Dee Wallace was on Steve Kmetko’s podcast “Still Here Hollywood” last week and remembered a time when she argued with Steven Spielberg about a bedroom scene in the 1982 movie “E.T.”. The 76-year-old actress revealed that she and the director had a disagreement about a subplot involving E.T. having a crush on her character, Mary.
Wallace explained, “The only time Steven and I parted ways creatively was there’s a whole B story in ‘E.T.’ about E.T. having a love affair with Mary, a love crush on Mary.” She continued, “And there’s little bits of it left in there. There was a scene where he came in to put Reese’s Pieces down on my bedside table as I’m asleep. Well, Mr. Spielberg wanted the sheet a little lower than I was comfortable with.”
The actress stood her ground, insisting that the film was meant for families and should maintain a sense of purity. She recalled, “I could understand the parents smoking pot in ‘Poltergeist.’ But this film was very pure to me. And it was about love.” With the help of producer Kathleen Kennedy and writer Melissa Mathison, Wallace was able to reach a compromise with Spielberg.
During the podcast, Wallace also shared her initial thoughts about “E.T.” and how she knew it would be a success. She said, “I could tell just from the way the audience responded. That film reaches into your soul, into your heart. It surpasses some block that we have and wakes us up.”
In addition to discussing her experience on set, Wallace also reminisced about her interactions with a young Drew Barrymore, who played Gertie in the film. She mentioned, “We knew from day one she was gonna be a producer and director. I’m sitting in a high director’s chair, first day on set, and she comes up to me and she goes, ‘Dee, I’m going to sit in your lap now.’ And I said, ‘Okay, Drew, come on up.’ I mean, she just knew what she wanted, that one.”
Spielberg, who directed “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” recently revealed his reluctance to create a sequel to the beloved film. At a TCM Classic Film Festival event earlier this year, he explained, “I just did not want to make a sequel. I flirted with it for a little bit — just a little bit to see if I [could] think of a story — and the only thing I could think about was a book that was written by somebody that wrote the book for it called ‘The Green Planet,’ which was all going to take place at E.T.’s home.”
Even though Spielberg considered a sequel, he ultimately decided against it, believing that the story was better suited for a novel rather than a film adaptation.
Through Wallace’s anecdotes and Spielberg’s insights, fans of “E.T.” gain a deeper understanding of the film’s journey from inception to becoming a timeless classic.
