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Steven Spielberg 'felt helpless' watching Drew Barrymore 'being robbed' of childhood while making E.T.
Steven Spielberg has long been a father figure to Drew Barrymore, but during the making of their 1982 classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, he gently declined her request to be her real father. Barrymore, just seven years old at the time, had already experienced instability and neglect at home.
In a new Vulture profile, she reflected on the extraordinary role Spielberg played in her life, describing him as “the only person in my life to this day that ever was a parental figure.” While he said no to adopting her, he agreed to become her godfather, a commitment that would mark the start of a lifelong bond.
Barrymore’s own father, actor John Drew Barrymore, struggled with alcoholism and was known for his volatile behaviour. “Talk about someone who was not a careerist,” she said. “He was like, ‘I will burn this fucking dynasty to the ground.’” Against that backdrop, Spielberg became a source of stability and care. On set, he made it his mission to protect Barrymore’s innocence and sense of wonder.
One of his main priorities was to preserve her belief in E.T. as a living creature. A few weeks into filming, Barrymore noticed several men operating the puppet and demanded they leave. Spielberg, not wanting to shatter the illusion, told her, “It’s okay, E.T. is so special E.T. has eight assistants. I am the director, I only have one.”
The effort didn’t stop when cameras weren’t rolling. Spielberg arranged for operators to keep E.T. animated during breaks so Barrymore could eat lunch with her alien friend. On weekends, she sometimes stayed at Spielberg’s home, where he gave her a cat she named Gertie and took her to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, according to Vanity Fair. These gestures, while small on the surface, offered her moments of normalcy and joy in an otherwise chaotic childhood.
That chaos was already creeping into her life. By age 10, Barrymore was smoking marijuana; at 12, she was using cocaine and had entered rehab. Even during the filming of E.T., she occasionally arrived on set wearing red lipstick, prompting Spielberg to tell her to take it off.
“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 told Vulture. “Yet I felt very helpless because I wasn’t her dad. I could only kind of be a consigliere to her.”
Over the decades, the two have remained close. Spielberg has attended major milestones in Barrymore’s life, and she continues to speak of him with deep affection and gratitude. While their relationship began under the bright lights of a Hollywood set, it has endured through decades of personal and professional change.