‘E.T.' star Dee Wallace reveals she ‘argued' with Steven Spielberg over toning down bedroom scene
'E.T.' nearly wasn't so family friendly.
Dee Wallace appeared on Steve Kmetko's 'Still Here Hollywood' podcast last week and recalled how she clashed with director Steven Spielberg over a bedroom scene involving her character, Mary, in the 1982 film.
'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,' the 76-year-old actress explained.
12 Dee Wallace and Steven Spielberg attend the 40th anniversary screening of 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' at the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival.
Getty Images for TCM
'And there's little bits of it left in there,' she continued. '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.'
Wallace said that she 'argued my point that this was a family film.'
12 Dee Wallace on the 'Still Here Hollywood' podcast.
Still Here Hollywood Podcast w/ Steve Kmetko/YouTube
12 Dee Wallace and Steve Kmetko.
Still Here Hollywood Podcast w/ Steve Kmetko/YouTube
12 Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace in 'E.T.'
©Universal/courtesy Everett / Everett Collection
'I could understand the parents smoking pot in 'Poltergeist.' But this film was very pure to me. And it was about love,' Wallace shared, adding that producer Kathleen Kennedy and writer Melissa Mathison got involved and sided with Wallace over Spielberg, 78.
'So we compromised and pulled the sheet up almost to my shoulder blades, which I was okay with,' Wallace said.
12 Dee Wallace at the 20th anniversary of 'E.T.' in Los Angeles in 2002.
Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
12 Steven Spielberg filming a movie in Montville, New Jersey in Feb. 2025.
GC Images
'That's pretty high,' joked Kmetko, 72, to which Wallace replied, 'Not to a girl from Kansas who knew her grandmother was gonna be watching.'
'You can take the girl out of Kansas, you can't take Kansas out of the girl,' she added with a laugh.
'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' was Spielberg's seventh directorial feature film in his career.
12 Steven Spielberg at the 2023 Oscars.
John Locher/Invision/AP
The film, which follows a young boy who befriends an alien stranded on Earth, also stars Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore.
On the podcast, Wallace remembered knowing 'E.T.' would be a hit the first time she watched it in theaters.
'I could tell just from the way the audience responded,' she said. 'That film reaches into your soul, into your heart. It surpasses some block that we have and wakes us up.'
12 Peter Coyote, Dee Wallace in 'E.T.'
©Universal/courtesy Everett / Everett Collection
12 Robert MacNaughton, Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote in 2002.
Courtesy Everett Collection
12 Peter Coyote, Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace in 'E.T.'
Courtesy Everett Collection
Wallace also said that at the time she foresaw Barrymore, 50, would have a big career eventually.
'We knew from day one she was gonna be a producer and director,' she explained. '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.'
12 Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas on the set of 'E.T.' in 1982.
Courtesy Everett Collection
Earlier this year, Spielberg discussed the film with Barrymore at a TCM Classic Film Festival event and revealed he went through a 'real hard-fought' battle to stop a sequel from being made.
12 Steven Spielberg attends the AFI Life Achievement Award Ceremony in April 2025.
WireImage
'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,' he explained, per THR.
'We were all going to be able to go to E.T.'s home and see how E.T. lived,' Spielberg added. 'But it was better as a novel than I think it would have been as a film.'
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