The Extra-Terrestrial, 1981 Revised Shooting Script by Melissa Mathison

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NOTE: For educational purposes only.

“Melissa delivered this 107-page first draft to me and I read it in about an hour. I was just knocked out. It was a script I was willing to shoot the next day. It was so honest, and Melissa’s voice made a direct connection with my heart.” —Steven Spielberg

Here is a remarkable improvised audition by Henry Thomas that moved Steven Spielberg to tears.

Okay Kid, you got the job. Henry Thomas goes into more detail in this interview for Esquire Magazine.

ESQ: It’s a movie that’s impacted a lot of kids over the years. What was it like to be a young kid going through that?

HT: It was definitely not something I expected when I got chosen for the role. I didn’t expect any of the success to come about in the way that it did. It was the second film I had ever done. I got the part through a weird alignment of coincidences, and luck. Suddenly my phone was ringing and everybody wanted me in their film. It was kind of a roller-coaster ride for a few years there.

ESQ: Did you not understand because you were too young?

HT: I understood why films were made, and if they made a lot of money, they were successful. All of these things I knew. As a ten-year-old boy, I didn’t really think a lot about finances or celebrity. I always viewed films as kind of what I imagined a summer camp to be like.

ESQ: And you made Spielberg cry in your audition?

HT: Yes. I made everyone cry, and then I got the job.

ESQ: What exactly were you doing?

HT: I read a scene from some early version of the script, and then I was asked to do an improvisation. I think the gist of the improv was, “You found someone, and they’re going to take them away from you, and it’s your friend, and you really don’t want your friend to go away.” So I started crying, and really going for it I guess.

“In the beginning, E.T. was never going to be the story of a little lost alien. Instead, I had intended to tell the story of the effects of a divorce on a young boy, a purging of all the pain children suffer and them must endure when a seismic event divides a family. I had been pondering this ever since I became a director, but it wasn’t until I was actually shooting the final scenes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind that a new idea seized me, one that could be blended with my personal story of divorce.” —Steven Spielberg
Introduction to E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, From Concept to Classic, 30th Anniversary Edition

“In this shot, E.T. is on a hilltop overlooking the city. We realized the shot using a combination of a miniature set in the foreground and a matte painting in the background for the city. E.T. was a small puppet mounted to a rod that slid down a track, which gave the appearance that he was walking down the hillside toward the city. A lot of what makes this shot successful is the lighting and composition. The foreground looks a bit foreboding, whereas the cityscape has an almost magical quality about it. Hundreds of twinkling lights beckon him. In a way, it reflects what E.T. is feeling at this point in the story.”

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“I would write for four or five days in my little office in Hollywood, and then drive out to Marina Del Rey where Steven Spielberg was editing in a little apartment on the beach. I’d bring him my pages and we’d sit and go through them…It took about eight weeks for us to get the first draft, which was quite fast I think.” —Melissa Mathison
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, From Concept to Classic, 30th Anniversary Edition

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The Kids of ET – 30 Years Later

Source: filmmakeriq.com

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