As fans of “The Goonies” took pilgrimages this weekend to sites made famous by the movie, a couple of the Goonies themselves came back to Astoria to share some of their memories of filming, as well as thoughts on the possibility of a Goonies sequel.

“I remember distinctly the feeling I had as a 12-year old coming up here, where I was nervous, I was really nervous, because I knew that I was starring in this movie and I had a big responsibility to be good as one of the lead actors,” said Sean Astin, sitting on the porch of the Goonies house Saturday.

He recalled standing on that same porch more than 20 years ago, trying to understand what his character Mikey would be feeling as he faced losing his home.

“I was just feeling that emotion, I remember it like it was five minutes ago,” said Astin, who was back at the Goonies house for the first time since filming. It was also in Astoria, at a celebrity basketball game organized to encourage local kids to say no to drugs, that he began realizing what came with being famous.

“I’m learning, ‘OK, they want my autograph.’ I don’t know why they want my autograph, but it’s starting to crystallize, you know, what this means,” Astin said. “So I learned the lessons of the kind of responsibility that comes along with being a professional actor, being a celebrity.”

He’s gone on to star in movies like “Rudy” and the “Lord of the Rings” films, but Astin said that wherever he goes, people still tell him how much they love “The Goonies.”

“There’s something about people who were between 8 and 18 years old in 1985-1986, where this movie, you can tell when they meet you and they look you in the eye, that they want to feel from you some sort of acknowledgment of the fact that this thing meant so much to them,” he said.

“They want to know that it meant just as much to you. And it does.”

Astin said that the movie is still popular with people of all ages because it’s about kids who are a little bit different – not the most popular, or the best at school, or the wealthiest – who nonetheless have confidence and don’t give up.

“It’s an American story,” Astin said. “If you believe in your family and your friends and you work hard and you’re brave and you try, you can preserve what’s meaningful to you. I can’t say enough about how important that is.

“And treasure, pirate treasure. I mean, who doesn’t love pirate treasure?”

Although “Goonies” director Richard Donner kept the pirate ship under tight wraps in order to capture a genuine surprise reaction when the kids first saw the ship, Astin hinted that the security wasn’t tight enough.

“This is a great acting job, because we weren’t supposed to have seen the pirate ship set,” Astin said while signing a picture of the scene. “So I had to act convinced that it was the first time I had seen it, or somebody was going to get in trouble.”

In the DVD commentary to “The Goonies,” Corey Feldman, who played Mouth, said that he and Astin had snuck onto the set and seen the ship. Astin had left the commentary taping, and couldn’t back the story up. On Saturday he wouldn’t say for sure what happened, either.

LORI ASSA – The Daily Astorian

People line up at the Columbian Theater box office to see The Goonies on the big screen.”You’re left to infer what you want.”

Astin also told fans the ending to a story he started on the DVD commentary. He had wanted to apologize to Cyndi Lauper, who sang the theme song to the movie, because when the young cast showed up to the set of the music video, they were exhausted from working a long day and couldn’t muster much enthusiasm. Astin said he just wanted to make sure that Lauper knew the kids loved the song.

“We flipped over it, we sang it till our voices were hoarse,” Astin said.

Chunk and the Iron SheikAstin’s cast mate Jeff B. Cohen, who played Chunk, had a different memory of the video shoot. As part of the video’s plot, pro wrestlers kidnap the Goonies, and Lauper comes to save them.

“It could happen,” Cohen said.

The Iron Sheik was supposed to tuck Chunk and Data, played by Jonathan Ke Quan, under his arms. But because the wrestler was bare-chested and had greased his upper body, and because Cohen was chubby at the time, he kept popping out of the Iron Sheik’s grasp.

“He actually looked down at me and said, ‘If you do not hold onto me tighter, I will have to squeeze you so tight I will break your ribs,'” Cohen said. “I immediately burst into tears and ran out of the caves. And Dick (Donner) was like, ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘The Iron Sheik is going to break my ribs!'”

Cohen also admitted that he was jealous of the rest of the cast, who seemed to have more adventurous scenes to film.

“The kids would be like running through a cave with rocks trying to crush them, fighting bats, going down a water slide, playing the bone organ, having fun on the pirate ship, swimming,” Cohen said. “And every day I was in the basement with the monster. Every day for like a month, ‘Hey Jeff what are you doing today?’ ‘I’m in the basement with the monster again.'”

Then, towards the end of the shoot, director Donner kept saying that he couldn’t wait to get away from the kids and retreat to his house in Maui, Hawaii, Cohen said. So as a joke, Cohen dressed up like a Hawaiian tourist and asked Donner when they were all going to the island.

Steven Spielberg saw this and took Cohen aside to say he had an idea. “Wouldn’t it be funny if, when Dick got back to his house, all you guys were there?” Cohen remembers Spielberg asking. So Spielberg flew the entire cast to Maui to surprise Donner.

“Basically when Dick Donner got to his house, he was working so hard on this movie, he opens up his door, and what does he see? Me, sitting on his couch with my feet on his table going ‘Hey Dick, don’t you have cable in this place?'” Cohen said. “He actually dropped to his knees.”

Goonies 2?Fans were quick to ask both Cohen and Astin whether a sequel to “The Goonies” would happen.

Cohen said that about a year ago, he talked with Donner, who was excited because he had a story idea for a sequel and writers that he was happy with. Spielberg liked the idea as well. But Warner Brothers, the studio that made the first film, killed the idea, Cohen said.

“In a weird way, I think it’s better there’s no sequel,” he said. “I think it’s kinda cool to let it be.” Still, he said that if it did get made, he’d join in.

He hinted that there might be a new Goonies product that would come out in the next year, but said he couldn’t give any details.

Astin was more optimistic about a sequel’s chances.

“Steven (Spielberg)’s always wanted to do it, and I’d want to do it, and I know everybody else wants to do it, but the devil’s in the details,” he said.

Astin said that he had a story idea for the sequel, and would love to direct if Donner passed on the project.

In the new documentary by Ron Fugelseth and Patrick Radcliff, Donner said that although Warner Brothers was reluctant to make “Goonies 2,” he was in favor of a sequel going forward.

“It’ll happen, if enough of you write in,” he told the fans.