“Disclosure Day” director Steven Spielberg opens up to USA TODAY about his retirement, making “ET” and the most “misunderstood” film of his career.
Director Steven Spielberg says young Drew Barrymore believed ET was ‘real’
Disclosure Day director Steven Spielberg talks about the possibility of alien life and why a young Drew Barrymore believed ET was real.
NEW YORK – If you’ve ever loved Steven Spielberg’s science fiction movies, you have his mother to thank.
Throughout his nearly half-century career, the three-time Oscar winner has challenged us to consider the meaning of alien life in films such as War of the Worlds, E.T., and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His latest film is Disclosure Day (in theaters June 12), and Spielberg believes it will become a new favorite of his late mother, Leah Adler, an accomplished pianist and restaurateur.
“She always said, ‘Let’s not be so conceited that we think we’re the only intelligent life in the universe,'” the director icon said on a recent afternoon, sitting in a Central Park hotel. “She always joked, ‘Well, there must be a lot more intelligent planets out there.’ I said, ‘Mom, we’re really smart,’ and she said, ‘No, if we just opened up, we could learn a lot more.’ ”
After all, “my mother encouraged me to explore the unknown.”
In “Disclosure Day,” a young whistleblower (Josh O’Connor) is on the run from government officials after threatening to release classified information that definitively proves the existence of aliens. Meanwhile, a Kansas City meteorologist (Emily Blunt) discovers that she has an uncanny ability to communicate with other worlds and seeks him out.
The film is based on an original idea that reunited 79-year-old Spielberg with Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp. USA TODAY talks to filmmakers about aliens, AI, and why they’ll never stop making movies.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Question: After 50 years of making films about extraterrestrial life, how has your own understanding of extraterrestrial life evolved or changed?
Steven Spielberg: When we made Close Encounters, it took a lot of imagination. I believed there was other life out there, but I wasn’t sure if it came here. I was very interested in UFOs and UAPs. I said, “I won’t call ‘Close Encounters’ science fiction. I’ll call it scientific speculation.” But since the beginning of 2021cent In this century, we have more and more access to real visual truths. We can confirm our beliefs by showing others what we capture with our devices. I was overwhelmed by the realization that we are not alone in the universe.
So if an alien showed up on your doorstep tomorrow, would you react any differently than you did 50 years ago?
When I made “ET,” I saw Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore completely obsessed with ET. In particular, Drew believed that ETs were actually living, breathing beings, rather than being controlled by 15 special effects people. Drew totally believed in ET. When I saw a child have such beliefs, I wondered. “Are only children able to believe in extraterrestrial life, or could we all still be children in the underworld of the soul?”
If there really is a day of disclosure, I wouldn’t be surprised, even though all of my experiences were fabricated for the sake of a science fiction movie. In fact, I’m very grateful.
There’s a great line in this movie that goes, “I don’t want to be anyone’s religion.” As a filmmaker, your films have helped shape people’s worldviews. Obviously, a lot of other directors look up to you. Are you uncomfortable with that kind of attention?
I don’t really grow into the role that much, but I project myself onto the icons who trained me. I haven’t had a chance to meet the directors, but I’ve seen their films dozens of times. I owe much of my interest in film to filmmakers around the world such as Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, François Truffaut, and Luc Besson.
Also, today’s directors wouldn’t have felt the need to continue making movies without them. When I see a movie like “One Battle After Another,” I want to keep making movies. As much as I was intimidated by Paul Thomas Anderson’s incredible filmmaking, it made me want to make movies for another ten years. We need that to grow. When filmmakers talk to me about how my movies are influencing them, I can look back and talk about how their movies are influencing me now.
The 2001 film “AI Artificial Intelligence” has been critically reevaluated in recent years and is now considered one of your best works. Why do you think it took 25 years to catch on?
Well, I think the world has caught up. It’s Stanley Kubrick’s vision. I wrote the script, but it was Stanley’s idea. I’ve known Stanley for 15 years, and after his death, I started making “AI” films. Stanley changed science fiction forever with “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which also inspired movies like “Alien,” “Star Wars,” and “Close Encounters.”
The word “AI” is a bit misunderstood, and many people who watched the movie said by the end that it was an alien, not a super mecha (or robot). There has been a lot of confusion about what “AI” is. But that was before the digital age. Before AI made any real progress. I fear AI as much as I embrace it as a tool. I think Stanley was feeling that way when he wrote this story.
At the end of AI, the android David, played by Haley Joel Osment, becomes the last remaining evidence of human existence on Earth. What do you think would happen if a robot discovered and studied one of your movies 2,000 years from now?
It’s arrogant to say I don’t know. (Laughs) It’s about which of the seven children you like best. I like them all the same, you know? That question will be difficult to answer.
In “Disclosure Day,” the characters basically lay out all the evidence that aliens are real, like, “This is all we got.” In that sense, does this film feel like the last word on extraterrestrial life?
This brings together the trilogy of Close Encounters, ET, and now Disclosure Day. But that doesn’t end my curiosity. My love of science fiction is far from over.
