LOS ANGELES — A decade before 32-year-old Nick Reiner was arrested and booked on suspicion of killing his parents, he and father Rob Reiner appeared to have reset their relationship after years of the son's addiction struggles as a teen.
They made a film together, “Being Charlie,” which included elements of their story. It seemed to have brought a healthy reckoning between father and son.
"It forced us to understand ourselves better than we had," Reiner told The Associated Press in 2016. "I told Nick while we were making it, I said, 'you know it doesn't matter, whatever happens to this thing, we won already. This has already been good.' We've worked through a lot of stuff."
In a YouTube interview series at the time, Nick Reiner said of his youth with his father, “We didn’t bond a lot,” and agreed that working on the film made them "feel closer.”
Nick Reiner was in a Los Angeles County jail on Monday, a day after the killing of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner at their home in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Nick Reiner was the second of the couple's three children. His older brother, Jake has a small role in “Being Charlie.” His younger sister Romy is also an actor. The family appeared together at the Los Angeles premiere of “Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues" in September.
Reiner also has a daughter, Tracy Reiner, with his first wife, director and actor Penny Marshall.
The film, 2016's “Being Charlie,” was not strictly autobiographical, but included many elements of their lives. Cary Elwes, the star of one of Rob Reiner's most beloved films, “The Princess Bride,” plays a movie star with political ambitions. Nick Robinson plays his son, the title character.
Elwes has lines very similar to a quote Rob Reiner gave the AP in the 2016 interview:
“I maybe didn’t handle it the best way," the director said. "I listened to a lot of people who had a desk and a diploma. I didn’t really think about my kid and what he needed.”
Reiner had been considering making a film about such a strained father-son relationship. He didn't know Nick and Matt Elisofon, a friend he met at a treatment center, had been working on writing a prospective TV comedy about rehab. With Rob Reiner's guidance, it became a small feature film drama.
Nick Reiner told People around the film's release, when he was 22, that “I’ve been home for a really long time, and I’ve sort of gotten acclimated back to being in L.A. and being around my family.” He added, ”there was a lot of dark years there.”
The movie is Nick Reiner's only screen credit. He led a largely private life before and after release of the film's release, leaving little public mark. Court records show no previous criminal cases in Los Angeles County.
Reiner family representatives have not responded to requests for comment, and it is not clear whether Nick Reiner has retained an attorney.
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