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