Resurfaced interview with Rob & Nick Reiner reveals sad truth about their relationship

December 16, 2025 by Nadia

Michele Singer Reiner echoed that sentiment, adding: “We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he’s a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them.”

At the time, Nick said he was sober.

Rob and Nick went on to do multiple interviews together, offering a rare and candid look at their relationship and the emotional process of making the film. Speaking on Paul Mecurio’s podcast 2 Chairs and a Microphone in 2016, Rob admitted that working together wasn’t always easy.

“We hashed everything out — sometimes it became fights and other things… we hashed it out,” he said.

The advice his father gave him

Nick recalled a piece of advice his father gave him on set: “‘There’s one person on the set that has to make the final decision whether it’s right or wrong… and that’s the director.’ After I heard that, I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll do what he wants me to do… but ultimately what gets into the movie is what gets into the movie.’”

Rob later acknowledged that despite his decades of experience, he often deferred to his son.

“There were times where Nick would fight for certain types of things, my first instinct is, ‘I have a lot more experience,’” Rob explained. “But then I realized… I don’t have a lot more experience on this particular subject — what the young guy is going through.” He ultimately called Nick the “heart and soul” of the film.

Nick, for his part, shared what he learned about his father along the way.

“He has sometimes a hard time expressing himself through conversation,” Nick said. “But he listens. He’s a great dad. He’s best at explaining himself when he’s in his element making a movie — showing how much he cares through that way.”

Following a screening Q&A, Rob described Being Charlie as “cathartic” and “therapeutic,” even though that hadn’t been the original goal.

“But it turned out to be that,” he said, admitting that their disagreements were “at times… really rough.” Nick added, “Sometimes it would get overwhelming for me. Sometimes it didn’t feel like a movie — it felt like it was turning into more of something.”

Michele’s heartbreaking confession

In a separate 2018 appearance on the Dopey podcast, Nick spoke candidly about a dark period during his addiction, recalling destructive behavior while staying in his parents’ guest house.

“I went 10 rounds in my guest house,” he said. “I got totally spun out on uppers — I think it was coke and something else — and I was up for days on end… Everything in the guest house got wrecked. I literally punched the TV.”

Taken together, the interviews and the film itself offered a deeply personal portrait of a family trying — imperfectly, publicly, and with love — to navigate addiction, parenthood, and forgiveness.

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