Cary Elwes recently recalled one of the first notes his director, Rob Reiner, gave him during filming.
Cary Elwes talks about Rob Reiner
“Right before each take, he would say, ‘Remember to have fun,’” Elwes revealed to KTLA 5’s Melvin Robert.
“I carry that with me in my life… just (to) remind me not to sweat the small
stuff and continue to move yourself along and find the joy.”
The English actor stated that it was what the late actor was all about.
“We miss him terribly. It was a shocking and heartbreaking event,” he said about the tragic deaths of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.
“When he met and fell in love with Michele, my family and I fell in love with her too. They were very instrumental in helping shape our lives.”
The past year was a tough one for Elwes and his family. Months before the Reiners’ passing, the “Mission: Impossible- The Final Reckoning” actor and his family lost their Palisades home in the catastrophic 2025 wildfire.
“Last year was not a great year for us. Clearly,” he said lightheartedly. “I’m kind of glad to put it behind us… I’m grateful that my family is all safe, and no one was injured. It was a terrible loss.”
However, he’s looking forward to 2026.
“You move on, right? You pick yourself up and dust yourself off and get another hot dog at the stand,” he said.
Elwes’ character passed 10 years ago, but he met his two sons in Minneapolis, who “shared everything” with him. They gave him photo albums, video footage and audio clips so he could fully immerse himself in the role.
“I was listening to him all day long in my ear buds and how he ticked, what made him tick, how he carried himself in certain situations,” he explained. “So I really inhabited the role.”
He said Van Sant really encouraged the cast “to really get into the character and inhabit it.”
“He’s great,” he gushed about the director. “He’s really unique in that he doesn’t make movies. He makes films, and he likes to experiment, which really makes him an auteur. So, I got to test muscles I hadn’t used in a long, long time on the shoot. He’s just very gentle, very similar to Rob (Reiner) in the way they were very gentle, very nurturing, and loves actors, loves characters.”
