Steven Spielberg has spoken about the moment a young Drew Barrymore asked him to be her dad while filming E.T., and why he had to say no.
The young actress was just seven when the Spielberg-directed movie - an emotional flick about an alien who is accidentally left behind on planet Earth - became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film of all time, catapulting her into stardom.
This week, Barrymore, now 48, took part in an interview with New York Magazine's E. Alex Jung, where the actress reflected on her tumultuous childhood and her bond with Spielberg.
In her interview, Barrymore called the famed director "the only person in my life to this day that ever was a parental figure."
It's widely known that Spielberg went to immense efforts to preserve Barrymore's childhood innocence on the set of the 1982 movie, ensuring that the young actress didn't discover that the alien was just a prop. In her interview, Barrymore explained that she told Spielberg to kick out the men operating the animatronic alien E.T.
"I didn't want to burst the bubble," Spielberg also told the magazine. "So I simply said, 'It's okay, E.T. is so special E.T. has eight assistants. I am the director, I only have one." The Jaws director said he shot the film in "strict continuity" to keep the magic alive for Barrymore even when the cameras weren't rolling, making sure assistants were present to make E.T. 'come alive' when Barrymore told him her secrets during lunchtimes.
Barrymore has been transparent about her tumultuous childhood, having been raised by her mother after her abusive alcoholic father left them when Barrymore was young.
During the interview, Barrymore spoke about how her mom, Ildiko Jaid Barrymore, who was also her manager, seemingly treated her as a "friend" or "client" and would take her to "industry parties" and "nightclubs" where she would end up indulging in things that no child should ever be exposed to, including alcohol and drugs such as cocaine - this ended up in an addiction that would land her in rehab by age 13.
Once, she asked Spielberg to be her dad. He said no. "She was staying up way past her bedtime, going to places she should have only been hearing about, and living a life at a very tender age that I think robbed her of her childhood," Spielberg said. "Yet I felt very helpless because I wasn't her dad. I could only kind of be a consigliere to her."
Though, he did come to a compromise, agreeing to be her godfather instead, and the pair maintain an extremely close bond to this day.
