Director Rob Reiner Made Wil Wheaton and Jerry O'Connell Cry To Shoot The Iconic Train Scene in STAND BY ME

One of the most memorable scenes in director Rob Reiner’s classic film Stand By Me was the train scene where Wil Wheaton’s Gordie and Jerry O'Connell’s Vern were running for their lives across a train bridge to prevent themselves from being run down and killed by a train.

This scene always puts a smile on my face because of how freakin’ scared Wheaton and "O’Connell looked while running away from the train. Well, it turns out that this was a rough shoot for the production team and Reiner was frustrated with the young actors because in all the takes they were shooting, they didn’t look scared enough.

So, the director pulled them aside and yelled at them to the point where they started crying! In a previous interview with Variety, Reiner shared the experience, saying:

“One time I lost it. I did it as kind of an act. There was the scene where they’re running on the trestle and the train is coming. The truth is the boys and the train were never on the trestle at the same time. I used such a long lens, and so the boys had jumped off the train track before the train even entered the trestle. It was so far away from them that they weren’t scared.

“We had some guys, it was very hot, 90 degrees out, and the guys were pushing this dolly down the track to follow these boys running, and they were supposed to be hysterical, just crying and panicking. We did it a bunch of times, and they kept not getting worked up. Finally, I start screaming, ‘These guys, the crew, are exhausted because you guys keep messing up and if you're not worried that the train is going to kill you, I'll kill you.’ They started crying, and we started rolling, and then they ran off the track and gave me a hug and said, ‘We did it. We did it, Rob.’”

Well, in today’s society, that probably wouldn’t fly today on a movie set with kids! But, what he did worked, and Reiner got the shot that he was looking for, he got the real look of fear in their faces.

The train scene took a full week to shoot, and while they were shooting it, they brought in four small adult female stunt doubles with cropped hair, made up to look like the boys in the film. It’s also explained that plywood planks were laid across the trestles to provide a safer surface on which the stunt doubles could run on.

We discuss the film and share all kinds of interesting behind-the-scenes details on this film on our Secret Level podcast which you can listen to here! I’ve also included the Stand By Me episode below. But first, watch the scene!