The Daily - Do Aliens Exist? Steven Spielberg Believes They Do

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

Almost 50 years ago, Steven Spielberg directed “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the story of an average man who discovers that humanity may not be alone in the universe. Over the decades, Spielberg has directed several movies about what would happen if humanity made contact with aliens. Would the aliens be kind like the title character in “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial”? Would they be cruel like the murderous aliens of “War of the Worlds”? And regardless of what the aliens were like, would we humans be ready to receive them? Spielberg returns to the question of whether we’re alone in the universe, and what it might mean if we’re not, with his new film “Disclosure Day.” Today, he sits down with Rachel Abrams, a host of “The Daily,” to talk about the film, and about what he has learned over five decades of making movies about aliens.   On Today’s Episode Steven Spielberg, director of “Disclosure Day.”   Background Reading ‘Disclosure Day’ Review: Spielberg Plays His Greatest Cosmic Hits What Steven Spielberg Taught Me About Fear, Catharsis, and Being Human   Photo credit: Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum, for The New York Times Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Do you want to check any shots? Do you want to check your shots? If you, if you Steven Spielberg, want to take a look, I... Let's see your shot. Oh, there, okay. So what do you think of that? It's a good shot. I mean, it's like a nice framing.

Does it convey seriousness? Like, serious journalists? Yes, I like seeing all of this. Oh, you don't have meat like that, do you ever? Push back. What was that great, Land & Tussi? You know, how far back do you have to go to make it look good? What about Cleveland?

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the Daily on Sunday. Stephen Spielberg. The name is synonymous with big Hollywood blockbusters, just to rattle off a few of them, jaws. You're going to need a bigger boat. E.T. E.T. Phone home. Indiana Jones. That belongs in a museum.

Jurassic Park. This week, he's got a new movie out. He's 35th. It's called Disclosure. Day. And it returns to questions that Steven Spielberg has picked at throughout his entire career. Do aliens exist? And if they do, how will we react to them? What are you going to do? Full disclosure to the whole world all at once.

Stephen Spielberg is here with me today to talk about Disclosure Day, his fascination with aliens, and what he is watching on Instagram. It's Sunday, June 14th. Steven Spielberg, welcome to The Daily. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. So congratulations on your new film, Disclosure Day. I won't give too much away,

but it is a movie about the government's efforts to hide information about aliens from the public. It was inspired, as I understand it, by reporting, at least in part, in the New York Times, about a secret government program that studied what people might refer to as UFOs. The New York Times is out. this morning with new details about an upcoming and long-awaited report.

A shadowy office in the Pentagon that ran from 2007 to 2012, according to the New York Times. It examined so-called anomalous aerial vehicles. The Pentagon confirmed. Everybody in their dentist must be pitching you a movie idea. So what was it about this article in this moment that made you think, I have got to make a movie about this? Well, long before that story, and it was a great story in 2017, I believe. Yes.

There had been so many more videos backing up eyewitness testimony and creating more credibility among the witness base. Once the smartphone came into real existence with the iPhone, everything kind of changed. There was just a lot of information. People were starting to come forward. And, you know, the witnesses have been coming forward ever since Roswell. So it's not that everything started in 2017.

I guess when Helene Cooper and Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Keene wrote their story, all of a sudden, because it was the New York Times, because they gave the story such prominence, everybody suddenly started to wake up from the National Enquirer, sensationalized reportage about UFOs. Suddenly, this was an august paper, perhaps one of the greatest people. giving us this information. We prefer the greatest, but thank you, yes. Yes, the greatest. But I really feel that things started to get into the mainstream. And then after that, there was a lot of documentaries were being made, and I saw all of them. Every doc made about this.

And you can't make a doc unless people come forward. Now, it's not under oath, but a lot of people from Congress, from the military, started coming forward. Well, to that point, there are some very famous whistleblowers that have come forward, as you're saying. There was one actually in Helene Cooper story that you mentioned. And I did wonder, in addition to watching all these documentaries, and it sounds like coming to the belief that aliens were real, perhaps more so than when you made earlier alien films. Did you actually talk to any of those whistleblowers in preparation for this? Did you try to reach out to anyone? I actually purposely stayed away from that.

Really? Why? Because I wrote a story. My story is a science fiction story. The foundation upon which I built my science fiction story is a very, very credible foundation just based on everything that I've absorbed over many, many decades, but especially over the last decade. And there is a consistency in the reporting.

There is circumstantial evidence from tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who have claimed not just in America, but all over the world, to have seen something or met people who have had seen things. I mean, you sound very much like you believe aliens exist. That is what I'm getting from you in this conversation. And I'm recalling that I, in preparation for this interview, I listened to a bunch of your interviews. And I heard you say once that close encounters, when you made that movie, it was about what you hoped was in the universe. And now you're at the point where you, it sounds like you very much believe that this exists. What would the younger Spielberg have thought listening to you now as such a believer that this is what actually exists in the universe? Well, the younger me wouldn't have been exposed to the incredible plethora of visual documentation of what's been going on, seeing as believing, until I see something myself. And why I have not seen a UFO, I don't understand why they haven't come to me yet. I mean, I feel like they're agent. So I have not had any sightings whatsoever.

However, having said that, so much of the believers, I now believe the believers. You know, it's interesting that you frame it that way because Disclosure Day, one of the big themes, if I may say so, is about faith. Does God love us? I don't mean does he love us. I know he does. Does he love only us? And it's not just about believers, but it's also about faith in something higher than yourself. It's about faith in humanity and the ability of other people.

people to deal with difficult circumstances. Because Genesis says that we're his supreme creation, but do you think it's possible that... On earth. What? Genesis. It says we are God's supreme creation on earth. You could have just made a movie about aliens. You could have made a fun summer blockbuster.

And I wonder why you chose to engage with that theme specifically. I just feel, I felt that this was an opportunity. to talk about, you know, the loss of community and therefore the loss of human connection. This film is more about humanity and the things that divide us and what could be occurring that possibly could bring us a little closer together.

Such as aliens being real. Well, such as realizing that the thing that we need to preserve in our society, society more than anything else, which is something, which I believe is as fragile as democracy, is empathy and that our two characters, Joshua O'Connor plays Daniel Kellner and Emily Blunt plays Margaret Fairchild. There is a very large emphasis put on their superpowers. You know. I mean, you've been driving like a maniac the last few days.

How do you know that? I just know things. And their superpowers are not being able to fly. No, of course not. Their superpowers are really being able to look at somebody. And in six seconds, you know that person intimately. Oh, wow, you were in jail? I must have been so... Hey, hey!

You see what I mean? It's crazy. It's crazy. And I just have seen this draining out of us. And I thought that I wanted to do a story about how to bring humanity together again. You know, I understand that you're commenting on the divided political time that we live in. It's not even a political time. It's a divided social time. time. Divided social time. Is that affected you personally? Have you lost relationship? Are you making

this in any way, you know, reflective of what you personally have struggled with as we have become more divided? It's not that I've lost relationships. I just, you know, I just, I believe in people. And I believe in people who I don't agree with. If we took two soccer teams, or they take it very seriously, you could have nothing but rivalry. And you could be hooligans against each other in loss or in victory. but there are certain things you agree on. The logger in the pub, you drink after a game where you can bury your disagreements and just celebrate the fact that you're alive on the planet. I mean, I mean, that is something that I'm missing today. And arguably, I think I've heard you talk about movies this way.

Movies are something that obviously bring people together. And so I wonder if that's sort of like if you're thinking not just about the themes of faith in your film and the importance of faith in terms of bringing people together, but the actual going to see a movie and losing yourself and forgetting what's going on in the outside world, I feel like I see a bit of a through line here. Yeah, well, I've been saying like a broken record that movies build community, so does theater, so do concerts, you know, community is when we all come together, we don't know each other, but what we do know is we are having a similar reaction to what is being shown to us, what is being unspooled, what is being presented, performed for

And it absolutely is one of the, that is one of the greatest unites of any culture on the face of the planet. We'll be right back. You know, I heard you once tell a story about your experience with Vietnam that I think really crystallizes how you believe that movies could take you out of the world for a short, period of time. I'd love it if you could tell that story. Well, it was just that I was in line to watch Dr. Strangelove. I was in high school. Vietnam was on television every night on all three networks. So it was something you couldn't get away from. Friends of mine had been called up. And I was waiting in line in the rain, San Jose, to watch Dr. Strangelove. And I heard a honking. I turned away, and my dad was half in the street with this window rolled down, jestering frantically for me to come over

I ran over to the car and he just looked like the Grim Reaper and he just handed me this letter from Selective Service. And I opened it up and it just basically was the letter from the draft board asking me to report for my first physical. And I was shocked. It was a death sentence. I couldn't believe it was happening. My dad opened the door assuming I was going to leave the line and drive home with him. And I said, no, I want to see the movie.

And I took the letter though with me and I went back in line. and all I could think about was going to Vietnam. And then the movie, I got my seat, lights went down, Dr. Strangelove began. I shouldn't tell you this, man, drink, but you're a good officer and you have a right to know. It looks like we're in a shooting war. Oh, hell. All the Russians are, Bobson? In about five minutes in the Strangelove, I forgot my dad had ever pulled up in the car.

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room. And the movie completely smart. all of my five senses. I didn't even think about the letter that was in my pocket until I was halfway home on a bus. The way that that movie overwhelmed you, made you forget for however long it was, that what was going on in the outside world, I think it's fair to say that that is something that you have tried to recreate as a filmmaker, if I'm not mistaken. And I want to talk about you as a filmmaker more broadly. when we were preparing here at the Daily to talk to you,

we got into a very spirited debate about what makes a Spielberg film, a Spielberg film? Is it awe and wonder? Is it normal people in extraordinary circumstances? I mean, you literally made so many different types of films. And then we realized that you are probably the foremost expert on Steven Spielberg and what makes a Steven Spielberg movie Spielbergian. So could you just articulate that for us and settle this?

Well, that would require me to suffer a blow to the head, have amnesia, and then have to go into a theater and watch the movies that I forgot I made. Oh, come on, really? It would be very difficult. You know, it's not a formula, it's not a chemistry set I haul around with me, and it's not alchemy. You know, movies are not alchemy.

They're not, part of it science. The craft of it is science based on the technology of filmmaking. But it's movies, for me anyway, it's 80% intuition. And so, you know, I feel that when I make it. making movies. The first thing I look for is a very compelling premise. And the second thing I look for is a character that we can hitch our, hitch our wagons to. Okay. And not necessarily a star you hit your wagons to it, but just a really great character. It could be a wonderful brand new actor that we've never seen before, but someone that we could identify with. And

then you're on a journey with those characters. And if you trust the characters and you bond or imprint on them or bond with them close enough, you trust them. And trust them. And trust, Trusting a character allows you to trust the ride they're taking or the adventure they're on or the problems they have to solve or the survival that it means life or death. And then you can be so compelled to attach yourself to a personality in your movie that that should take you right to the end. I would like to tell you because you're making me think of this. My dad used to be a screenwriter. He used to teach film and he has taught your movies in class. And one of the things he taught was the first 10 minutes of.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. Specifically, for the reasons you're mentioning, just the idea that the world is very clear, and the dynamics between these characters are very clear. The father-son dynamic, specifically. Dad. It's important. And wait.

Count to 20. No, dad, you listen to me. Junior. One, two, three, four. In Greek. Enna, the old. Was that the goal there? Was to just lay out here.

Here's everything you're going to get from this movie in the first time. Which, by the way, you do in other. films, I feel like your opening sequence often establishes so much of what will bring us along for that ride. That was very personal. That was maybe the most personal Indiana Jones film for me in terms of plot structure. The most personal Indiana Jones film for me was Temple of Doom because I met Kate. And that is Kate Kapshaw, of course, the actress. Yes. I said to George, I would direct the first three. Is that right? Without even knowing I was going to meet the love of my life on the second one. But I feel that I've been, you know, I've spent a lot of my life working out my relationship with my father.

Right. And when he passed, he was 103. And before he passed, we had 23 wonderful years together. But there were years before that of kind of, I would call it a mild estrangement. Yeah. And I was always trying to work out where I was in that relationship with my dad. And I insisted when George Lucas presented the MacGuffin that I want to make an Indian. In Indiana Jones movie, George said, they go after the cup of Christ.

They go after the Holy Grail. I thought that was great. But I suddenly realized, oh my God, it's metaphorical. Why don't we have Indy's father, the person that's been doing all the research on the Grail? And Indy's been estranged from his father. And they kind of have a meeting of the hearts. They meet halfway. I almost reach your dad.

Indiana. Indiana. Indiana. The grail of that relationship was really the understanding and the community that father and son have by the third act of Last Crusade. I wonder whether at this point in your life and career, there are other things that you would like to work out in film? And sort of what stage you're at with that now? As film is therapy, I guess I should say. Yeah, film is therapy.

Sometimes I'll go into a movie consciously saying this film, like when I made the Fableman's, I said, well, somebody's going to have to write a check for $40 million to therapy. for me. I didn't pay for it. You could afford to be a little encouraging. About what? About him making movies again. Well, I didn't say that. Maybe he's moved on. From what?

He hasn't picked up his camera once since we got here. He'll be going to college since September. Maybe his feelings about it have changed. He's growing up. I'm enthusiastic about that. Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm sorry, guys. Please just stop talking about me.

I'd think that you more than... It was autobiographical. Oh, yeah, totally autobiographical. very, very accurate to my own memory of my experiences, my relationships with my sisters, my mom, my dad, all that. But, you know, sometimes I don't know I'm working out anything until I'm right in the middle of the process, right in the middle of the movie. And I suddenly will, it'll remind me of something when I was a kid that, oh, I'm dealing with something that I've buried for 60 years. And wow, it's back and maybe I can deal with it here. But I don't set out unless it's

consciously to make a film like the Fableman's or even help design the story of Last Crusade. I don't set out to practice, you know, self-therapy. I set out to tell a really good story that's going to get people really excited and make them want to go to the movies to see it. But you have said before that you've tried to, in some of your films you have recreated trauma as a way to maybe get power over it. Am I, if am I describing that correctly? I think what you're referring to is sometimes things that terrified me as a kid.

Yes, yes. I can almost, I can make a really scary movie like poltergeist, right, which I produced and wrote. They're here. I can make a really scary movie like that because of all the things that go bump in the night that terrify me. And then suddenly fear really good that I got some control over my fear. But now I've disseminated my fear on a lot of people. I'll never get to meet. And like with Jaws, you know, I didn't mean to make a movie that scares people out of the water, but it did.

I've always been afraid of the water, and I think I wouldn't have said yes to direct Jaws had I not had such a fear of the water. And did Jaws help you with your fear of the water? No, I'm just afraid now. But it sure didn't help a lot of other people that saw the movie. Watch it! Come on! One of the reasons why I think this is so interesting is I happen to be in the middle of Liener. Dana Dunham's memoir, and she talks about something very similar about how basically traumatic

things happened to her, and she felt if she could recreate them on screen, she would get some kind of control over it in a way that would help her work through it, if you will. And I wondered, is this something that, I mean, you must have had so many interesting conversations with other filmmakers, artists. Have you heard this before? This idea of- I have. I have heard this before. When we sit around painting models at Guillermo Del Toro's house on Saturday or Sunday mornings, it's all directors. I'm sorry, this is a what? This is a regular thing you do?

It's a regular thing we do. We paint monsters. These are plastic, porcelain, sometimes even metal di-casts. We hand-paint the models and we talk about movies. It's usually six to eight directors. And we find that we have so much in common in our business and our profession within the gestalt of who we are and why we do this. And it all comes out in the wash of painting models. So what is the why, and why do painting the models help you with this?

It's kind of a Zen thing in a way. You know, it's sort of, you know, you're focusing on painting, but you're also really engaged in conversation. It's like how I imagine the new wave in Paris might have been with Truffaut and Bunwell, just everybody's sitting around, you know, and these filmmakers hang out together. And they talked about the stuff that nobody else can relate to. Right. And it's a great way of sort of cleansing yourself. If you ever want the daily to be a fly on the wall at one of these salons, we would love to be there. I'm asking you a lot of questions about things that you have learned, lessons you've taken from one thing or another.

At some point in your life, you became Steven Spielberg, who many people consider to be the greatest filmmaker on earth. You became like a living legend to folks. And I bring that up because I think a lot of people, maybe people early in their career, understand that the way that you get better is by having people challenge you, right? You have longtime collaborators, but I wonder how, putting modesty aside for a moment, do you think about how your stature affects, how people interact with you, how people challenge you? And just generally, how do you continue to grow when you are at the level that you are at? Well, it was a hindrance to me at the beginning of my career because everybody was so, felt so open and free to help me because I was young. I was 22 years old when I directed my first television show. And the help was fantastic.

When I made my first film Sugar Land, I had a lot of help from the actors, from Goldie Hahn, from the crew. They were all there to help me. They asked me questions. They gave me suggestions. Then Jaws was made, and Jaws was a phenomenon. And all of a sudden, all that input stopped. I started to make close encounters, and everybody was quiet, as if I knew what to do,

as if I knew I had all the answers. I didn't have all the answers. I was desperate for collaboration, for opinions. Everybody assumed I knew everything and didn't need any help. I solicited. I went around asking people questions. Were they honest? Yeah, I think so, but they were intimidated.

It takes a lot of work to build a team that will be honest with you. And that's why I've had the same people in my life for so many decades. You have said, I believe, that one of the reasons that you wrote Disclosure Day is because you felt that this was the last shot you would have to get this story, to tell this story in a certain way or the right way. I wonder, given all of the movies that you have made, all of the things you have tried to tell us about ourselves in the society that we live in, is there something that you feel like you still want to say that you have not said yet? Let me answer to that question as honestly as I know how, until I find something that delights me and intrigues me and scares me,

I won't know what it is yet that I have to say until I discover it by jumping blind off a cliff, which I do about every other film. I jump into a, you know, and that's when I figure out that I could use this as a vehicle, as a kind of medium to say something. But I don't ever make a movie where I don't feel I have, every movie I made I feel like I have something to say. But I really only know what that something is once I blindly jump off the edge and I get myself very, very involved in that story.

Then it sometimes comes to me. Sometimes it doesn't. I'm curious about the audience. What do you think about the ways that the audience has changed besides just attention spans. Like, I'm curious, do you think that audiences expect something different when they come to see a movie

and how that changes your storytelling? I don't think it changes the storytelling. All I can do is tell the stories I know how to tell and hope there's an audience for them, but I don't adjust myself to a new generation. If I may push back slightly on this, in preparing for this, I watched close encounters,

and I obviously went to Disclosure Day. And the thing that I found so striking was that close encounters opens more slowly. The storytelling feels more slow at the beginning. Whereas in Disclosure Day, you were dropped right in the middle of the action. And to me, to me, I felt like this was a reflection of specifically attention spans. Is there something to be said about how quickly or slowly you are making your films? I mean, how could you not, basically, given the world that we live in? Well, I consciously wanted to start Disclosure Day as if we were starting with a third act and then editing a fourth, fifth, and sixth act.

You're coming, right? What do you mean by that, especially for people that haven't seen it? Because the movie starts in mid-scene, mid-action. Mid-the-movie starts essentially an abduction. Yep. That's not reflective of me trying to appeal to a more impatient generation of moviegoers. It was basically the biarrhythm of the movie that I sat down to write. I wrote it that way because I felt like we had been awaiting answers about where's the truth?

Where has the truth been about, you know, communication or the government hiding the fact that there is interaction between species? and it's maybe we've been interacting for 80 or longer years. And so, and that to me felt like it was already on a fast track. It was already moving for eight decades very, very quickly, and now it was coming to a head. That was dictating how fast I started disclosure day, not trying to appeal to a generation that once, that has a need for speed. My colleague Wesley Morris recently did quite a masterful, I thought, profile of you. It was amazing.

Yeah, yeah. He's, he is incredible. And he wrote about in this profile, not just how the audience has changed in terms of attention span. And I understand your answer that you really, you can only make the movie that you know how to make. But Wesley also wrote about how you two, spent a lot of time together, you went to see a play. Yes. And he wrote about your deep appreciation for the audience reactions to this play. Right.

And it made me wonder how you would describe the different experience of seeing a movie, alone, as of course so many of us now do when we watch it on our TVs or, dare I say it, our iPhones, perhaps. What do you? Perish for thought. I have a case to make for the iPhone, by the way, but I'll get to admit. It's okay when the movie's been out for a year, but. Or older, right?

Or older, but go ahead. But what do you, so what do you lose when you don't watch a movie surrounded by other people? Well, it's not what I lose because I can watch a movie alone. in a sense when I watched Dr. Strangelove, it was a full house when I was 18 years old. But I felt like I was alone watching it because it affected me. And it excluded everybody in the theater and I was all by myself. That's how deeply the film had grabbed up all of my attention. But then when I, at the end of the movie, I realized that people were having similar reactions all around me.

I suddenly had strangers who were allies in my experience of what that film, how that film affected us. And what did that mean to you to be surrounded by people? that agreed with you in some way. It felt great. It's agreed with you in some way. The agreement isn't done verbally. Sometimes you talk. But you feel it.

It's a psychic thing. It's a thing that you sense. All of us have consents in audience. When you see a comedy with 500 people, they're all laughing, it is one of the greatest, most fun, loving things you could do for yourself. The same thing happens, I guess, when you're in a rock concert, when you're watching somebody perform. You know, it is just infectious.

You don't get that feeling, a music video by yourself, but you get that in a stadium. You get that in a venue, even with a couple hundred people. It's just completely contagious. Sure. And so there's a contagion that happens when we're in a pod altogether reacting and having an experience. And it doesn't preclude watching something by yourself.

I'm just saying that it's an additive. It enlarges the experience, makes it bigger than life when you watch a movie with people. You have been a fierce advocate for people going to the physical movie theater, of course. Listening to you talk, I wonder if you are in some way nostalgic for a time when there weren't as many choices, even though choices, of course, give people many more opportunities to tell stories. I'm not really nostalgic for that.

I'm really not. I love the options. I love the amount of choices out there. there. The only negative thing about it is you can get sucked down the rabbit hole. But also the options are the reasons why people aren't going to the theater, right? No, not so much that. The option, yes, I mean, everything's a distraction, but don't forget what a distraction television was in 1950. There has been a pitch battle for the audience between television and movies, between the small screen and the ginormous screens. This has never changed.

This is nothing new. The difference now is there are so many more options than just watching television. What is something that you love that people might not expect because it is not a movie, something on YouTube, something on one of these new ways that people are consuming content? I love watching food on Instagram. Yeah? Wait, can you explain more? What do you mean by that? I love watching food stuff. Food stuff? I'm a foodie. Okay. So I'd like nine different ways you can make a taco. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Yes. I just, I get a little bit a little bit down. That's the rabbit hole that pulls me down. The headline here is that Steven Spielberg likes ASMR food videos. I do. What is it about them? Is it, is it the craft

that it pulls you in, or do you just want to know how to make tacos? No, it's the imagination it takes to do something I've never seen before. And now I've made some of the stuff. You've made, which stuff? The good videos, the short videos. I've watched and tried to replicate it and replicate it. And some of it is not as good as it looks. Yes, as all of us have experienced, yes. I mean, my wife right now is into something about dribbling hot fudge over potato chips and making a open-faced sandwich out of it. I'm not ready for that yet, but she's been threatening to make it for the last week. We'll be right back. Stephen, thank you so much for all of this.

We, if I may call you Stephen. I should have asked you the beginning of this. Why not? Please call me Stephen. We had envisioned in just the last remaining moments that we would do a little lightning round of questions. Okay. Okay. So if you'll indulge us.

Okay. What are the best and worst Steven Spielberg movies according to your children? I don't think my kids have ever had a worst. I mean, my kids like my movies. They do like your... But they haven't seen them all. And they'll tell me. This is not what I expected you just say because everybody's killed children no matter how accomplished they are.

They think, oh, it's just what dad does. It's like not that. Well, I'll tell you what my kids do... When my kids were six, eight, ten years old, and I'd bring them to the set because my whole family, Kate would bring the whole family to anywhere I was shooting. The family would live there. And my kids were so bored by my job. They come on the set, and the first thing they'd say is, when do we get to leave? You're kidding.

No, I'm not kidding, because one of my kids said to me, they said because we just waited an hour, and then when you said action, it only lasted two minutes. And now you put the camera somewhere else, and it's going to be another. hour. You know, it's the waiting part that they hated. The only film I remember them not wanting to leave the set was Jurassic Park. Oh, wow. Because we had the 35-foot T-Rex completely auto-animatronic designed brilliantly by the brilliant Stan Winston. They couldn't get enough of that. What is a movie you might redo differently if you had the chance? Hook. Why? I'm doing a really good drive with this lightning round, but why? Now I need to know. Not enough of a second act that was compelling enough for me. Interesting. I thought it had a great beginning and a great ending and it didn't have a

middle. More meat in the middle. Okay. What movie do you regret? I don't know if you pass on movies, but what movie do you regret just not doing that you could have done the most? I didn't pass on it. I helped develop Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. I was, I brought the original writer back on the project, Ron Bass, and I worked with him on a couple of drafts. I was all ready to make the movie. And then something came along in my life, and I needed to drop out of that film to help my friend. And that's the only movie that I ever had a chance of making that was sorry I didn't take, but I thought Barry Levinson did a brilliant job making it into his movie. Riskiest casting decision that paid off? Riskyest casting decision paid off.

I think any time I've made a film with children, because they're real people. And I think the riskiest casting decision I probably made was that paid off as Drew Baramore in ET. Favorite movie the last few years? In recent years, it's going to have to be one battle after another. Why is that? It was just an intoxicant. It was about something, about something important, but it never let me go.

It had such a hold on me. This question is not original, and it is probably only for me, but was ET slimy or dry? What's a wild question. E.T. was a little moist. but never slimy. A little moist but never slime. Was that an actual directive you gave? A.T. was only dry when E.T. got sick.

Right. Right, right. And then E.T. was dry. Okay. Moist but not. I've never been asked that question before. Ever. So basically the answer is in the middle. So all of the friends I have argued with about this over the years, everybody's a little right. This is come to the daily for questions you've never been asked before.

No, never been to ask. Which of your films do you like watching the most? And is there a movie that you find it hard to watch? It's very hard for me to watch Shindler's list. I don't watch a lot of my own movies I don't Once I make them I kind of move on to the next one

But the film I do enjoy watching Because I've never let my seven kids watch Without me in the room Because I'm so afraid they're going to think That E.T's really Dying when E.T. Comes back to life I'm always right there with my kids saying

Don't worry, it's going to be okay And I think E. E.T., okay. Do you think that there will be movie theaters in 50 years? Yes, I do. I think there'll be movie theaters in 50 years and I think they will be extraordinary new ways of delivering entertainment through new technology.

Final question for you, and this is probably not a lightning round question, but it is something that a lot of people are thinking of. You are a person who spent a lot of time thinking about complacency in the face of existential threats. It's very much part of War of the World, H.G. Wells' book that you quote from for your film, of course. And the number one perhaps existential threat that people might be talking about in Hollywood, I would imagine, is AI. And I'd love to ask you both, what do you think the best use of this technology is and how do you think it will actually be used? And if you use it now. Let me just tell you something I'm barking on right now.

I've been very critical of AI because I don't want AI to ever replace human beings in creative roles. Sure. But I don't know enough about AI to really be able to answer that question, you know, comprehensively. And I am spending part of the summer being AI trained. By whom? I don't want to say by who, but I am learning about AI. I'm going to do a deep dive on AI before I really get any more or less critical of it. I need to know more about it.

And that's what I'm doing this summer. I just want to know in general about what is AI really all about. God, you and all of the rest of us. I hope that you will come back and tell us what you learned, because I'm sure we could all use it. But in the meantime, this has been such a pleasure. And thank you so much for being here. It's been great talking to you. This has been a blast for me.

Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that. Today's episode was produced by Alex Barron and edited by Wendy Doer, with help from Paige Cowett and Michael Benoit. It contains music by Dan Powell, Marion Lazzano, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Nick Pittman and Sophia Landman. If you'd like to see a video of my conversation with Steven Spielberg, you can find it at the New York Times website. Our video was produced by Mustafa Mirza, Peter Colpart, and Devin Greenleaf,

and edited by David Hur. Cinematography by Luke Pietrowski, Zach Caldwell, Andrew Smith, and Thomas Trudeau, with production assistance from Michael Cordero. Sound recorded by Nick Pittman and engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.