River Phoenix – C/D, S&D

Some of the James Dean-ish aspects which wowed me so much as a teen would probably make me roll my eyes a little now. But, at the time, I thought he was the coolest guy in the world – thanks to that shy, fumbling, unconventionally smart yet barely articulate quality of his few big roles. He was like some kind of Montessori emo superstar. And when paired with Martha Plimpton’s no-b.s. sass in "The Mosquito Coast" and "Running on Empty" – they were like a children-of-hippies dream couple. ("I think about you when I go to the bathroom.")

But beyond just the fact that he was this sensitive, mysterious dude (and pulling that off alone is, I guess, impressive enough, in a Hollywood full of Luke Perrys), I think he was really a good actor, at least doing that "all my emotions are on the surface" thing (not normally the kind of acting I'm into). I think he pulled it off so well because he closed his characters off so much – his archetypal character’s ego was so damped down (reason: messed up childhood), that his everyday repressed awkwardness was especially choked-off and stumbling, and his outbursts of emotion were especially childlike. (Both sides of this were perfected in "My Own Private Idaho.")

It’s interesting to watch "Stand by Me," where the other three kids are really good actors, and Phoenix is actually pretty wooden – except in the campfire scene, where he sobs into Wil Weaton’s arms about his abusive dad (and which kind of prefigures the pathetically inarticulate campfire scene in "Idaho" – supposedly written into the script by Phoenix and Keanu Reeves themselves! – "I really want to kiss you, man").

Plus, he had this way of doing these tossed-off little line readings that just killed me. One of my favorite things in "Idaho" (out of about a billion favorite things) is when he doesn’t want to participate in the ambush they’re planning on the rockers from Beaverton, and wanders into another room – then Keanu whispers to him that he needs his help to play a trick on the others – and River says OK; jumps back into the crowd (which roars its approval); and murmurs something like, "I was gonna help you guys anyway, I was just kidding."

His super-eco vegetarian bio ("He's never tasted chocolate!") definitely played into the whole mystique, though I thought at the time it was a bit much. (On the other hand, I do remember being distinctly bummed when I read Martha Plimpton say, in an interview, that she could never kiss anyone who "puts dead animal through their lips.")

Beyond the movies I've mentioned, I don't know about most of the others. I could never bear to watch "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon." He was likeable in a few side roles ("Sneakers" and "I Love You to Death"). Then he was in a few real turkeys at the end ("Thing Called Love," "Silent Tongue"). It was curious how just plain bad or boring he could be sometimes – either he was "on," in a movie which "brought it out," or he wasn't. (But then I don’t know if it was maybe also "the drugs" at that point, or what. )