Rob Reiner’s face took up the whole screen. That’s my immediate memory – the video link connecting and suddenly, boom, there he was in the room. Kind eyes, jolly cheekbones, a big white beard. It was May when we met but it felt like my own personal visit from Santa.
He had a personality to match, the very definition of avuncular. “So what are you up to tonight?” he asked. “Having a nice dinner out in London?” I was completely at ease within 30 seconds.
One of the trickier tasks in this job can be grilling someone whose golden period is behind them. Reiner started working in the 60s – first as a jobbing TV actor, then becoming a household name sitcom star in the 70s before stepping behind the camera to direct and produce movies right until last year’s Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. But there is no questioning when his peak was – between 1984 and 1992 he went on a directing streak that few could match: Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men. It’s not just the quality that stands out but the diversity – horror, romantic comedy, courtroom drama, fantasy, coming of age, mockumentary.
Was he going to get funny about retreading such old ground? Hardly! Reiner beamed with pride when asked about his untouchable decade, chatting about how Princess Bride slow-burned its way to becoming a cult children’s classic and how James Caan’s frustration at being trapped in bed all day on set helped capture the agonising tension in Misery. Talking about his films seemed the best way for him to open up about more personal stuff, such as how Stand By Me reflected his own relationship with his father, the legendary comic actor and writer Carl Reiner.
“I loved my father and he loved me,” he said at one point, “but as a kid growing up, I don’t think he understood me. I was odd to him.”
The younger Reiner happily admitted – despite being 76 years old at the time – that he was what we would now call a “nepo baby”. And he said his kids were currently dealing with the same thing. “My son [Jake] is 32 and my daughter’s 26. They both want careers, they’re both talented. Should I lean into it? Should I back away from it? They’re confused. I said, once they find their own path, it won’t matter.”
Looking back through the transcript of our chat there were plenty of things I didn’t have space to squeeze into the piece I wrote: his worries for Israel after the country’s response to the 7 October attacks (“Right now the world is shifting away from Israel – and that to me is very sad”); what the fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally revealed about the male ego (“It’s fragile, very fragile”) and the experience of recording his dad’s final onscreen words when they performed a reading of the Princess Bride for a Democrat fundraiser: “He said ‘as you wish’, which in the film means ‘I love you’. It felt very emotional.”
Despite his age, Reiner seemed like a man full of life and energy, which makes his death seem especially tragic. When we spoke he was in New Orleans, location scouting for the Spinal Tap sequel. But he was especially animated about the film he was promoting during our call.
God & Country was a documentary about the chilling rise of Christian Nationalism in the US. It felt like essential viewing as Donald Trump was gearing up to be elected for a second time (now, as the likes of Tommy Robinson are conveniently finding god, it’s sadly relevant in the UK too).
Reiner couldn’t stand Trump and was hoping the doc might wake people up to the mechanisms that were pushing him to power once again. “The question at this election is: do we want to continue 249 years of self-rule and American democracy?” he said. “If we crumble, there’s a danger that democracy crumbles around the world.”
It wasn’t the most reassuring message. Certainly not the gift you’d expect this beaming Santa to be delivering. But Reiner, more than most, seemed to appreciate just how lucky he’d been in life. He also knew just how fragile such contentment could be.
