The Goonies Stars Debunk Long-Running Legend About Film, “Offended” by Idea

Goonies never say lies! Jeff Cohen’s Chunk was known for telling tall tales (like the time he saved those old people from that nursing home fire, or the time Michael Jackson came over to his house to use the bathroom), but there’s one legend that Chunk can’t take the credit for. It’s long been said that director Richard Donner didn’t let the young cast of The Goonies — which included Sean Astin‘s Mikey, Corey Feldman’s Mouth, Ke Huy Quan’s Data, Martha Plimpton’s Stef, Kerri Green’s Andy, and Josh Brolin‘s Brand — see One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship, the Inferno, before shooting the iconic cave sequence so as to capture their genuine reactions.

Astin joined Goonies co-stars Feldman, Green, Plimpton, and Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi for the “Hey You Guys! The Goonies Reunion” panel at Awesome Con in Washington, D.C., where Astin debunked the long-circulated rumor that the child actors saw the pirate ship for the first time while filming.

RELATED: Original Goonies Star Hopes to Make Sequel With Producer Steven Spielberg: “For the Last 30 years, We’ve Tried to Do a Goonies 2”

“I was sort of offended that [people] had that idea, that they wouldn’t let the kids see the pirate ship, so that they could capture their real reaction,” Astin said during the 40th anniversary panel, per PEOPLE. “Like, what? We don’t know how to do real? We did real reactions all the time.”

“But I remember wanting to perform in such a way, because I had had a sneak peek of it,” he continued. “So I wanted to perform in a way that really made them think that they had captured the honest reactions, so they would for 40 years be like, ‘Oh, we got these kids to do this thing!’”

Plimpton, however, “hadn’t seen” the 105-foot long ship before the cameras rolled. “My performance was honest,” she said. Pantoliano, who played favored Fratelli son Francis, asked Plimpton, “How many takes of your reaction did they do?” to which she responded, “One. [That’s] all they needed, baby.”

So, where does this Goonies rumor originate? It seems to trace back to 2001, when the Goonies kids joined Donner for an audio commentary on the first DVD release.

It was stated that Donner didn’t let the cast see the pirate ship until the day of filming to capture their “natural reactions,” although Feldman admitted to sneaking a peek while wandering around set. It was also said that many of the kids swore at the sight of the pirate ship — Brolin reportedly dropped an F-bomb — requiring the scene to be re-shot.

The legend subsequently made its way onto The Goonies trivia around the internet, and has been included everywhere from the movie’s IMDb trivia page to “10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Goonies” listicles.