Sometimes acting is more than just a job. If someone finds the right role to play, not only can it be a valuable and fun experience, it may even end up being therapeutic for that person. Such was the case for Alex Winter, who is best know for playing Bill Preston in the Bill & Ted movies. Winter recently revealed that as he was growing up and performing as a child star in the 1970s, he was sexually abused, but working on 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and the 1991 sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey allowed him to cope with the trauma he'd experienced when he was younger. In his words:
The films were really, really seminal for me, personally, in that way. They were really therapeutic for me in a way, and they gave me kind of a grounding that I moved off from with them. The world of Bill & Ted is a very sweet and fun place to run around in.
Alex Winter admitted that the reason that he hasn't talked publicly about his sexual abuse until now is because he felt that he didn't have any "place of safety to unlock an extremely sensitive and potentially dangerous secret." As he explained during his interview with BBC Radio 5, his experiences left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, and while he's done "heavy lifting" to work through it, the only reason he's felt comfortable to share this personal information now is because of the wave of sexual harassment/abuse allegations that have been steadily coming out since last year. Going back to Bill & Ted, Winter was in a "dark place" around that time, but playing the dim-witted Bill alongside Keanu Reeves' equally slacker-ish Ted Logan was fun, and he still looks back fondly at starring in those movies. Winter continued:
The movies are what they are, they're silly and all that, I don't hold them in overly high estimation as works of art or anything, but we had a lot of fun making them. But for me personally, in terms of the experience... it was really, really helpful for me mentally. And it was a great environment.
It's been nearly three decades since the last Bill & Ted movie was released, but Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, have been trying for years to re-team for Bill & Ted 3. The threequel has been in development since 2010, and co-writer Ed Solomon recently revealed that one of the obstacles the project is facing includes raising money, because any parties who have been interested in it would rather do a straight reboot instead of a direct sequel. Should Bill & Ted 3, a.k.a. Bill & Ted: Face the Music, eventually get off the ground, it will follow the eponymous duo as middle-aged men who now have their own families, and they're tasked with writing a song that will save the universe. The movie would also see Bill and Ted going back in time to interact with their teenage selfs and their mentor Rufus, who was played by the late George Carlin.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on what's happening with the third Bill & Ted movie, and feel free to also browse through our 2018 release schedule to see what movies are coming out this year.
