Steven Spielberg revealed that he unexpectedly burst into tears when he saw Paul Dano and Michelle Williams together on the set of The Fabelmans for the first time.
The 76-year-old director, during a pre-recorded interview on Thursday’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert from his Amblin Entertainment production offices, said he thought the first day of filming with Dano, 38, and Williams, 42, would play his parents. Arnold and Leah were just going to be routine.
“I’ve done it a million times,” Spielberg said. I know what a first day of shooting is like. I know what it’s like to get the cast together, to figure out the block of the first scene you’re about to shoot with the cast.’
Spielberg said that he had seen Williams and Dano separately in costume and makeup that he had not seen them together.
“On the first day of shooting, Mark Bridges came up to me and said he had Paul and Michelle here with their hair, makeup and costumes,” Steven said. ‘ I was talking to, I think, Christy, so I turned around and there was my dad and mom and I just started crying. So. I didn’t even think about it, it just happened.
Day One: Steven Spielberg reveals he unexpectedly burst into tears when he saw Paul Dano and Michelle Williams together on the set of The Fabelmans for the first time
Spielberg said both actors quickly hugged him.
“Michelle ran over to me and hugged me,” Steven said. ‘Paul came to my back. He is really tall. He hugged me by the shoulders and he just hugged me. By the way, I had given them speeches long before the first day of shooting that brought me to tears writing this script with Tony Kushner. When Tony and I co-wrote this, I brought out all my emotions. I’m a professional. Don’t worry about me. You don’t have to take care of me, my job is to take care of you and guide you to give great performances.’
The semi-autobiographical film, which has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, was a story Spielberg said he had wanted to tell for years. Colbert, 58, asked him if he was worried about sharing so much of his life.
‘Yes, telling a story about how I found out that my mother was having an affair with my father’s best friend and my father’s business partner was something that never had to be expressed publicly and I had a lot of doubts about it. ‘ Spielberg said. “But to his credit, Tony Kushner went on to say ‘that’s the MacGuffin of this movie, that’s the center ring in the circus of your life, that’s where you’re going to be flying through the air on a trapeze and that’s not going to be a network. And I think you can afford, with all your success, to possibly slip and fall and die and not worry about it because you’ve earned the right to tell this story.”
Looking through the camera growing up, Spielberg said he could see things he didn’t notice in real life.
“Yeah, because I obviously observed my mom’s behavior because she would light up when she was around Bernie,” Spielberg said. ‘I never thought there was anything wrong with that. I never suspected that. My dad had a best friend who happened to be my dad’s business partner, but somehow when I put an aspect ratio around that and looked through my little 8mm Bolex camera and took it home and started cut all my little film, the film said tell me the truth where my eyes could not perceive it.’
Spielberg said he was 17 when his parents announced they were divorcing.
“We were going to split up and divide and that has informed a lot of my stories,” he said.
Movie stars: Paul Dano and Michelle Williams appear in a scene from The Fablemans
Real life: the director’s parents, Arnold and Leah Spielberg, appeared in a photo on the show
Production office: The 76-year-old director, during a pre-recorded interview on Thursday’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert from his Amblin Entertainment production offices, said he thought the first day of filming with Dano, 38, , and Williams, 42, playing their parents, Arnold and Leah, was just going to be routine
Colbert asked if it was true that he entered the Universal Studios lot as part of a tour and just stayed.
“I did it,” Spielberg said. ‘I hid in the bathroom during a bathroom break. It was a big bus called Gray Line Tours. They didn’t have trams in those days. You got on a big bus and they took you through the parking lot and they showed you the backlot and western street and all the sound stages.
Spielberg said that he still wanted to go into soundstages.
“They wouldn’t let us off the bus, but they gave us a bathroom break, so I stayed in the bathroom until I heard all the doors close,” Steven said. “I just gave it another ten minutes and then I was kind of lost in the lot.”
Colbert asked if he really took an empty office and put his name on the door.
“There was a camera store at Ventura Boulevard and Laurel Canyon that sold these little title letters,” Spielberg said. ‘I went and bought a set of them and put my name on that little director that you open, the glass door, put my name on that and the room number. That was where I hung my hat for the summer.
Colbert asked him if he remembered his early jobs as a television director of shows like Columbo and wished he had done things differently.
“I don’t look back that often, but every once in a while I watch a movie with my kids because I want to be with my kids when they see ET for the first time,” Spielberg said. “I don’t want them to watch ET without dad sitting there, especially the scary parts at the beginning. And sometimes I see things I meant to do that I didn’t. And sometimes I see things that would have been a better idea than what I’m seeing now, all those years later. But for the most part, ET is a pretty perfect movie.’
Lot tour: Colbert asked him if it was true that he entered the Universal Studios lot as part of a tour and just stayed
Spielberg said that he had done 34 movies and there are only 5 or 6 of them that he felt he could see again but didn’t.
Colbert asked him why he said that before The Fabelmans, Encounters of the Third Kind was his most personal film.
“It was the first movie I ever made about breaking up a family,” Spielberg said. “I never made an image of a family coming in, colliding with their values or with their obsessions.”
He also shared his thoughts on the rise in public anti-Semitism.
“I find it very, very surprising,” Spielberg said. “Anti-Semitism has always been there. It’s been around the corner and a little out of sight, but always on the lookout.
“Not since the Germany of the 1930s have I witnessed anti-Semitism no longer lurking, but standing proud with hands on hips like Hitler and Mussolini, daring us to challenge it,” Spielberg said. “I have never experienced this in my entire life, especially in this country.”
However, Spielberg was hopeful for the future, saying that Anne Frank was right when she said that “in most people there is something good.”
“I think essentially at our core is kindness,” Spielberg said.
Spielberg said that while making movies about alien life forms, he himself had never seen a UFO. He said that if there were aliens, his bet would be that they would look more like ET than the aliens from War of the Worlds.
“I don’t think we’re alone in the universe,” Spielberg said. “I think it is mathematically impossible that we are the only intelligent species in the cosmos.”
Not Alone: ”I don’t think we’re alone in the universe,” Spielberg said. “I think it is mathematically impossible that we are the only intelligent species in the cosmos”