Steven Spielberg Says 6-Year-Old Drew Barrymore Was ‘Irrepressible’ onE.T.Set — and Made Up ‘a Lot’ of Her Own Dialogue

Mar. 15, 2025

Sunset Boulevard/Corbis/Getty; Steven Ferdman/Getty

The best films are usually collaborations — andE.T.was no exception.

Spielberg, 78, said that he knew Barrymore was right for the part the moment she came into his office and, before he could start asking her questions, she started “interviewing” him. That spirit also shined while they were filming the movie and the talk show host, now 49, had a lot of input.

“The camera was rolling and Drew said, ‘I don’t like his feet.’ We used it,” the director said. “Drew made up a lot of her own dialogue because she was irrepressible.”

“It was gold,” he said of her improvisational reactions. Screenwriter Melissa Matheson,who died in 2015, was on set every day, and, the director remembered, “She couldn’t believe the stuff that Drew was coming up with.”

“I can’t believe the stuff I came up with,” Barrymore added. The actress said she had a new, mature perspective on the movie when she attended the 20th anniversary celebration in 2002, where composer John Williams conducted the score live. She noted that when she watched the movie that day, she “couldn’t believe” Spielberg had left so many of the things she came up with in the movie.

Drew Barrymore (left) and E.T. in 1982.Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

She felt “honored and appreciated” in a way she couldn’t realize when she was younger, even though she “was highly aware,” she said. As for the creative spirit that inspired her dialogue, she said, “I don’t remember, like, how and why and where it came from.”

Drew Barrymore (left) and Steven Spielberg on Jan. 25, 2025.Mike Coppola/Getty

Mike Coppola/Getty

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Back in May 2024,Barrymore told PEOPLE, “I rememberE.T.like it was yesterday, funny enough.” She said the alien was kind of her “first imaginary friend,” even though she knew he “wasn’t real.”

“I fully understood, but I think we need to project a matter of a belief system in things,” she said. “Whether it’s imaginary or very real and tangible, it’s part of a survival mechanism, as well as just an absolute pleasure to identify things that make us feel good, that we feel like believe in us, like we believe in them.”

source: people.com