Drew Barrymore asked Steven Spielberg to be her dad while making E.T.
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Drew Barrymore will always hold director Steven Spielberg in her heart as a father figure — and she even tried to make it official while filming E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
In a recent Vulture profile, the actress-turned-talk-show-host and the Oscar-winning director both recalled how Barrymore, who was just 7 years old while making her screen debut in E.T., found some much needed support and stability in Spielberg. "[He is] the only person in my life to this day that ever was a parental figure," she told the outlet.
So much so that Barrymore even asked Spielberg to be her father. He declined, though he did eventually agree to become her godfather.
"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 once recalled, according to Vulture. "Yet I felt very helpless because I wasn't her dad. I could only kind of be a consigliere to her."
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Steven Spielberg and Drew Barrymore
Part of Spielberg's dad energy came from his desire to help maintain Barrymore's childlike wonder on set. While celebrating the 40th anniversary of E.T. on The Drew Barrymore Show, Barrymore told her costars about how vehemently she believed that the alien puppet was real. "I really loved him in such a profound way," she said. "I would go and take lunch to him."
Spielberg took note and helped maintain the illusion, particularly after Barrymore noticed men behind a wall operating E.T. and asked the director to kick them out. "I didn't want to burst the bubble," Spielberg told Vulture. "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."
Spielberg also shot the movie in continuity for the benefit of his child actors. As he explained at the TCM Classic Film Festival last year, "I especially shot E.T. in continuity because of the ages of characters — of Henry Thomas, Robert McNaughton, and Drew Barrymore. I wanted the kids to know that what we're shooting now, today, is happening today, and the next three pages of the script will happen tomorrow. What we just shot happened yesterday. I wanted them to actually live a life, a life of the story. At the end of the movie, there's a lot of emotion, and they were there for every take because they were saying goodbye for real. Because they knew soon they'd be going home."
Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images Steven Spielberg and Drew Barrymore on the set of 'E.T.'
In the Vulture profile, Barrymore remembered the joy of her time working with Spielberg, staying with him on weekends and visiting Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm together. Spielberg also gave her a cat named Gertie, the name of her character in E.T., and tried to keep her from growing up too fast. (Barrymore famously had a troubled childhood and went to rehab at 13.)
Barrymore previously discussed Spielberg's paternal instincts when fellow child star Ke Huy Quan appeared on her talk show. She revealed that she'd met Quan while visiting the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in London. "He would just bring me to work with him," she explained. "I think I was like 8 or 9, and [Quan] was like 11 or 12."
She also spoke to Quan about Spielberg's continued investment in their lives. "Steven is the type of incredible human being that, I think, just wants to know [that] all of his kids are okay," she said while discussing Quan's recent Oscar win. "So it just felt like this wonderful moment where we could be like, 'Your kids are okay.'"
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