Peter Billingsley Recalls Meeting 'Funniest Guy' Vince Vaughn on the Set of an After-School Special

Mar. 15, 2025

Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley in 2024.Photo:Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty

Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty

In a speech given at Vaughn’srecent Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, Billingsley said his friend’s star has been “shining brightly” since the moment the two met.

“I first met Vince as a fellow actor on an after school special 35 years ago,” theChristmas Storyactor, 53, said in his speech. “It was a very dramatic role, probably overly dramatic, as most after-school specials are. But even in the face of a small project like that one, which many actors would dismiss as merely a stepping stone, Vince’s dedication to making it great was on full display.”

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Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley in 2009.Mike Flokis/WireImage

Mike Flokis/WireImage

Billingsley continued: “Now we were playing best friends, so he suggested that maybe we get together offscreen, try to build a little chemistry that might filter through to the role, just some time spent offscreen to make the whole piece shine brighter.”

So, in an effort to get to know one another, the two hung out at a handful of the most iconic locales in 1980s and ’90s Los Angeles.

“We hung out at Jerry’s Deli. We had a lot of pastrami sandwiches,” Billingsley said of their preparation for theCBS School Break Special, which aired in 1990. “We bowled a lot of games at the old Rock’n’Bowl, and we walked these very streets in the late 1980s looking at the stars etched into the Walk of Fame and talking about our own dreams in Hollywood.”

Those dreams, Billingsley added, “paid off big time.”

Peter Billingsley and Vince Vaughn in 2017.Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

“Not only are we still very close and our careers have flourished, but to this day it still is 98% fresh, that after-school special,” he said. “So Vince crushed it. What happened from that moment forward was not only the beginning of many collaborations, but a lifelong friendship that put me in the unique position of having a front-row seat to his incredible career.”

Billingsley said that those who knew Vaughn, now 54, at the time “knew him to be the funniest and most charismatic guy in the room.”

“As it often does, it just took Hollywood a minute to catch up,” he said.

In an earlier interview coinciding with the launch of theirA Cinematic Christmas Journeypodcast,Billingsley reflectedon his 35-year friendship with Vaughn, saying, “There’s just no one funnier in the room. There’s no one better. There’s no one with a greater sense of story than him. He’s the best.”

The two founded Wild West Picture Show Productions together, which is behind hit movies likeThe Break-Up(2006), starring Vaughn andJennifer Aniston, andFour Christmases(2008), in which Billingsley appeared alongside Vaughn andReese Witherspoon.

source: people.com