Steven Spielberg feared Covid-19 would be “an extinction-level event”
In a new interview, Steven Spielberg revealed that, during the height of lockdown hysteria, he feared the Covid-19 pandemic would become an “extinction-level event”.
The legendary filmmaker discussed the now-waning pandemic during an interview with The Daily Star. He explained that he created his latest film, The Fabelmans, in response to his apocalyptic concerns. “I was terrified [Covid-19] was an end-of-days, and epic-level event, I mean an extinction-level event, that was happening to the world,” Spielberg said. “If I got the chance to make one more movie, it was going to be this story.”
He added: “By the time I had serious discussions about writing [The Fabelmans], we lost 250,000 Americans to Covid-19. All the experts that were coming out and the denial from the White House that this wasn’t so bad, it was just like a passing flu epidemic”.
He added: “I really thought we were not heading in a good direction and this was not going to end well for many of us. And that just got me thinking about telling a story that has been on my mind. All my life, I’ve thought about this.”
The Fabelmans, released in November, came as a semi-fictionalised account of Spielberg’s childhood story and subsequent rise to fame and fortune. The story is told through the fictional character Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle), who discovers how film can help him cope with a dysfunctional family.
“When I first saw my house being rebuilt, my childhood home being rebuilt on a sound stage, my first thought was, ‘Is this going to be the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever asked people to accompany me through? Is this $40 million of therapy?'” Spielberg told Lauren Laverne during his recent Desert Island Discs appearance.
“I didn’t know really what I was doing, except I was answering a need. I had been recently orphaned by the loss of both parents [and I wanted] to recapture some of those memories in some way that wouldn’t seem too indulgent to actors I really respected, like Michelle Williams and Paul Dano and Judd Hirsch. So it was a tightrope for a while.”
Watch the trailer for The Fabelmans below.
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