Kiefer Sutherland reveals BTS story with late co-star River Phoenix on 'Stand By Me'

Kiefer Sutherland has shared a backstage moment that could have inspired the title of his well-known movie Stand by Me, released in 1986.

During his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Friday, Sutherland mentioned a guitar session with the his late co-star River Phoenix, who died at the age of 23, in Stand by Me.

The Lost Boys actor told to the show host Jimmy Fallon, “We were making Stand by Me, which was a Stephen King short story called The Body, and River Phoenix was learning guitar and playing guitar and he was actually very, very good.”

“And I was playing “Stand by Me” and singing that song, and he said, ‘Oh, I love the melody of that song,’ and he hadn’t heard it before, I was teaching it to him and Rob Reiner [the film’s director] walked by and said, ‘Oh, I haven’t heard that song for a long time, I love it.’ And then that was the end of that discussion,” he added.

Sutherland went on to say, “And then Rob Reiner ended up using that song for the film and changing the title to Stand by Me.”

When Fallon asked the 24 actor, "Do you think he changed?,  Sutherland responded, saying, "I have no idea, I just know it was part of that conversation."

The 57-year-old actor suggested that this interaction with  Phoenix might be linked to the  film's title.

Prior to this, in an interview with The Guardian in 2021, Sutherland said about Phoenix, “I worked with the main cast very little but when I’d get there early, they would be workshopping scenes and trying out each other’s lines. River specifically had such an appetite to learn and be good and, of course, he was.”