The one movie that inspired Steven Spielberg to become a father: “I was a parent on that film”
Every professional strives for the perfect work/life balance regardless of how they earn a living, and Steven Spielberg was more than happy to continue directing smash hit blockbusters without having the pitter-patter of tiny feet storming through his home.
Almost every single one of his movies features a child in a pivotal role, and he’s long been renowned as a filmmaker who knows how to bring the best out of the youngest generation of performers, but he never held a vested interest in producing any sprogs of his own.
Instead, he was content to continually push the medium of cinema forward, whether he was helming the highest-grossing release in cinema history with Jaws, delivering one of the greatest adventure flicks ever made in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or once again helming the highest-grossing release in cinema history with ET the Extra-Terrestrial.
The latter featured a gaggle of youngsters in prominent parts, which forced him to wrangle an ensemble stuffed full of children, cajoling them into giving natural performances carrying his signature sense of awe-inspiring wonder without overworking them, becoming overbearing or putting on the hat of a disciplinarian.
There were only two ways it was going to end up going for a child-free auteur like Spielberg; either he was going to wrap production on ET and be even more determined that his loins would remain off-limits for procreation, or it would convince him that maybe he did want to be a father after all.
Considering he’s now the proud and doting father of seven, there’s no prize for guessing how the dominoes fell. During a 40th anniversary celebratory screening of the classic sci-fi story, Spielberg explained how dealing with the kids every day on set ended up changing his mind, and ultimately, his life.
“I didn’t want to have kids because it was not a kind of equation that made sense for me as I went from movie to movie to movie, script to script,” he admitted, per Variety. “It never occurred to me until halfway through ET; I was a parent on that film. I was literally feeling like I was very protective of Henry and Mike and my whole cast, and especially Drew, who was only six years old.”
Henry Thomas, Mike McNaughton, and Drew Barrymore ended up inspiring Spielberg to such an extent that he could no longer envision a future where he didn’t have kids. “I started thinking, ‘Well, maybe this could be my real life someday,'” he offered. “It was the first time that it occurred to me that maybe I could be a dad.”
As fate would have it, Spielberg finished production on ET in the autumn of 1981, and less than four years later he welcomed first child Max with then-wife Amy Irving. After meeting Kate Capshaw on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the couple had three children together and adopted two more, with Spielberg also the stepfather to Capshaw’s daughter from a previous relationship.
He didn’t want to be a dad when cameras started rolling, but less than a decade and a half after ET released, there was an entire septet running around the Spielberg house.
