‘The Big Chill’ Cast Reunites 30 Years After TIFF Debut

"The Big Chill" chronicled the uneasy reunion of a group of baby boomer college buddies who come together 15 years after graduation upon the suicide of one of their friends. On Thursday, the cast of "The Big Chill" are reuniting at the Toronto International Film Festival to celebrate the film's — gulp — 30-year anniversary.

"The Big Chill" had its TIFF (or, rather, The Festival of Festivals, as it was called back then) premiere on September 9, 1983, and today cast members Glenn Close, Mary Kay Place, Kevin Kline, Meg Tilly, Tom Berenger and JoBeth Williams gathered at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre for the anniversary screening. All of the film's major players were accounted for except for Jeff Goldblum, who played sex-obsessed People journalist Michael Gold, and William Hurt, who played Vietnam veteran and former radio host Nick Carlton.

Oh, and Kevin Costner, who (sort of) played Alex Marshall, the friend who committed suicide. A longtime funny Hollywood story tells of the up-and-coming actor having all shots of his face being cut from the final version of the film, though he went on to headline later Lawrence Kasdan movies such as "Silverado" (1985) and "Wyatt Earp" (1994).

Once again, though, Costner was left out.

According to The Star, it was TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey who proposed the idea to have an anniversary screening of "The Big Chill" at this year’s festival, thinking the film that helped define a generation would be a popular choice. And current TIFF director and CEO Piers Handling was at the original premiere as a festival attendee.

"I was at that screening as a member of the public, so I do remember what it felt like," said Handling. "The festival was still very tiny, a local festival trying to persuade the big American movies to come to Toronto and hadn't succeeded in its first years and I think 'The Big Chill' was the first film that put the festival on the map in a significant way."

Meg Tilly, who played Alex's girlfriend Chloe and who at 23 was the youngest member of the mostly thirtysomething cast, has fond memories of shooting "The Big Chill," an experience filled with "a lot of love." The actors had months of rehearsal ("an unknown luxury") before commencing with filming in Beaufort, South Carolina and even spent Christmas together.

"It was one of the coziest sets I've been on," Tilly said in an interview with The Star. "We all rented condos on the beach and Friday nights we'd get together and have parties and dancing and food."

The film also boasts one of the most popular soundtracks of all time, featuring late '60s and early '70s pop rock songs such as Marvin Gaye's version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," The Temptations' "My Girl" and Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World." And Tilly said pretty much all of these songs were played during these parties — especially when they would play a brand new game called Trivial Pursuit.

"The Big Chill" went on to win the People's Choice Award at the festival and opened in U.S. theaters a few weeks later, earning over $56 million at the box office and launching the careers of the young cast.

It would've been great if the entire group had gotten together one more time, but, then again, you can't always get what you want.