In August 1986, Rob Reiner's Stand by Me arrived in theaters and quietly became one of the decade's best-loved coming-of-age films. Based on Stephen King's 1982 novella The Body, it follows four boys in 1959 who walk along the railroad tracks to find a missing boy's body. Made for about $8 million, it grossed more than $52 million and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Nearly four decades later, here is where the boys, the bullies and the grown-up narrator ended up.
Jerry O'Connell
Jerry O'Connell played Vern Tessio, the nervous, penny-hunting member of the group. Stand by Me was his first feature film, made shortly after he turned 11. As an adult he starred as Quinn Mallory on the sci-fi series Sliders, played Frank "Cush" Cushman in Jerry Maguire (1996) and played Detective Woody Hoyt on NBC's Crossing Jordan until it ended in 2007. From 2020 to 2024 he voiced Commander Jack Ransom on Star Trek: Lower Decks. He also moved into television hosting. CBS named him a permanent co-host of The Talk in 2021, and he stayed through the show's final episode on December 20, 2024. He also hosted a syndicated version of Pictionary. He married actress Rebecca Romijn in 2007.
Wil Wheaton
Wil Wheaton played Gordie Lachance, the quiet, storytelling boy at the center of the film, and the lead role brought him wide attention. He went on to play Wesley Crusher in the first four seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. From 2009 to 2019 he appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in 17 episodes of The Big Bang Theory. He co-created and hosted the YouTube board game series TableTop from 2012 to 2017. He has also narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Ready Player One and The Martian, and has been an Audie Award finalist several times. In 2022 he published the memoir Still Just a Geek. Since 2020 he has hosted The Ready Room, an official Star Trek aftershow.
Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland played Ace Merrill, the switchblade-carrying leader of the older boys' gang and the film's main bully. It was his first American movie. He became a household name as counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer on 24, which ran from 2001 to 2010 and returned in 2014. In 2006 the role won him the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He later played President Tom Kirkman on Designated Survivor. He also tours as a country-rock musician and has released the albums Down in a Hole (2016), Reckless & Me (2019) and Bloor Street (2022). His recent screen work includes the Paramount+ thriller Rabbit Hole (2023), The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) and Clint Eastwood's Juror No. 2 (2024).
Corey Feldman
Corey Feldman played Teddy Duchamp, the reckless, train-dodging friend who stubbornly defends his father. The year before, he had played Mouth in The Goonies (1985). In 1987 he played vampire hunter Edgar Frog in The Lost Boys, his first film with Corey Haim, and the two became known as "the Two Coreys." Later he turned to music and released several albums, including Former Child Actor (2002), Angelic 2 the Core (2016) and Love Left 2: Arm Me with Love (2021). His memoir, Coreyography, came out in October 2013. More recently he competed on The Masked Singer in 2024 as "Seal" and on Dancing with the Stars in 2025.
John Cusack
John Cusack had a small but memorable role as Denny Lachance, Gordie's admired older brother, who appears in flashbacks. Three years later he played Lloyd Dobler in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything… (1989), whose boombox scene became famous. He co-wrote and starred in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). He also co-wrote and produced High Fidelity (2000) and earned a Golden Globe nomination for starring in it. In 2012 he was one of the first supporters of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. His later work includes the TV series Utopia (2020), the thriller Pursuit (2022) and the films Decoded (2024), Detective Chinatown 1900 (2025) and Fog of War (2025).
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss narrated the film as the Writer, the adult Gordie Lachance, who looks back on the summer that changed him. By then he was already an Academy Award winner: in 1978 he won Best Actor for The Goodbye Girl (1977). In 1996 he received another Best Actor nomination for playing a devoted music teacher in Mr. Holland's Opus (1995). Away from the screen, in 2006 he created the Dreyfuss Civics Initiative to revive civics education, and it was recognized as a nonprofit in 2008. His later screen credits include Book Club (2018) and the Netflix comedy The Last Laugh (2019).
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_by_Me_(film)
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- https://www.thewrap.com/the-talk-series-finale-date-when-does-it-end
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jerry_O%27Connell_2010.jpg
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil_Wheaton
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Feldman
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cusack
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