03-05-2025
E.T. star made Steven Spielberg tone down 'uncomfortable' bedroom scene
An E.T. star has revealed how she made Steven Spielberg tone down a racy scene.
The 1982 beloved family film follows the story of E.T., an alien, who is left behind on earth.
After a young boy called Elliott discovers him, he decides to keep him hidden before he fights to return him home.
The film has gone on to rank as one of the top 10 highest grossing films of all time, when adjusted for inflation.
By the time of its release, legendary director Spielberg had already made classics such as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark.
However, for Dee Wallace, who played the divorced mother-of-three in E.T., acting in the filming did not prove to be plain sailing.
Speaking on the Still Here Hollywood podcast, Dee revealed how she thought differently to the 78-year-old director.
She said: '[Originally, there was] a whole B-story in E.T. about E.T. having a love affair with Mary — a love 'crush' on Mary.
'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.'
She added: 'I argued my point that this was a family film.
'This film was very pure to me. And it was about love. And so we ended up calling in [producer] Kathleen Kennedy and [writer] Melissa [Mathison], our beautiful, amazing writer, and they said, 'We kind of agree with her, Steven.'
'So we compromised and pulled the sheet up almost to my shoulder blades, which I was okay with.'
Earlier this year, it was revealed that Spielberg fought hard to stop a sequel being created.
Speaking at the TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up x 92NY event, Spielberg explained it was 'a real hard-fought victory' because he didn't have any rights.
'Before E.T., I had some rights, but I didn't have a lot of rights. I kind of didn't have what we call 'the freeze,' where you can stop the studio from making a sequel because you control the freeze on sequels, remakes and other ancillary uses of the IP [intellectual property],' he explained. More Trending
'I didn't have that. I got it after E.T. because of its success.'
He added of a potential sequel: '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.
'We were all going to be able to go to E.T.'s home and see how E.T. lived. But it was better as a novel than I think it would have been as a film.'
He continued: 'I have no intention ever of seeing E.T. anywhere outside of this proscenium.'
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