Life After the Navigator (2020) - full transcript

I'm gonna get you mic'd up and then
I will text, Ash to...

...so we can go in the door,
he'll let us in from the inside so...

Oh it's Ray, hello Ray

How you doing man?

Wow

Taken care of...
taken care of... bless you

Oh yeah, I was Detective Banks
Detective Banks!

Yes I brought that little guy back to
his family after eight years missing

Good, good, I'll let you do your thing...
Hey folks

All right you're good to button that up

Joey Cramer...



Randal had called me one day and said "did
you hear about Joey?" and I said "No I hadn't"

I wondered always what had happened to him

Someone had
sent me a link about Joey being arrested

Like you're kidding me? What
was it a bank robbery or something?

I was startled, really startled

Joe seemed like a totally normal kid
when I worked with him

I didn't see any sign that
there was any problems

I was kind of surprised when I saw his mug
shot and thought "what happened to him?"

I didn't know how early he had
started drugs until much later

It's not just a story about a kid
actor that goes to jail, it's about...

...what happened?

I think acting as a child is wonderful,
though I think it's really important not to

turn it into their only identity

When I tried to go back to school and
be normal, I was anything but normal



and before I knew it my childhood was gone

so

Hi, it's getting close to Christmas

21st today, so it's the winter solstice,

which, I was told by a good friend of mine,
it's good to

to pray and meditate and stuff on what
we want to manifest for the next year

and our lives and everything so did a lot
of that last night

Sometimes it's really hard

because I think...

Sometimes I think "Oh I'm 44 now and I like
totally thrown my whole life away and..."

"...what if this, and what
if that, what if this?" but

oh man

I don't really know what to say

Up until this last time every time I went to
jail yeah I... I pretty much knew I'd be back

They don't make it easy
to come out and succeed

It's just this cycle, I was here with
guys who'd been in and out of jail for

most of their lives

We're gonna go I guess around the corner,
and I haven't been back here since that

infamous day

I just started feeling more and more
hopeless, so I started looking up crimes

I felt like I...
that I let a lot of people down

and that I, um...

and that that's not me.

I like these electronic clap boards..

"Flight of the Navigator" was a really
interesting project

from the point of view of how it began

My partner Robby Wald and I
found the original script, it was

written by someone who'd never written
a script before

"Flight of the Navigator" was my first
original screenplay, and it was called

"Vanished"...
it came from a dream

We took it to Disney - Richard Berger
was the president of Disney at that time,

he took the
project to the board of directors actually,

very unusual step and he got the board to approve
picking up the domestic distribution rights

They had made a partnership
with Producers Sales Organization,

which was an action company... Disney
wanted to make a family movie so I was

caught in the middle, you know I
was back and forth and back and

of course Disney won because they they were
more powerful

It was the Disney of Jeff Katzenberg, they
only owned the movie for the US rights...

They had a great deal of
control over the process

Most of the elements that I had in my film were in
the final film, but it's the changes that really

make it different

It was more of a serious film, in my story
they build the ship from his memory so

they're experimenting with technology that
they don't understand but David does

and it gets to a point where he realizes
they're never going to let him go

John Avildsen was attached at one point...

Brian de Palma wanted to direct

finally Randal became director

I originally wanted to be a
cartoonist for Walt Disney

I made some cartoons in junior high school

Our family drove out to California
and tried to show it to Walt Disney but

we were turned away at the gate

So I gave up cartoons and I decided to do live
action, and then in high school I made lots of

8mm films, applied to USC film school,
and at that time it was not thought of

as a serious major

So I came out to California from Philadelphia,
had a wonderful group of classmates

including George Lucas, Caleb Deschanel,
John Carpenter, it was quite a class

We were all told that we would never be able
to get into the movie business because no one

had at that point

The studio system was in place
and they were making movies like

Doris Day, Rock Hudson movies

The industry was a closed industry,
you had to be related to someone or

have contacts of some kind to get any
kind of a job but

the tide changed, the industry changed, the
viewing habits of the public changed,

and suddenly people who were our age were going
to movies made by people their own age: Us

I started doing TV movies and then moved
on to "Grease", and

"Blue Lagoon" and "White Fang", and then

"Flight of the Navigator"
came along at Disney

There I was back at Disney where I was
turned away many years ago, as a

13-year old with a little
can of animated film

Hi, my name is Chris O'Donnell and
I'm from Stuartown

"Is this thing gonna leak?" "Navigator,
I do not leak, you leak, remember?"

"You know something?
I don't think I like you"

One of the biggest aspects of
the movie was the casting of the kid

We had had casting people in New York,

we had casting people in LA,

we had casting people I believe in Chicago

We saw hundreds of boys one
of them was Joaquin Phoenix

We saw everybody that was eligible
at that time

When I was working with Mike
Fenton and Jane Feinberg, which was

the top casting directors in town
at that time, they had done "E.T",

"Back to the Futures", "Indiana Jones"... we even
put River Phoenix in one of the Indiana Jones

They didn't want children that were trained,
they wanted somebody who kind of walked in the

door and was natural

So it was important
for them to find an organic experience

- I didn't say under the ocean..all I...
- Let's start again okay, all set?

- Ready?
- Caged animal and action!

I didn't say take us under the ocean,
all I asked for was a

place they couldn't find us

I was hoping they would get a good kid,
'cos it all depended on him

You know something?
I don't think I like you

All right, so I first got into acting and
interested when I was about 8 years old

My mom worked at UBC,
the university in Vancouver

in the theater department

The head of the department was doing
the musical South Pacific

so he asked if Joe would do it

People thought he was adorable, and he was,
he's adorable. I mean he was adorable!

People kept saying to me
"Oh you want to get him in the movies!"

I wanted nothing to do with it because
I didn't want to be a stage mother

I had none of that in me at all

But my friend said "Well you know, you
could get a head shot and see what happens"

Sure enough he started getting commercials

The next thing was an audition for a
movie with Tom Selleck

and before we even got
home he'd got that one

Once "Runaway" came out, he was seen

We got a call from Jeff Katzenberg in fact, and
he said "Well I have some tapes of some kids..."

...I'd like you to look at them"
and Joey was in the group

So, I got the audition,
they flew me to California

That was a big deal, they flew us
to Los Angeles and we stayed in a

motel on Franklin Avenue, and
Randal just talked to Joe

and I started to talk a little bit and
Randal said "no no, just let him talk"

My feeling is that once he met Joe
it was hands down

He was very very personable, and I could
feel that I connected with him as a person

When he did the crying scene that's what made
me realize this is a guy because he was so

emotionally available, so easily triggered to cry
and that was an important part of this character

and sometimes when you're working with kids it's
hard to get that out of them but with him you just

turn it on and bam it's there and you
get it on the first take

When I'm sitting in a room, and
I'm watching one actor after another

do the same dialogue and the same scenes

and there's somebody that walks in that room, that
gets you to forget that you're even in that room

you know you've got something special

I didn't have reservations
about Joe being a child actor because

I didn't think of it in that way

We weren't in it for
the money or anything except the adventure

I mean, not every
little kid gets to do that

My first impressions of Joey,
working with Joey was "Ugh..."

"...he's so much better
than I am as an actor"

His emotional life seemed to be real

When you think about it, Joey is in almost
every frame of that movie

and so you've got to carry a film

at his age, that's a
daunting responsibility

What was so interesting about Joey is, '
cos I'd worked with child actors before...

having been a child actor myself

He was very accessible to his emotions,
he was that boy

He was darling, he was just darling.
What was he, 12?

I had been driven out to the set to sort of
meet everybody and it was very very pink and

this beautiful sunset that only happens in
that latitude and there were these tiny just

thousands of these tiny puffy puffy white clouds,
and Randal pointed at the sky and he was like

"that's why we're shooting in Florida"

We talked about filming the movie in
a lot of different places

We started out thinking we could do it
up in like Salt Lake City

and then the weather started to get
bad, and we kept being boxed out of places

where we could do the project

Ultimately Florida seemed to be the only place
where you actually had white puffy clouds

and blue skies. We were based in Fort
Lauderdale and that's where we shot the movie

Going on, on a location to shoot a
movie was my favourite thing to do

As a little kid, I think big picture was
I'm excited I don't have to be in school

Being the first major role that I had,
I remember thinking

"Wow, there's a lot of down time", so
we did get to spend a lot of time together

We just all had such a great time
on the movie, it was terrific

So I was cast to play
the young girl who, um...

David had a crush on

and I was riding my bike, I had to say "hi
David" in a way that was a little bit flirty

"Hi David"..."hi Jennifer"

The funniest thing that I really remember
is, I wasn't actually riding down the street

This one guy, his job was to push me out
on the bike from behind the tree

I was just sitting there waiting on the bike, and
I must have been pushed out from behind that bush

I mean probably 300 times

There's really not much more to it other
than he kind of gets busted looking at me

so, there's some of that father-son
interaction, which is kind of cute

Well the first challenge was

there's a first scene where there's a Frisbee
throwing contest and when the dogs are jumping

It's Miami, it's sunny, I was a somewhat chubby
little kid and sitting there on his shoulders

This took all day... my shoulders ached for a
couple of days, I said "damn is he heavy or what?"

I didn't tell Jeff, I didn't want to
upset him, but later I said

"Let's not have any more kid on the
shoulders scenes, please"

The scene when I'm trying to signal Joey
back to the house was probably the most

viscerally memorable scene for me just in
terms of the action sequence of doing that

Going up on the roof was pretty scary

It was very windy, I can't even believe
they let me do it actually

I don't think they
would let some... an actor do that nowadays

- Can you see him yet?
- Not yet

In all honesty, things went so smoothly for me
the challenge that I had was believing everything

which was very easy, because the
environment was created and it was so real

I mean, we believed we
were in that police station

You know, when we
get into the car it's real

and then the... the moment which even when
I think of it now it affects me emotionally

is bringing him to the door of his house to meet
his parents for the first time in eight years

It was like a very, very vulnerable
and powerful moment

and I was so glad to be a part of
something like that

One of the things that always amazed me was the
very beginning, when David falls into the crevasse

where that was done, which was
down in Miami, they turned a somewhat

jungle location during
the middle of the day

into a scary evening scene with fog

Little known fact, there's the one scene where
he walks across the train tracks, David, and he

throws a stone - that's
not me, that's a stand-in

My stand-in was a wonderful
woman named Rosie

Chronologically the opening scene was not
filmed first

I'm wondering what the first scene was?

I think it was actually when uh, they
pull up home from the Frisbee competition

and funny enough on the radio...
"You're The One That I Want"

The movie takes place in 1978, and when
they're driving up to the house I thought

it'd be fun to put "You're The One That I Want"
on the radio 'cos it was just a little nod

to a movie I did before this

Randal had one of the first
cell phones I'd ever seen

That was about the size of a WWII
American army walkie-talkie

I mean it was huge

and I would see him between takes
talking on this thing

- "What is that?"
- "It's a cell phone"... I thought

You must be in contact with NASA
through this thing

I just remember him being
very open to improvisation

The beginning of the film,
jumped out of the car and there was

"Weasel, dork...
buttface, scuzzbucket..."

And that was Randal just saying
"Hey, what would you guys say?"

During the very beginning in the
back of the car and

"You little dehydrated pizza
face!"

That was my line as well, Randal was like
"what would you call your little brother?"

So I had a fat lip in that scene,
which you can kind of see

I can't remember exactly what happened...

I vividly remember, the sidewalk that
I ride the bike down,

there's a shrubbery before you see me come out,
and right on the other side of the shrubbery

Joey and I were on skateboards
crashing into each other

I think by accident like my skateboard
popped up and smacked him in the mouth

and it was like panic on set

Ever since I saw the opening of the red sea
in "The Ten Commandments"

I wanted to do some special effects
because that affected me so much

That's when I started looking around
for a way to make this movie different

make the spaceship different,
something we haven't seen before

...so I went to my brother Jeff

We've worked on films since his high school
films, you know I was an actor in his first film

At the time in 1985, I was about
seven years into

a first company that I founded in New York
doing computer animation,

we had worked on "Tron" before that,
the company was called Digital Effects

I was hanging out with Jeff and saw this Tide
bottle that he was doing for a commercial

and it changed shape

Smoothly morphing it into a map of
the United States

and I thought "wow, I've never
seen that before"

He's talked about how he wanted the spaceship
to start out to have a certain configuration

when it's hovering and moving
slowly and then when it goes faster it

elongates and changes into a more
aerodynamic vehicle

To my knowledge "Flight of the Navigator"
was the first time that

reflection mapping was
used in a feature film

At the back of a book called "Special
Effects" was a picture of a chrome dog

which was a computer
generated form that they

took the background and mapped it onto it,
it's called 'reflectance mapping'

The last chapter said "This is the future", and I
thought "Okay if that's the future, let's use it"

If the ship was flying say over the
water, we needed to have every frame

that was reflecting off
the ship slightly different

We'd get a helicopter, we'd shoot the sky and
the surroundings and form those into kind of a...

an image sphere, that we could mathematically
put around the spaceship and reflect

that imagery off of it so the spaceship would
look like it was reflecting the environment

I remember how excited people were,
and how excited Randal was when he was

seeing the spaceship like flying over the
water and the reflection on the money

it was like groundbreaking

I talked with Jim Cameron later and he said
that the "Flight of the Navigator" spaceship

was his inspiration for
the chrome terminator

When he saw that he said
"ah, I can do that on Terminator"

It was the beginning of a whole new era in
visual effects photography

In those days whenever you did
an optical shot, a special effects shot,

it cost about $30,000, so I wanted to
come up with ways to

save that money and have more shots,
so we hired Doug Henning to come in...

"What can we do using stage magic to do some of
these effects so that it won't be so expensive?"

When the boy walks up the steps into
the spaceship that was an in-camera effect

where we built those steps with
steel rods going away from the camera

so you couldn't see them, so that Joe could walk
on the steps and they would give a little bit

he couldn't really do that with special effects,
it was in camera and it looked really great

When they land in Florida, the kids
push on it too and it bounces a little bit,

people wonder how it was done,
and the other thing he helped us with was

the spaceship the way
it floated in some scenes

Well, on the gas station
we had the full-size ship

We shot at Burt Reynolds ranch. We didn't
meet Burt Reynolds but the ranch was cool

It was on like a tow truck that held it

There's a crane that went right into the side of
it, so it looks like it's floating but it's really

suspended from the side

The only thing then, that had to be erased,
was the arm that was holding the ship out

Same thing with - the ship comes out of
a hangar, well

the ship was this size, the only difference
was a perspective shift

so that we had a real building with
two doors... the ship was on a little pole

and the pole came out - one door was real,
the other door was a miniature door

and we just had the ship coming out behind
the door, and it looked like the ship was

200 feet away, and over a bunch of
people, even though it was only this big

an old trick that old movie makers knew
how to do, but today

nobody knows how to do anymore

The idea of the spaceship being mirrored on the
outside, I wanted to do that on the inside too and

everyone said "you're crazy!".
I said "well, if it's difficult...

...that's why no one's done it before"
So we did it

We used this new Mylar material,
where you could put lights behind it

that would shine through, but
they were all practical effects

that you were actually shooting in-camera

and then when you shine light from the
inside out, it was clear

and this is pretty unusual,
this had not been done before

I never saw the ship when I was working.
When I finally saw the ship...

...that was fantastic

The ship design was done by a
young artist named Ed Eyth, who I ran into

sitting in the lobby of a VFX house with
his book, he just graduated from Cal Arts,

and I said to him "Hey, hi how are you? What's
that?" and he said "I'm interviewing for a job here"

so he showed me his stuff it was fantastic,
so I hired him right away and he...

he became the main designer of the ship

We talked about the spaceship, Randal was
very open to ideas,

he just said he wanted to be chrome
on the inside, and chrome on the outside

the shape could be anything, the
only other constraint was, and this is

really a common catch phrase in Hollywood,
is they wanted something that had

never been seen before, and the fact that it was
going to be chrome would make it unique enough

I did a page or two of sketches, actually
five or six pages of sketches of thumbnails,

just little studies to explore different
shapes and different configurations for this

It's my favourite part of
the process you're just

coming up with ideas, it's the "what if?" part of
the process - "what if it looked like this?" and

"what if it was shaped like this?"

Went in, met with Randal again, showed him
the drawings and he said "yeah, these..."

There's a lot here, I just need some
time to think about it" so

I called back in met with Randal again
a few days later and he said "Okay..."

"I showed these to Spielberg..." and I said
"Wait a minute, you showed these to who?"

And I just couldn't believe it, that the
first sketches I put a marker to paper on

went, you know, to Randal and
then they went to Steven Spielberg

Started sketching more... at some
point we decided okay, with the spaceship

maybe it's going to be, since it's chrome, why don't
we just make it like a blob of mercury so it can

change shapes, which makes it even more
innovative, and more never been seen before, so

I had to design these variations on the shape
of the ship and I decided if it was rounded

in it's stationary form, then maybe when it takes
off and goes faster it gets more aerodynamic

and then at some point I realized if this is
mercury, we should do something with the door

Instead of just having a door open, or a door
on hinges, I thought wouldn't be great if just

part of the wall the ship just sort of
melted down and became these stairs

that he could walk up to get into the ship

One of my most favourite
scenes inside the spaceship,

that I really am proud of

So when we're driving in the desert, and all
of a sudden that... the red mustang pulls up

and we're kind of following it, like
"oh what?" and uh... and David goes

"I wonder if that's that Twisted
Sister stuff Carolyn was talking about?"

I actually made that line up

Before that it was just a big long
gap, we were kind of following and stuff

and I said "Hey Randal, what if I said hey is that
that Twisted Sister stuff?" and he said cool great

I was auditioning for two different roles, believe
it or not. I was auditioning for Jennifer Bradley,

and for Carolyn, but young Carolyn and

in the script there was a...

there was a portion of the movie at the end
that was young Carolyn when he comes back,

so I auditioned for both roles, and I
specifically remember

I was in a McDonald's for the young Carolyn
role like, that's... that was my setting

I think maybe three months went by
after the audition

when we got the call that I
actually got the part of Jennifer Bradley,

and at the time I didn't know that young
Carolyn was not going to be in the film

I did find that out once we got on set

Those are the closest memories that
come to me about the film

was spending time with Sarah Jessica Parker
who just knocked me out as a human being

(laughs) That grin... oh it was...
it was awesome

I remember her having a hard time because they
had to light up that piece of purple hair,

...couldn't quite get it right so that
was probably the most difficult part

Then there's that scene where she's like
"You know, you're cute..."

"...did a girl ever tell you that before?"

"Nobody but my mom,
but I don't think she counts"

and I've just got this look on my face...

Oh wow, yeah... yeah... it was... uh...
it was fun

One day, Randal came over to me and he said
"I've been trying to cast a doctor in the movie"

So I said "Okay, well... so?"

And he said "Well, all the doctors
here, they all look like pharmacists..."

"...but you look like a doctor"

Howard Hesseman and I have to tell
the parents what we know about the child

It's outside the hospital

"This hospital is not prepared to offer,
am I correct doctor?"

My family had always wanted me to be a
doctor all my life so

When I finally came out in the
movie I told my mother, I said "Well..."

"...you finally get to see me as a doctor"
This is a... this was an important moment

"Could I see you outside
for a few minutes, please?"

It was the hospital scenes that were
the crux of my story about me and David

I first come back and, you know,
"What happened to you mom? You too dad?"

- "Where have you been all this time?"
- "All this time?"

"All this time?"

"I just went to get Jeff at the Johnson's
a few hours ago"

(Stutter) Get Jeff, he'll tell you

I remember I had to re-dub that,

and had to do that exact little stutter...
(stutter)

Over and over till it... till it matched up

get Jeff he'll tell you

I was trying to try to...

...try to just make that
as truthful as possible

and what would that...
what would that be like?

I mean, I have an older brother, and what would
it be like if I walked into a hospital and saw him

as now my young... I mean, it's a
very hard thing to try to... you can't...

You just have to accept that this is the reality
that we're in, and I'm just gonna be his brother

and play this scene, and that's really
what I tried to do, and when I say that

I realized immediately how much
of a better actor Joey was than me,

he was so connected
to that sense of being lost

What could have possibly happened
to lead us to this moment, where I'm

looking at my younger, older brother.
It would be so shocking

"Buttface"
"Scuzzbucket" (laughs)

After "Flight of the Navigator" he was
very much sought after, Disney wanted him

I remember being very reticent to do that
because the Brat Pack in Hollywood at that

time, were having all kinds of problems

That was what was really holding me back
from pushing him,

we would have had to move to Los Angeles
and our home was here

But I'm not sorry that we didn't,

'cos Joe got in trouble anyway
(laughs)

It's uh...

Yeah, it's all I could ask for is to
just ugh, still be connected

connection heals shame...

right, that vulnerability, that uh...

...true spark of life by
being vulnerable, by

connecting to people, by risking

creates these pathways for beautiful things
to grow and to

blossom

As scary as it is to change,
being stagnant is so much worse for me

My mom moved up from southern California in the
60s, and then in the early 70s she bought a farm

We called it Sleepy
Hollow. It was 75 acres.

Mostly what was on it was shacks,

but one of them was a quite well-built
chicken house

I went inside, took it all apart, I built a
floor in the bottom of it, I painted it all...

and we put a loft in the top, with a
bed up there, and a little tiny stove

and that's where Joe was born

My full name...(laughs)

My full name is
Delirious Joe August Fisher Cramer

My dad, Gary Steven Cramer...
he wanted to name me "Yes"

and Gary's mother said "You can't
call him 'Yes', every time somebody says

'Yes' he'll be turning his head around"

One of his pseudonyms for poetry
and songwriting was 'Delirious Manch'

I mean, this is all very complicated

My mom said "Well how about Delirious?" then
they said "Well, isn't that crazy or delusional?"

I looked up the word
'delirious' in the dictionary,

it said "wild with excitement or joy"

So I decided to spell
Delirious "d-e-I-e-r-i-y-e-s"

So we got the 'yes' in there

Gary's grandfather, during the time that
I was pregnant, he said

"His name's going to be Joe", he said it
like that, "His name's going to be Joe..."

"...it's going to be a boy and his name is
Joe" Then, he was going to be born in August,

so now it's Delirious Joe August

Fisher, 'cos that's my name and
we weren't married, and Cramer

So, we got five names out of it...
it's very hippy ...very hippy (laughs)

It was 1972 and it was the beginning of when
women decided to have kids on their own.

I just decided I wanted to have a kid

I asked one guy and he said
"No, I've already got one..."

So he told his friend, which was Gary

and Gary said "Yeah, I'll do it!"

He really wasn't involved in at all

I never understood why he didn't want
to be around

He was about 20 when he had me... 21.
My mom was 31

I remember him coming for some birthdays,
up until the age of ten maybe?

And then he pretty much disappeared

I started seeing a psychiatrist
when I was younger,

but I remember feeling

dark

Something I've learned, is that
kids who grow up without a parent,

but especially without a father figure,
tend to steal at young ages

He stole a bunch of smurfs at
the department store at the Bay

I remember being in the aisle, and
filling my pockets... well I went home

and I filled my stocking up, and I
thought "Yeah, Santa will come tomorrow..."

"...and my mom will never know" so,
that's how young I was

I talked to him and he knew it was wrong

He stole things when he was little.
I never knew what to do about that

When we spoke to Joe he had told us that
even by Navigator, he had started stealing...

Did you ever have any inclination?

Wow, I had no idea

We were just worried about doing the scenes,
and making sure that his Canadian-isms...

Every once in a while there was an "out" and
a "house", and someone had to say "cut"...

So no, I'm sorry, that didn't occur to me...
did he? Was he doing that at that time? Wow

Honestly, I truly believe that, that
all stemmed from my dad not being around

Years later, I'd reached
out to him for some help

Not financially, I just
wanted somebody to talk to

I just wanted some sort of support

I wanted a dad

I don't remember exactly what I said,
what he said to me...

You think you got problems, kid?

I've got 20 years of problems on you

Don't phone me with your problems

You want to know what to do?

Why don't you do us all a favor, and go
jump off a bridge?

Why don't you just go slit your throat
and wrists?

Do us all a favor and kill yourself

Because I'd always been open and
honest with him, and he'd always been

an open and honest little kid, I just assumed
that he would be comfortable talking to me

about anything

I was probably in denial about
a lot of things that he was doing

I didn't know how early he had
started drugs until much later

We'd watched ninja movies and sit around
and smoke weed when we were little, and

I remember us looking for
quarters to go play video games and

came across this bag of... I thought it
was bulk soap

so I took some of the soap

and that was kind of my first
introduction to... to coke

Like yeah, what - 14, 15?

I was really addicted

Probably, I think, right before
Navigator we moved up here

It was like a real transitional house
where we had these wonderful memories and

this wonderful upbringing and
then things changed. I remember

walking the streets
in the rain and drinking

Then I started getting in trouble at school and
I started doing drugs and staying out late, and

I'd sneak out the back window and
go off in the middle of the night, and...

yeah...

Lord Byng was my high school after I finished
Navigator, I didn't really fit in, I was

surprisingly teased for being a conceited
movie star, or like the older guys

would chase me around and throw me
in trash cans and lock me in lockers

You know, I had some friends but to fit in I started
smoking a lot of dope, I started drinking a lot...

I started cutting myself a lot

and burning myself, so that I could feel...

Watch your step

...something besides what I
was feeling inside, which was just

black

There's one scar here
where I used to put out

cigarettes all the time,
there's two of them there

Um, when I was about 29 or 30,
there's a big long scar there which I...

...I cut myself with a
scalpel and, and um...

Yeah, I almost, I mean... I yeah, so...

Um, again I'm here obviously but...

That's a real scar and he turned it into a

right, a scar on the... on this heart
which I thought was really well placed

The way that the scar comes through the
bone of the... of the wing

Yeah, there's some
more scars in there so...

As long as I can remember, I lied and
I stole, and that turned into my identity

From 15 to 18, I was stealing cars.
Lots of cars.

I stole money from my mom all the time

The most stressful things that are coming
to my mind about Joe's teenage years

are remembrances of
not knowing where he was

I suppose he was out of control

I remember Spring Break,
and I didn't sleep for like 13 days

I was doing about seven grams of coke a day

and acid, and I actually
got really heavy into GHB

As far as funding my habit, I
had access to my movie money

He had money because he made the money

I know child stars whose parents
pushed them and

took all their money and
they didn't have anything

So, when he asked me for the money...

...he shouldn't have
had it, I realize that now

There was a 10-year
hiatus when he was sober,

except for drinking,
and that was really good

Virtually my problems, that... that serious

depression and self-hatred and loathing,
seemed to go away

I went to Maple Ridge Treatment Center.
I had a slip while I was there.

I went back in 2008,
and then I went back in 2010

and that's when I had the most success

I got out of there and I
had got my own apartment

I got a couple of jobs, I was working

and I think it was like the night of my
Step 12, I'd finished my first set of steps,

and I met a girl on the way home and
that was a huge nightmare

That's when I first got
introduced to heroin

We're hanging out in Gastown, downtown Vancouver
and it's a beautiful old part of the city

It's grown a lot since I've been here, you know,
the old brick roads and stuff like that and...

"Is this the trendy bit of town now?"

It's kind of... kind of
like touristy trendy, right?

Oh, I got just, yeah, fall down drunk
in that place once

The Lamplighter

- Do I have anything in my teeth?
- "No"

- "Over to our tour guide, Joe.
Where are we, Joe?" (laughs)

All right, so we're downtown Gastown
still, and we're on Cambie and Water and

Interesting fact is this is where I did some of
my first extra work on "The NeverEnding Story",

and I ran across this street back here

so in the film, you can see me and
another kid are running across the street

"Hey, it's the weirdo"

I think this used to be a place called Sonar,
where I knew all the bartenders and managers

and I'd always be on the list,
and all the good, like...

and actually I think it used to be
the Town Pump where like, um...

I think maybe even like, well, my dad used to play
a lot, but Pearl Jam played when they were still

when they called themselves Mookie Blaylock

Here's the infamous alley where I
got to do my first stunt double work

and so "The NeverEnding
Story" and, and uh...

and one of the kids
couldn't make it so we...

they asked me if I could, you know, stand
in for him and

the camera was up on a big crane,
and chased us down the alley, and I had to

dive into the big pile of garbage
next to the dumpster where

Falkor is chasing
us down, right, these bullies...

Ah... Falkor... oh my God...
(laughs)

He'd been through several different rehabs,
several different times

and one of the times that he came out and
was feeling so good,

got a hold of some girl who laced his
cigarettes, and that's what got him onto heroin

He didn't like those kinds of drugs at all

I remember him standing saying
"Ugh... I hate this drug..."

You know, just hated it -
because he didn't like being out of control

So every morning I've got to go
to the pharmacy for my methadone

It's to help you get off heroin

It is actually an opiate

Some people they say "Well, if you're on
methadone that you're not really clean..."

Whereas I consider it to be clean because I'm using
a prescription to the right way, and stuff like that

The worst part is the fear of getting sick.

It's something that I always hated because I felt
so powerless over it. It affects your whole body...

You won't die, but you
feel like you're going to.

Once again, he had stolen some
money from my wallet

so when he came home, I confronted
him with that

and I said, you know, "You're gonna have
to leave, I can't live with you like this"

and he was just so amazing

He said...

"I know you're not kicking me out
mom, because you don't love me..."

"I know you're not kicking me out
because you don't love me..."

And he just left

but I knew I had to kick him out

Even though we loved each other...

...I didn't kick him out with hate

I never... I never hated him

I don't remember where he went then

There's only so much a mom can do

So this is one place where I spent a
lot of time where I was living in my car

The morning would come, and those
realizations would come in, and like

"What the hell am I doing?" and "Why
am I here?" and "This can't be my life"

I got into a bunch of crap and...
and screwed up a bunch of my teeth

Some of it I got in some really violent situations,
some got broken, some I just didn't take care of

So for a long time I didn't have any like,
any teeth whatsoever

So I wouldn't get recognised for the
movie for sure, not... not in that state

I couldn't even imagine being
fully on the street with no shelter

Vancouver was really harsh 'cos I didn't have
a car, literally packing a huge bag around

(singing) "Under these bridges religions
are built, but no one pays the tithe..."

"...stretching out the
time only to find..."

"...there ain't much
point in being alive..."

So we're in downtown Vancouver
and I spent some long nights down here

There were some pretty
dark times definitely

But um, there's a with a safe
injection site behind me here where

It's somewhere where you can go to,
you know, to do your drugs and stuff where

you're not on the street, you're not out there
in the elements... not contract diseases...

Make sure that if something happens when
you're doing your drugs, that you don't O.D

When you're in it,
you feel like there's no other way to live

It goes back to wanting to be connected, even
if it's in this, you know, really negative um...

self... self-defeating space, right?

'Cos we're all down here just like, you know,
hurting ourselves and feeling horrible and stuff

but you still want that connection, right? Even if it's
through drug use, you're part of a little community

The thing about whether there's
people down here trying to help people,

you can't really help anyone
unless they... unless they want to

It's a huge process getting into rehabs,

there's waiting lists, you can't
just walk in somewhere and do it

Ah, it's heartbreaking

(singing) "Walking that road, the only bed that I
laid, was still warm with the life that I betrayed..."

"...I've made mistakes
and that I'll admit..."

"...but I've staked
my life to pay for it..."

My girlfriend at the time and I,
we didn't have a car

We slept under the Sky Train, and made us a
little camp with like, cardboard boxes and a

little shopping cart turned over and
she was always really sick in the morning

We thought she was dope sick.
I'd be running out hustling up heroin...

...and it turned out she was pregnant

When we figured that out, we got into a
recovery house and started to try and clean up

When Celecta was born she tested
positive for coke and methadone

I don't believe that she went through any of
the screaming and pain that a lot of babies do

Then we had to figure out what to do

There's no point in me stringing Celecta
along, while I'm going in and out of treatment

and I wanted to get my life together,
so that I could be part of her life then

(singing) "Whoa to give
someone a chance..."

We got the most wonderful foster mother

She's a lucky little girl

She's a really lucky little girl

(singing) "Don't we all deserve love?"

Hi! Okay, so this is the window
to my little room at the VITC

This is where I've been living for six months,
and I'll be here for about another six months

Little nice cozy space, but I
brought a nice rug from home

I've got pictures of my daughter,
and one of my favorite pictures too

is this one, I just love it -
it's my mom and Celecta

and I've got my little happy cat,

it just ugh, was sent from my friend
Anna, she's one of my biggest fans

There's certain things that you're not allowed to
have when you're in jail, like crayon, glitter...

lip gloss, no nail polish because you can transfer
contraband into into the prison through...

...through, I guess through lip
gloss, and crayons and things like that

I was inside 18 months, and then coming
to a small room, it's really taught me to

appreciate just necessities, not... not what I
want to have to make me feel better but that I...

...I have everything that
I need from the inside

I actually started this at Guthrie, and that's
taking a dry erase marker and writing on the mirror,

so I write things like 'I am health',
'I am joy", 'I am love' and

sometimes I like draw... funny, like a

a happy face or with a mustache and

and then I'd like, look at it and "ho ho!" and then
I'd laugh at myself right, stuff like that, you know

"I love you Joe,
I love you, I love you, I love you"

and it feels weird at first, it really
does feel a little weird at first, but...

...although...not but...although the
more we say it, the better it feels and

I think everybody deserves to feel love
from themselves inside, so, yeah...

I think he was lonely sometimes

I knew that if I went with him to the set,
I would be

on him all the time "do this, do this, do this..."
and I didn't want to interfere in that at all

I know that when they went to Norway, they
took a friend

Joe just called, and then it was like
"Yeah, I want you to come to Norway..."

"Oh hang on a sec,
Dad, can I go to Norway?"

I said "Norway?
Why, I mean, are you kidding?"

One of the producers was Producer Sales
Organization, Mark Damon's company, and

they had blocked funds in Norway, they
had to spend the money in Norway, that was

the only way they could get it out

They said "Well, what could you
shoot of this movie in Norway?"

We thought about it, and then said "Well, we
could do all the interiors of the spaceship"

We went directly from Miami to Oslo,
and it was in February

Have you ever tried to buy a parka in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida?

Well, we all arrived at the airport in
Norway, literally in T-shirts and shorts,

and the people in the airport looked at us
like we were all crazy, you know, it's 30 below

While we were there, we were filming
in a warehouse

and then we'd take a bus for an hour
each day in the winter

We would go in in the morning at say,
seven o'clock in the morning,

we'd come out at six
o'clock in the evening,

we never saw daylight
during the week at all.

When we shot the scenes where Joey was flying
the ship, and we were shooting from behind

we used a Norwegian boy who
didn't speak English.

I had to time his movements to the back
projection, so that he would move to the right when

the ship went to the right, and to the left, so it went
right, and then they'd translate it into Norwegian,

and by the time they did, he was left, and so
that was very, very complicated trying to work out

telling the kid which way to move

The set was amazing, I remember
wanting to take it home with me

and like, build it in a
garage or something 'cos

it was basically, the whole inside of the
ship was all real

In the floor, the chair came up -
just popped up out of the ground, and

Max hanging down was on a trolley,

and even in his eye - it lit up

Then the wall, it was right there - they pulled
the front off and there was the setup of all the

little creatures all puppeted from behind
"What are these?"

The uh, creatures which
were just so much fun

I think I did several dozen creatures that
Randal picked out the ones he liked

It was just a wonderful
first film to work on

I was the head puppeteer, I was
the principal manipulator of Max

I was the assistant puppeteer on Max, and
the puppeteer for this guy - the Puckmarin

So, I did his voice and I also helped puppeteer
the creatures in the lab on the spaceship

Funny story, the really
weird little slimy creature...

That was one of my favorite things to work,
I did that...

He's very proud of it
Yes, I'm very proud of it

We covered with Purell hair
lotion, and KY... other lotion

I don't know if I should say this but,
originally it was going to be the sex worm

It was supposed to be a sexual
thing but um, they changed it to a cold

to get it through the Disney group

- "He's got a cold..."
- "Ew, gross"

We had just come off another film
called "Short Circuit"

He did the voice for the robot "Short
Circuit" - "I think the chauffeur did it"

and did the mouth, I did the eyes,

so we had really gotten a lot of training
how to be a robot

It was a small set, and we had
four weeks to really get into this

Tim had more to worry about with the
Puckmarin, which was a brand new character

The Puckmarin, wow, yeah I mean he
was incredible

This by the way is not an actual
Puckmarin puppet - a fan made this for Joey

It was so neat, it was like these pulleys to
move his eyes and his eyebrows, and his mouth

He was small, you couldn't understand
him and he was kind of cute, so

I just kind of... tried to find
an alien sounding kind of...

...thing and then...kind of gibberish
him into a into a cute character that was

(puckmarin sounds)

Remember when I'm looking at
the cool creatures and stuff and,

and then I turn and that one guy grabs
my hat, and he bites it off and he's like

(chomping sounds)

And then the thing goes (burps) and it does
that huge long burp?

Well, that was me

(burp sound)

I think that they maybe toned it down a little
bit, 'cos I had a pretty high pitched voice

But uh, but still I did a really good nasty
long burp, and then they... they used it

At that point, they didn't have a
lot of technology to remove strings

There's a spindly kind of character
that was marionetted,

we used monofilament to make him move, he was kind
of like a thing and he moved around like this,

and they used some mist or smoke to kind
of help with making the strings disappear

Max was a challenge because he was the
star of the show

He really was this alien character that,
even though it was also chrome, and also

harmonized visually with the interior of the
ship, he had to be able to emote and perform

so that's when the suggestion for making
the interior of the glass orb on his face,

animate and get video projections in
there, and have some things happening

that make it a little bit more interesting
than just a static puppeted character

The scene where Joey
and Max come face to face

was done with the character
operated from above

That scene had to be choreographed a little
more carefully than the others

with the camera at the very end

There were two grips that helped to
move Max around the spaceship

We were about eight feet above where
Joey was sitting on an elevated stage,

so we were about 14, 15 feet off the ground

There was a platform that spanned the whole
set, and it was on dollies and a track

so you had grips moving the front to
back, and a grip moving side to side

and they had to memorize their marks

"You are, the Navigator!"

"You are the Navigator!" and the first time
we did that scene,

they didn't have quite control of
the uh, trolley,

and it started coming, and coming,
and coming,

- and I was like "oh!"
- I slid down in my seat and it went 'whip!' right over my

head, we were like "woah!" so...

I think there was also a time
we made a foam mock-up of Max

We had a duplicate hand puppet, so I
would be crouched down around Joey's feet

and trying to stay out of the way, and

we would do the close-ups of Max and Joey
with this small hand puppet

I was assisting him on Max,
and I think I was helping with the...

there was a sliding... finding what looked
like what emotion

'cos he was... he just basically had these
things that went like this... and like this...

- that's your sort of limited toolbox for trying to...
- Give him character

"Okay turkey, you fly it"

And after the mind-meld transfer he got
very loosey-goosey with his

and into 'Pee-wee Herman' esque

- "That's it?"
- "That's it, Davey!"

When we filmed, I did the
voice - it's called a 'scratch track'

When we tried to get the voice of the
Navigator, we tried all kinds of stuff including

those machines that people use who have
lost their voices

We didn't really know what the
sound of that voice was going to be

We tried speeding things up...
slowing them down...

but we knew we wanted something kid-like
and fun, and something that could change

I saw "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and I thought "wow,
maybe Paul Reubens would be good for this?"

"...but when you're finished
I'm sure it'll be beautiful... ha ha"

In the earlier portions of their
relationship, I was noting last night,

he's working very nicely to create a
different voice

So the voice starts one way...

"Protective hover is advised"

...and then it gradually turns into
Paul Reuben's voice as

this ship is beginning
to get into the kid's head

When he starts to get
loose, you know who it is!

(laughing)

I'd be happy to shake hands with Paul Reubens
no matter what shape he materialized in

Compliance!

Randal had asked me "Hey, do
you think that you would want to maybe...

...be the voice of the Navigator?"

And I don't know why that occurred to him,
maybe he had decided

maybe the voice should be someone
that he knew, maybe?

And I was so excited, and we went in and we did
a bunch of voice over recordings and then he

ended up going with Paul,
so that was disappointing to me

but I knew that that was going to happen... he
asked... what was the song that they sing in the...?

The Beach Boys song... I was
singing that in this studio and I was like

"Wow, I'm really singing this badly"

and I was like "maybe that's
what sunk me"

"How important was music to the film?"

Oh, I think music was greatly important

I think Alan Silvestri
did... he did a fantastic job

It was a short schedule, we didn't
have time or budget to do a big orchestra

and Alan was willing to do it all with
synthesizers, and so we thought

"Since it's a space movie, why not use
synthesizer?" So I think it was all synth

- He's done all the Marvel movies now, right?
- He has

and he has an orchestra

One of my favorite scenes is when he's
flying around listening to The Beach Boys

We had to have that song, and we
knew that early on

We were afraid we wouldn't be able to afford
it, Disney wasn't sure they wanted to pay for it

Randal and I kept leaning on them and they
finally... they gave us the right to that

(singing) "I'm getting bugged driving
up and down the same old strip..."

"...I gotta find a new place where they
kids are hip..."

When we were filming it, they were like "Joe,
have you practiced your singing uh, scene?"

And he's like "yeah, yeah I've been
practicing" and I didn't know he'd been

practicing, or I didn't know anything
about it but my ears perked up, I was like

"Oooh, Joe's gonna
sing, so this will be cool!"

It was mostly just
lip-syncing and singing along

He was kind of dancing and pushing
the... all the things in the ship around...

I don't know if that
even made it into the film

(singing) "I Get Around..."

I was always happy when he was in
jail, because I knew he'd get fed and

he was off the street

Up until this last time, every time I went to
jail yeah... I pretty much knew I'd be back

They don't make it easy to
come out and succeed

So this was basically the

third time that I'd really done a significant
amount of time - I got six months one time,

I got six months another time, and
then I did this two years less a day, but

in between there, there were little bits where
maybe I went away for a week, or a few days, or

kind of in and out numerous times

So the Guthrie Therapeutic Community is based
inside NCC: Nanaimo Corrections Center, it's

actually fenced off
from the main population

I think as a center we believe that everybody
matters, everybody should have a chance

that hoping and believing in someone
can be the very thing that they need

to see that change is possible for them, and giving
them every opportunity to make good decisions

is part of what we do here

This main room that we're in is where we'd
have our morning meetings, and evening meetings

The morning meeting would be like our
morning philosophy, and then we have

a board where we go through news, weather and
sports - just kind of getting used to chit chat

Guthrie is based in stages,
like, so you have orientation phase then...

What's it called? What's the middle
phase called? Primary, right (laughs)

We've got orientation phase, then primary phase,
and then re-entry phase, so it's going through

um, you know getting used to being here and
being in a community, and how this program works

getting used to thinking different
ways than just being in a jail mentality,

and then the primary phase where you're really
getting into the classes about guilt and shame, and

forgiveness, and then the re-entry phase which is
getting yourself ready to be back in the community

Yeah, we'll get the gist
of what a room was like...

Often you're dealt with on a last
name basis, or by your number

Here at Guthrie it's so cool because we're
on a first name basis with each other, with

the counselors - actually connected with
the people that you're incarcerated with

It's like there's still humanity there that
can be shared right, on both... both ends

I don't know if it's like, comfortable
coming back but it gets to be a habit and it

gets to be familiar

I was here with guys who had been
in and out of jail for most of their lives

It's scary, change is scary, I mean for
anyone whether it's, right, a stock broker or

you know, a mom or you know, a criminal
or addict - it doesn't really matter

change is hard and scary, for moving
from job to job, or a home or whatever, so

when you get familiar and comfortable it's
easy to get

used to it, and feel like
that's the only way to live

and feel like there's no other way out

That snowballing in that negative
way where it's

you know, it's just from one crime to
the other, or one fix to the other, or one

you know, mistake or... yeah

(piano playing)

Ah, I need to practice more!

So that was my house right there
my window with the gray, right...

This is Guthrie - it's pretty
cool, pretty cool! Yeah

Because of our environment, because of the type
of jail we are with medium and open custody

men can have opportunities to go
for a walk, just be outside in fresh air

just be outside in fresh air a center that has cells and
big heavy metal doors it's very different how that feels

This environment allows
them, I think, to feel safe

We're there to support them, and to
help, them try and change their lives

When we have our alumni come back,

especially a success story - someone who's
doing well in the community

Them coming back and sharing
the experience that they've had

since their release, and giving these other
guys motivation saying, like, "Hey..."

"...if this guy can do it, so can I"

It just kind of gives them
a sense of relief in terms of

what they're putting their time into

A lot of people who did see
the movie knew who Joe was, so

they got to see that it
can happen to anybody

and the fact that he still comes back is...
is huge

A lot of respect in terms of showing
support for the community that supported him

This was my job for many months

I got to just do the zen of laundry
and you know, folding clothes, but also

I could sit down here and I could read, or write,
and I wrote a lot of songs down here and there's

fairly like, you know, there's a little
bit of an echo like, decent acoustics

so I would sit down and sometimes
bring a guitar down and play, or

whatever and stuff like that while
I was working...

I don't know if I was allowed to
play guitar while I was working, so

maybe don't... we won't tell that...
no anyway, but... (laughs)

(singing) "Well there is
something I have learned..."

"...of the virtues I have earned..."

"...What's given free will be returned..."

"...when love has taken over..."

I was kind of a mess
when I first got here, I was

I'd been holding all this stuff
together for years and years, and then

coming in here, I could really just
let go of that guilt, and shame, and

self-loathing, hate... and
all that stuff that was just

burning me up and tearing me apart
inside, and actually get it out there

and release it and... and then rebuild

(singing) "Love... has taken over..."

Yeah, there's always
those... those thoughts, right?

When I've been looking at pictures recently
of me when I was younger, and after the movies

If I had stayed in Hollywood yeah, I
mean I would have been a star I'm sure

And then also I got offered a part on the
Star Trek series - "The Next Generation" as

the Wesley Crusher... which
Will Wheaton, you know...

But I was 14 and I remember
it being 10 years of my life,

Is that where really what I want to be
doing? And...

and at the time I had been in film and
TV for so long, I'd missed my childhood

and I just wanted to be a kid again

I figured "Oh well, the right
thing to do is finish high school..."

"...and then get back into acting if not"
Right? So...

Sometimes I think yeah... I mean oh, if I
had stayed in movies I would have you know,

made a million dollars, or whatever it was

At the same time, the way
my trajectory went I... I don't...

Had I moved to LA by myself, unless I had
a really good mentor or someone around,

I'm pretty sure that I would probably
be dead by now

(singing) "...has taken over..."

Do I wish that I could take things back?

Like, if I could have not committed a crime,
and still come here for the amount of time...

...I would have,
I mean I remember phoning,

and I think I talked to Dana and was like
"Can I just come to your program?"

She's like "well no, it's based in the
correction, you have to be incarcerated" and

that was like a year or so before I
actually committed the crime but it

kind of planted the seed "well, maybe I just
need to get put away for a decent amount of time"

We're gonna go, I guess
around the corner to... and

I'll just kind of show
you where the bank was

and I haven't been back here since...
since that infamous day

I was so at a loss, I just so didn't... I was
so frustrated and I was so angry at myself

and I was so sad

Well, what can I do to either, maybe get
myself a whack of cash so that then I could

pay for treatment?

I didn't want to go to a 35-day program,

or even a three-month program,
I wanted to go to like a year program

So I'm grateful that it's actually
a holiday Monday, and the bank isn't open

I just started feeling
more and more hopeless,

more and more handcuffed,
backed into a wall like, just at my wits

I was very suicidal

I don't think that I would really be recognizable
now, per se, because I look so different

I just wanted to get a whole
bunch of heroin and just kill myself

and I remembered about the Guthrie
program, in Nanaimo Corrections,

and I thought that was basically like
my only option to get clean

So I started looking up crimes

I was on methadone at the time

I think if anything, that I was probably...

...that I'd probably smoke some crack

I didn't want to do it violently, and I can't
remember exactly why I chose the day that I did or

what happened or anything, I just...

I just finally did it

I don't know how I feel, I...
I mean I feel...

I felt like bad for people
who loved the movie

(crying)

And I just...
I've just been really messed up

and I felt horrible when, when I read
that the poor woman was terrified

It's not just a story about a kid actor
that goes to jail, it's about what happened

I wrote a letter, an apology letter, to her

I tried to get it to her, I don't know
if it ever got to her though

Those choices seem so silly to anybody who's
clean, and has been all their life, but

if you've ever been in that
position, it's not a far reach

When I saw what had
happened, my heart broke

I was upset for him, and angry
at the industry for letting it happen

It's a tough life being an actor,
and as a kid actor it's double

Yes it's the old story,
but it's a true story

Oh, you're hot when you're hot, and
you're not when you're not, and

when you're cute and you're young,
and you're adorable and you're fresh, and

you're doing a movie and, you know, everybody's
all over you, and then 10 years later

you're not that cute little
adorable child any longer, and

somehow you know, you don't have a
slot that you fit into

I think child actors always have problems

A lot is expected of them, and they're
working in a field that is totally unreal

That becomes part of your growth experience,
and you think that's the way life is going to be

and life isn't going to be that
way, it's a very unforgiving business

I think Joey was on the verge of massive
stardom, to be honest

but it's very easy sometimes to
zig when you should have zagged

I think it's a very
difficult way to grow up

It's the rare child, I would say, that comes
through the experience of having been a child actor

and doesn't suffer some consequence of it

There's very few of us that have
ever made the transition

It happens, but not often, and I think it's
particularly hard on kids

I would think that the issues around
the industry, in kids are

a sense of normalcy,
and what is normal when you're a kid?

There's so many areas in our
lives where we have to have training,

It was missing there in the movies

It is a stereotype, but it's a stereotype
for a reason, it's

story after story of kids who are
expected to be adults,

and are treated as adults, far earlier
than they should be treated as adults

One of the worst things that can happen to a child
prodigy, or a child singer, or a child actor,

is they grow up

You see, when they're young everybody's going
"You should hear this kid play the piano, you

"...should hear this kid, they are incredible" and
they get all that attention because they're a child

and so the unique aura that is around a
child, when they're an adult, that disappears

and that can be especially brutal
when you've made your life being a child,

and everybody loved you as a child

It's almost like being typecast
as a kid, and you grow out of being a kid

He has access to something that I don't,

and maybe that
vulnerability was a liability

in dealing with what we all
know is true about this business

and when it's stymied, when it's resisted
by the real world

...it beats you up

It's easy to understand turning towards some
kind of relief, whether it's meditation or drugs,

or simply acting out, aberrant behavior

Any combination of those makes life hell, not
only for yourself, but for others around you

But I'm not a psychiatrist...

I'm just a former drug user

So I was going through my stuff today, and
I found an old picture of me and my aunt and

uncle from 2006 at my my dad's funeral

It reminded me that, um...

regardless of... of

the little time we'd spent together during
my life um,

the first time I went to rehab in 2005, I
reached out to him and he actually came, uh

met up for a family
counseling session thing,

and then once I was released, he offered me
to come and stay with him on Galliano Island

I connected with my dad, and went and lived
with him for the six months while he was dying

and I finally started to see and
understand, kind of, why he was emotionally

unavailable for me - he
shared things about his

childhood and... and his life

It created some closure when he
did pass away, and I realized that

you know, I was... I was there holding
his hand when he died, and I realized that

he was there for me when I was born,
and I was there for him when he died, so...

...pretty uh, special thing

When I first got released, I went straight
to Vancouver Island Therapeutic Community

and I spent almost nine months there, and
that's like the sister program to Guthrie

Now, I've had the opportunity to move into
this house, so it's kind of a third stage

We're a lot more independent, taking
care of ourselves, going to school,

getting a job, get all our own groceries

and you can pretty much stay here as
long as you need to

Generally, like a three to four
year, you know, window to...

to really get fully integrated
back into the community

I live with four other guys who are...
also have been through the program and

I had one roommate who, he had a bit
of a slip and, you know, and relapsed and

ended up going back to VITC for a little
while, so did another four months at VITC

and then ended up moving back into the third
stage house, and is now doing really well so

sometimes it takes those... those times of,
you know, of trial and error and...

and learning that it's not a failure
to relapse or to slip up because

those behaviors and those habits are
so ingrained that

it ends up being the
normal thing to do, right?

My goal is to move out on my
own and start acting, and for me

I want to keep moving forward, and keep
going on to the next stage, and the next

challenge, and the next goals and keep...
keep uh, keep going

So we're going to concentrate on the words
that drive you, and drive your personality

Hi, my name is Joe Cramer, I'm
represented by Spotlight Academy

There's nobody new in this classroom,
you've now all known me for quite some time,

some longer than others

The environment has allowed me to really be
myself, and be vulnerable and be open, and just

and just do what I love

You can just see now, you know,
all of those skills coming back

but now as a man, with all of those
life skills, and all of that maturity

and all of that beautiful vulnerability,
that most people don't get

and such an understanding of life

(laughs) Way to go tiger

Okay, you know what? Let's get going, I want
to make it back down to camp before dark

We'll stay the night, and then we'll
head back out home tomorrow morning

Acting is a journey of self-discovery,

and learning that my experience
is a gift, and that it's not a curse

What you're doing is inspirational

You give people hope through your journey

This is a home that we've created, a safe
environment for you, to be able to feel

free and to fly... fly with a skill
that you were given as a child

and now coming back, that flight is
so much more powerful as a man, right? Yeah

I've learned to be humble
enough to ask for help and to say

"Okay, I put some pretty big blocks in my
path, and I can't move them all on my own"

I've changed my life, and I believe that
for all people struggling

We all have the power inside of
us to do it, and make those choices,

and we don't have to do it alone

I can't ever take back
things that I've done

I feel like I'm living the life that I was
meant to, now

Hi Sarah! No (laughs)

When I went back to high school, and then I didn't
fit in, and I was bullied and I was chased, and

those memories kind of stuck in my mind,
but now that I'm

like living, you know, a normal life it's
like, I barely remember the bad times anymore

I know he's grown up, you know, he's
growing up... he's a man

Now I don't know where he is because he's
busy, not because he's out somewhere doing some

horrible thing

and it's just so wonderful to see him
come back into himself again over this

is it, two years now, he's out?

Sometimes I think "God, it would
be so easy for him to go back" but

I really don't think he wants to go back,
I hope... I hope

Joe, you're back in Hollywood

How does it feel to be back in LA?

"You know, being back here it's pretty amazing, I
mean Hollywood is like, it's 'Lights, Camera, Action"

I wasn't sure if I was, just kind of
a child actor who looked the part

and if it was what I was really
meant to do, and after all this time

I still come back to something that reminded
me, is that it's never too late to be

who you might have been, and then

pretty exciting, we've coordinated
this "Navigator" reunion

Not really sure exactly... exactly who's going
to be here and stuff so, it'll be a surprise

but I'm really excited like, it felt like a family, and
it just it was a huge part of my young... young life

I have butterflies, I'm nervous, I'm
not really sure what to expect, I mean

There was many times over the
years that I thought about reaching out

I was embarrassed or ashamed of how my life
was at the time, so I never reached out

That being said, now that I'm in such a
good place, and with myself, and in my life

it's going to be really exciting
to see all these people

- Joey Cramer...
- Oh my gosh

- How are you buddy?
- I'm so good

- Hello...
- Hi... so good to see you

Do I call you Joey, or Joe?

Whatever you want, I'm easy, Joey's good
Yeah?

- It's so good, so good to see you!
- Wow, look at you...

Randal has always been wonderful and
supportive, and I'd want him to know that he's

a huge part of my life, and like that, I
didn't really have much of a father figure,

I always felt cared for and loved, and
appreciated, and just such a

generous spirit, and such a good man like,
I just... I couldn't say enough really

and I mean, who's kidding like, "Grease"?

Well, there's one guy over there...
uh, oh Detective... Detective Banks...

Remember this guy?

Finally gonna deliver you home
That's right

- So good to see you!
- You too... get the family back together

I think that the notion of a movie becoming
a cult classic, is something that

always is for people other than
the filmmakers to make happen

- Oh hey, good to see you, Tim!
- Albie Whitaker

Oh my God, Albie...
this is your little brother!

- Oh yeah, how are you?
- Good to see you, man

You know, the picture opened, okay

The fact is that the picture
played for years on the Disney Channel, and

developed a real, I would say, a cult following,
more as a result of television, and video

than theatrical

- You're out?
- I'm out

Yeah, no probation, no, you know,
no ankle bracelet, nothing (laughs)

And just, yeah it's great, I
got my NASA shoes on - Okay!

This movie had a lot of things
in it that were new for the time

and I think when you add all of those
different elements, the

...the puppetry, Joey particularly, the
ship itself, it became something

larger than something we even imagined,
and regardless of

the box office outcome
of a movie like that is, a movie like that

tends to continue to play, and play

There's been talk of... of doing a sequel

I would kill to work on a sequel
to that movie, that'd be fun

I love the original and
sometimes these remakes don't work out

If you're gonna do it, it has to be better

I'm trying to think of one where it
did, and I can't think of one (laughs)

And I had this really funny thing happen

where um, well because you know
I've been through ups and downs and I

- was in jail for a while and all this stuff right, you know?
- Yeah

but I actually had some officers
who loved the movie, - Yeah

print off the script and ask me
the questions while we were driving

We were driving to go to some appointment
or something, and they were like

"So you know, David right, who's the
President of the United States?" I'm like

"Duh, you want to know that for your
paperwork?" Anyway right, but uh...

But they... we did the whole scene, and
I still remembered it after all these years

That's fantastic, man, that's fantastic
But super fun

I can't believe it's 33 years

I do conventions, and you'd be
amazed how many people come

and have seen "Flight of the Navigator"

I remember seeing the
picture for the first time,

seeing the picture for the first time, and
being so moved by it

It's lovely when they come up
and they say "Oh..."

My favourite movie is "Flight of the Navigator",
it's not "Alien", it's "Flight of the Navigator"

Kids were always coming up to me saying "Oh
you were the dad in "Flight of the Navigator!"

And I said "Yeah", they said "Oh you know, I
really loved it, and it changed my life and..."

"...I was having trouble with my
parents but then I saw that" and

and it was really touching to me
how it touched them,

So it's always surprising to me, the emotional
resonance that some of these things have

It comes up and I would say "Well, I was in a
movie" and they're like "Well, what movie? And I say

"Flight of the Navigator"...everybody has the same
response, they go "Oh my God, I love that movie"

Why is Navigator so revered
and special to so many?

Because it has heart

When we do movies, it lasts forever

It's another world in which
anything is possible

I think the reason that "Flight of Navigator"
still works is the performance of Joey

It sets off a child's imagination

And I think also, people relate to the
idea of you never really leave home

It's a really fun movie with a great
message about love, and family, and

It was sweet... sweet as can be, and of a
different era, those movies are gone,

and we won't see them again

I didn't realize when I was that young,
how many people did watch it

because people still "Oh, 'Flight
of the Navigator', I know that movie"

I'm always surprised that they say
"Yes, that moved me, and thank you"

What scares me about the future?

With the most humility I almost don't
fear the future

because I live moment to moment, and

right now in this moment I'm doing
everything I can to be the best

version of me

I was the movie star kid
who had no identity, and now I do

Now I do

My life after the navigator has been pretty
crazy uh, it has been a roller coaster

It has been very painful

I don't need to numb out anymore

I don't need to hide who I am anymore

I'm not afraid anymore

Let's say that only the greatest
navigators find new worlds

but they also find their way home

It's the day of the Barney Bental
concert at the Port Theater

I'm going, uh...

going downtown for an audition

Woo hoo! I'm technically
a high school grad

My first audition in probably
15 years or something

Just a quick hello, I'm off to
VIU today to... this morning to

um, I think officially register for school

Today I'm off to court well, to have my

probation terminated early

Working on set today,
working on a commercial

and doing some PA work, so it's super fun

I got approved

just awesome to be where I love to be

August 31st my probation will end

It's my birthday, happy
birthday to me... 47!

- Hi Joe, good morning!
Welcome to Alamo City Comic Con!

Ahhhh! (Laughs)

I'm having so much fun

Who doesn't need a golf cart?

One of the coolest things about today
is that I am two years off of methadone

Joe Cramer, "Flight of the Navigator"
Hey, who am I? Sam J Jones

Yeah, Flash Gordon!

I met some really cool people this morning

but it's just one of those movies
that you loved as a kid

and you carried it over into your adulthood

Here's the Majestic in downtown San Antonio

And I had, of course, the biggest crush
on Joe, I mean right, what what kid didn't?

Pretty much, you know, like one
meeting with someone who really

like, loved "Flight of the Navigator"
and came all this way, it's worth

like the full day - I could sit here and
not meet another person, and I'd be happy

"One, two, three...!" (laughs)

I don't know what I was trying to
say, okay I'm gonna start it over (laughs)

One of the hardest decisions, and also best
decisions, that I had to make was letting

Celecta become formally adopted

I was working hard to stay clean,
and I wanted her to grow up with the

best possible opportunities, so Celecta's
foster parents - Joanne and Claude

offered to formally adopt her

Over the past few years, Celecta and I have
gotten to bond and connect more and more

I feel so grateful that we did this

Tonight we're going to have a 35mm presentation
of the classic "Flight of the Navigator"

followed by the Q&A with our guests,
but I'd like to bring them out now

to say hello, they'll be sitting with you

We have the director of this film, the
amazing Randal Kleiser

We have the casting director Valorie Massalas
is here, put it together for this wonderful cast

And lastly, we have the navigator
himself, Joe Cramer's here - the Navigator!

There's a lot of in-jokes in here, you
have "Grease" playing

Oh yeah, the film was set in 1978

And you directed an
episode of "Starsky and Hutch"?

I did...(laughs)

You were the voice of Johnny 5 in "Short Circuit"
as well, is that correct? Because these people...

Yes! No disassemble... need input...

I was sort of thinking like "God, that poor kid,
he thought that hair and those glasses look cool"

Hi Joey, how are you doing? This
is one of my favorite movies like,

I'm totally geeking out right now
That's okay

I'm really proud, and I know I'm really
worthy

and I totally deserve this, so...

I want to thank everybody
who never gave up on me

I know that there's a lot
of you out there, and...

Thank you