John Belushi Was Clean While Making ‘Animal House,’ Says Tim Matheson

Of all the animals in Animal House, John Belushi’s Bluto was the most out-of-control. By reputation, Belushi had the same standing among the classic comedy’s cast. But according to Tim Matheson, the actor who played Delta Tau Chi president Eric “Otter” Stratton, Belushi was professional and sober for the film’s production.

“Belushi, for the record, was clean on set during Animal House,” Matheson writes in his new book Damn Glad to Meet You: My Seven Decades in the Hollywood Trenches, per People. “If he did anything, it was away from the rest of us, and he never gave any signs he was up to anything.”

After all these years, Belushi is the star Matheson gets asked about the most, “and I've worked with almost everyone,” he says. At least when it comes to Animal House, the memories are good ones. 

Animal House director John Landis made it his business to keep his star in line. “Landis had warned Belushi to keep on his best behavior and made sure it was a drug-free set,” Matheson explains. Producers were concerned since “rumors of wild parties after SNL aired each Saturday were already trickling out on entertainment and gossip pages.”

Matheson and the other actors were anticipating a whirlwind when Belushi arrived. Instead, they mostly got a pussycat. “We expected a colossal coked-up prima donna to arrive from New York to lead the Deltas,” Matheson writes. “The exact opposite is what we got.”

"Everybody was in awe of the guy, and yet he proved so normal,” he says. Belushi “couldn’t have been more wonderful. Approachable. Genuinely friendly. All the id and raw energy was for characters in a scene and montage. John – away from an audience – was quiet, thoughtful and gentle.”

Landis backed up Matheson’s account during a 2003 interview with CNN. “John Belushi was fabulous. You have to remember this was a stage-trained actor from Second City, and then National Lampoon, and then Saturday Night Live,” he said. “But John was a fine actor. And this was way before his drug problems and stuff. He was great. And a pleasure.”

Unfortunately, Matheson says, Belushi was teetering by the time they worked together again on Steven Spielberg’s 1941. “It was impossible to not see that the fame and lifestyle had taken their toll,” he wrote about that film’s production. “He wasn’t the same John. He looked exhausted, distracted.”

Matheson didn’t know how to help. “The notion of pulling him aside to scream, ‘You’re one of the most talented actors I’ve ever met! … Don’t ruin this! Get off the drugs!’ just wasn’t realistic,” he writes. “He was a grown man. A megastar. We were friendly but not friends enough for me to free him from this. John was in his own orbit now.”