.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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March 26, 2026 8:26 p.m. ET

'Stand by Me' stars Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix. Credit:

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Wil Wheaton, who starred alongside the late River Phoenix in the classic coming-of-age movie *Stand by Me*, couldn't help but think of his friend while recording a new audiobook of Stephen King's *The Body*, the 1982 novella the film was based on.

"There's this wonderful scene in *Stand by Me*. Gordie (Wheaton) and Chris (Phoenix) are walking down the tracks talking about junior high," Wheaton told the *New York Times* in an interview published Tuesday. "Chris is telling Gordie, 'I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn't.'"

Wheaton noted that the "honest and direct" scene featured kids speaking to each other in the way that they do and that adults do not.

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"That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene," Wheaton said. "I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don't know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?"

As he read the scene, he noticed the language was exactly the same as it is in the movie.

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"I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon," Wheaton said. "And I could see River standing next to them. They're shooting my side of the scene and there's River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there's the sound guy, and there's the boom operator. There’s my key light.

Wheaton could "hear and feel" his experience from that day: "It's like I was right back there."

Phoenix died in 1993, after a drug overdosed caused him to collapse outside of The Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. He was 23.

Along with Wheaton and Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, and Kiefer Sutherland were cast in the Rob Reiner-directed film about four young friends who embark on a journey to see a dead body.

Following the violent death of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in December, Wheaton, O'Connell, Sutherland, and other actors from the director's films emotionally paid tribute to the legendary filmmaker.

*The Body* audiobook, as narrated by Wheaton, is available now.

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