Our Big Chill MEMORIES

TOM BERENGER AND JOBETH WILLIAMS SHARE SECRETS FROM THE SET OF THE BELOVED FILM

In one of the most feel-good scenes of 1983’s The Big Chill, a group of former college friends clean up after dinner while dancing around to the Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” Their reunion, following the suicide of another of their old housemates, will help them make sense of middle age, the loss of their youthful idealism, and underscore the healing power of friendship.

For the actors of the comedydrama, filming The Big Chill was a rare delight. Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan brought them together four weeks early just to bond. “We weren’t even rehearsing,” Tom Berenger recalls to Closer. “We spent a lot of time talking about the characters and improvising.”

The group spent evenings playing games. “There were a lot of poker games, charades and trivia games,” Tom says. “Glenn Close brought Trivial Pursuit from Canada because it hadn’t been released in the United States yet.”

JoBeth Williams also recalls catching Jeff Goldblum snooping through the bowl of charades phrases. “He said he was looking for the ones he wanted to do,” she said at the TCM Film Festival. “I was like, ‘Hey, buddy, now you’ve seen all the answers!’”

GROUP PORTRAIT

The Big Chill would become one of the most popular films of the year, yet it almost never happened. “It was turned down by seven studios,” says JoBeth. “Finally, Johnny Carson’s production company agreed to do it.” That was a wise move. Forty years later, the film continues to resonate. “For the Boomer generation, their experience is bookended by The Graduate and The Big Chill,” says Tom. “It’s one of the big movies of that generation.” —Reporting by

Amanda Champagne-Meadows

Tom played Sam, a classmate who became a star on television.

JoBeth co-starred as Karen, a writer unhappy in her marriage.