Coreyography: A Memoir (11 page)

*   *   *

Part of the
magic of
The Goonies
, for me, was spending so much time among kids my own age. (Though, at sixteen, Josh Brolin was a few years older than the rest of the cast; most of his time off-screen was spent with Kerri Green, and most of Kerri Green’s downtime was spent with Josh Brolin. And Martha Plimpton, the quintessential New York actress—both a graduate of the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan and the daughter of two well-known stars—was full of East Coast bravado; we famously didn’t get along, and she spent a lot of time in her own world, with her mother. So that left me, Sean Astin, Jeff Cohen, and Ke Huy Quan, a sort of rag-tag Four Musketeers.)

One thing about Sean Astin, which has never changed, he’s a mile-a-minute kind of guy. He’s laser-focused, and once he gets an idea in his head, it’s nearly impossible to convince him otherwise. He’d be motor-mouthing on set about something—
Guys! You have to listen to me! This is the way it’s supposed to be! Trustme! Doitlikethis!
—and I would look at him and say, “You
definitely
should have been Mouth.” The kid’s a closer. If the acting thing hadn’t worked out, he would have made an excellent defense attorney. I say that with great respect; out of the entire cast, we’re the only ones who have remained great friends. As I write this, we’re actually at work on a new project. I believe it’s the first time that any two
Goonies
alums have collaborated in more than twenty-five years.

Meanwhile, Jeff Cohen, otherwise known as Chunk, quickly became known for his hat collection. Every day he wore a different outrageous hat to set. He had one with a giant moose head, another with a giant pair of hands poking out of the top; when you pulled the strings, the hands would clap. It was a gimmick a day with that kid. But I liked him, which made the fact that my job was to
bully
him, to poke fun at his weight, to goad him into the “truffle shuffle,” one of the most awkward and uncomfortable parts of filming.

In many ways, Mouth was just the first in a series of roles in which I played, well, a bit of an asshole. Here’s this loudmouth, smart alec, joke-cracking, wise-ass kid; he certainly wasn’t what you would call
nice
. I followed that up by playing a bitter, abused boy in
Stand by Me
. In
The Lost Boys,
I became a sort of rambunctious Rambo, and in
License to Drive
I am, again, the wise-cracking loudmouth. It would be years before I realized that people were starting to perceive
me
that way, like so many of the characters I once played.

CHAPTER 7

What a lot of people don’t realize about
The Goonies
is that Richard Donner picked Steven Spielberg as his second unit director shortly after filming began in Oregon in the fall of 1984. A second unit director is typically responsible for shooting “pickups” (panoramic views, background shots, or “establishing” shots of the film’s setting and location), as well as special effects and action sequences, which might be filmed on a closed soundstage, rather than on location, or with stuntmen instead of the principal cast. But when you’re making a movie as sweeping and epic as
The Goonies
—with 1984 technology, no less—second unit directing becomes a fairly massive job. That probably wasn’t such a bad thing, because even after wrapping in Oregon (roughly six weeks or so behind schedule), we still had a
ton
of work to do.

We reconvened at Warner Brothers in Burbank to shoot the remainder of the film—the underground sequences, the pirate ship reveal, and the battle with the evil Fratellis—on a closed soundstage; four of them, actually. Two of those four, stages 15 and 16, are the biggest soundstages on the entire Warner Brothers lot. Generally speaking, Steven would utilize two of the four, working on stunts and inserts and pickups, while Dick was running the others. This meant they were directing concurrently; Dick might be shooting with me on stage 16 at the exact time that Steven was working with my stunt double over on 12. So there were often three or four different versions of Mouth (and all the other principle characters) running around on set—the real me; the stunt version of me, same height, same build, same clothes; and the stand-in version of me. It was all very
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
.

It wasn’t until we started shooting in Los Angeles that the sheer size of this film began to sink in. For one thing, what was supposed to have been a three-month shooting schedule had ballooned to nearly six months. For another, everybody who was anybody was stopping by to check out the set—that’s when you know you’re involved in a giant project. Harrison Ford, fresh off the massive success of
Indiana Jones,
was one of the first. We lead him through the caves under the Fratellis’ restaurant, over the log bridge and past the waterfall, and I just kept thinking, this is absolutely unreal. We were taking Indiana Jones—
Indiana Jones!—
on a tour of what was, essentially, a kid-friendly version of his blockbuster film. After that came a string of random celebrity appearances. Dan Aykroyd stopped by and so did Cyndi Lauper; she wound up performing “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough,” the title song on the
Goonies
soundtrack.

The Goonies
was filmed at a time when music videos were not only a new and exciting medium for the music industry, but also an excellent new way to market a movie. (Pair some young, good-looking actors with a pop star or two, shoot a video and—
boom!—
smash success.) That was virtually unheard of before MTV debuted in the summer of 1981; very few television programs dedicated to music even existed. Casey Kasem’s
America’s Top 10,
a spin-off of his popular radio show
American Top 40
, comes to mind. So does
Solid Gold.
Once MTV launched, however, there was suddenly an entire channel dedicated completely and solely to music. Yet, in the early days of the network, there weren’t nearly enough music videos in existence to fill up twenty-four-hours of airtime, so they pretty much played the same songs over and over and over—like “Video Killed the Radio Star,” Billy Idol’s “White Wedding,” and “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.

Of course, I knew who Michael Jackson was even before the launch of MTV.
Sort of
. I had heard “Rock with You” and “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” though at the time I hadn’t realized they were by the same person. Actually, I hadn’t even realized they were by a
man
. The Michael Jackson of the late 1970s, I didn’t really get. But the Michael Jackson I watched—mouth agape, standing stock-still in the middle of my grandparents’ living room—in May 1983,
that
was a guy I wanted to know more about.

Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, and Forever,
the concert at which Jackson debuted his now legendary dance moves, is one of those iconic moments in history, like the moon landing or the day President Kennedy was shot; everyone knows exactly where they were when it happened. It is etched in my memory, indelibly printed on the film reel of my mind. That jheri curl! The glittery glove! The moonwalk! I had never seen anything like it. Even my grandfather, admittedly something of a racist (throughout my entire childhood, he referred to black people as
schvartzes
), was impressed. And that performance marked the birth of an infatuation for me just as it did for so many others. I immediately went out and bought the album; it was the first LP I purchased with my own money. Not long after that came the debut of “Thriller,” the greatest music video of all time. Fourteen minutes of pure magic directed by none other than the great John Landis.

The “Thriller” campaign, of course, was monstrous, and a then-burgeoning MTV was playing it round the clock. So every hour—on the hour—I would drop what I was doing and jump in front of the television. I studied that video until I had learned every beat, every breath, every bit of dialogue and, of course, every single second of that dance.

My mother had enrolled me in a dance class, briefly, back when I was seven. It was a tap class, a lot of “shuffle, heel” and “kick, ball, change.” I spent the majority of the time staring at the wall or looking at my feet. When I emerged, my mother took one look at me and shook her head. “God, you must be the most uncoordinated kid in the world,” she said. It was just like being made to sing “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” during all those auditions—I couldn’t carry a tune. Clearly, I wasn’t much of a dancer, either.

But there was something about watching Michael, the way he moved, so smooth, so fluid, as if sliding across the ice; I guess I sort of got the fever. Because suddenly, I could dance. Just like Michael Jackson. Not that I was prepared to show anybody (not yet at least). But locked in my room, practicing the moonwalk in front of the mirror, I felt good about myself. I had this newfound self-confidence. That’s part of the magic of Michael. Somehow, just by striking a pose, just hearing that opening drumbeat of “Billie Jean,” he made you feel better about yourself.

By the time I was finishing up
Gremlins,
in the winter of 1984, my love of Michael Jackson had turned into a full-blown obsession. Someone, I no longer remember who, bought me one of those glittery Michael Jackson gloves, a cheap little thing, a crappy little glove dipped in glue and covered in glitter. In the mid-eighties, they were
everywhere,
but I adored it. I used mine as a sort of change purse, twisting the top and sticking it through my belt, like an extra-sparkly version of a fanny pack. I bought all the fan magazines, spent hours staring at pictures of him performing, and decided—improbably—that we were destined to meet. I can’t really explain that. But I was eleven, and more than a little incorrigible.

One day I was working with Joe Dante, wrapping up a few days of ADR (also known as “automated dialogue replacement,” the process by which actors re-record bits of dialogue in order to improve sound quality, clarity, or, sometimes, to make minor alterations to the script). During every break in the recording session, I went on and on about Michael Jackson. I couldn’t shut up about him. Until Joe, exasperated, turned to me and said, “You know he came to the set one day?”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “What?”

“Yeah, yeah, he came and visited us.”

“He
did
?”

“Yeah, well, you know, he’s a friend of Steven’s, so he came down to check out the set. Spent the whole day with us. He came to my house, actually. Steven brought him over.”

“Did you get to
see him DANCE
?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, he moonwalked for us.”

I imagine Joe told me all this to, once and for all, shut me up. It had the opposite effect.

By the time I began work on
The Goonies,
about a year later, it was widely known that Steven Spielberg and Michael Jackson really were friends. (Jackson even performed the theme song for
E.T
., called “Someone in the Dark.”) I started to put two and two together: if Michael Jackson had visited the
Gremlins
set, why wouldn’t he come to see the
Goonies
? All I had to do was ask Steven. So I did. Every day. About 150 bagillion times. I pestered him for the entire three months we spent in Oregon, and every day we continued to shoot in L.A. I couldn’t help it. I was going to meet Michael Jackson if it killed me.

*   *   *

In the meantime,
I was hard at work on the set. One day in particular, I was headed back from Richard Donner’s office toward the end of our one-hour lunch break. Dick’s office was tucked all the way in the back of the lot, past the commissary, at the end of Avenue D. We usually rode from soundstage to soundstage on our bikes, but on that day I was walking.

As I passed the commissary, I noticed a man—slight build, with a full beard and thick-rimmed glasses—sitting outside on a bench. He seemed at once familiar and yet, somehow, sort of strange. Creepy, almost. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. And then suddenly, he waved his hand in my direction. I turned and doubled back.

“I’m Paul,” he said when I approached him. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Corey.”

“Nice to meet you, Corey. Listen, I’m here working on a movie and I think you’ve got a really great look. Have I seen you in something? You’re an actor, right?”

“Yes,” I answered tentatively.

“How long have you been acting?”

“I guess about ten years now.”

He seemed impressed. “Well, as I said, I’m doing this movie, and I think there may be a part for you in it. Basically, the main character’s bike gets stolen by this kid. I think you might be perfect for that role, playing the kid who steals the bike.” He paused to adjust the glasses riding down the bridge of his nose. “Have you heard of Pee-wee Herman?”

Had I heard of Pee-wee Herman? Of course I had heard of Pee-wee Herman! “I love Pee-wee Herman!” I told him.

“Oh, well, great. That’s great. Actually … it’s me.”

I raised an eyebrow. This guy looked nothing like Pee-wee Herman, which is exactly what I told him.

He laughed. “It’s me. I just shave the beard and put on some makeup and the suit.” I hadn’t realized that the man sitting in front of me was actually Paul Reubens.

We chatted for a while, about
The Pee-wee Herman Show
and his upcoming film, which would be shooting directly across the lot from stage 16, where the
Goonies
pirate ship was being built. Tim Burton, at the time a virtual unknown, would be directing. “So, are you going to be available, you think? What are you working on?” he asked me.

“I’m doing
The Goonies
.”

“
The Goonies
 … I’ve heard of that. What is that?”

“It’s the new Steven Spielberg movie.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” He suddenly seemed flustered. “I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to insult you.”

“Insult me? What are you talking about?” I asked, genuinely confused.