Nick Stahl on Hollywood, Addiction, and Brad Renfro: ‘He Was More Severe in His Addiction than I Was’
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Actor Nick Stahl spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his battle with substance abuse, recovery, and childhood trauma and recalled being haunted by fellow actor Brad Renfro who was more “severe in his addiction.”
The two actors met while filming 2001’s Bully directed by Larry Clark.
THR: “Brad was a couple years younger than me, and he shared my affliction,” Stahl says of Renfro, who was discovered by director Joel Schumacher at 11, living in a Tennessee trailer park with his grandmother. (Renfro went on to star in 21 films, including Apt Pupil and Ghost World.) “He was more severe in his addiction than I was,” Stahl says. “He just progressed to a point where he had to have someone on set with him to keep him sober. I remember feeling my heart going out to him, just dealing with something that was bigger than him and he was just trying to function.”
Renfro fatally overdosed on heroin and morphine in 2008 at age 25. “He had a big heart,” Stahl says. “He was a good kid and very talented, and not just for film stuff or acting. He had musical talent. He was extremely bright.”
Looking into Renfro’s lost eyes on the Bully set, Stahl could see himself headed in the same direction — a runaway train he was powerless to stop. He tried. “Throughout my 20s, I experimented with different ways to regulate my drinking,” he recalls. “‘Maybe L.A. is the issue, right?’ So I’d move. ‘Maybe these certain friends I’m hanging out with, maybe that’s the issue.’ So I’d get new friends.”
