Transcription
Steven Spielberg has been making movies for more than five decades.
But even after 35 of them, a new Spielberg film remains a major cinematic event. Spielberg helped to invent the summer blockbuster with Jaws.
"You're going to need a bigger boat."
He made us believe in friendly aliens with ET. And then he showed us how terrifying they could be with War of the Worlds. His new release, Disclosure Day, is a return to sci-fi and to aliens. Are they people?
No.
And it asks a question that feels very timely. If the government proved that we are not alone in the universe, how would you respond?
"I'm Rachel Aver."
"Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too."
"Welcome to the Daily. You will have sitting right here."
We sat down with Spielberg to talk about Disclosure Day and many of his other films. What drew him back to this particular world of aliens and what he is watching on Instagram.
"Do you want to check any shots?"
"Check any shots."
"Yeah. Do you want to"
"Do you want to check your shots?"
"I I if you if you Stephen Spielberg want to take a look."
"Let's see your shot."
"Uh of of me."
"Yeah."
"Of I don't know how to do that."
"No, this is over me."
"Oh, there. Okay. Okay. Okay. 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."
"What terrifies me is this."
"Really? Why?"
"You don't have meat like that. Do you ever"
"push back?"
"Steven Spielberg, thank you so much for joining us."
"Thank you."
Congratulations on your new film, Disclosure Day. And 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. And 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. You must read and watch so much. Everybody in their dentist must be pitching you a movie idea. So what what was it about this article in this moment that made you think I have got to make a movie about this?
Well, it was just that things had been percolating and and there had been so many more videos backing up eyewitness testimony and creating more credibility among the the witness base once the smartphone came into real you know you know existence with the iPhone. I mean once it once you went from the Blackberry to that everything kind of changed and and long before that story people were starting to come forward and you know the witnesses have been coming forward ever since Roswell I mean Hollywood made a lot of movies about UFOs in those days called Flying Saucers. There was the movie Earth versus Flying Saucers. There was the day the earth stood still. And this was all in reaction to UFO sightings um in in our nation's capital,
right,
when they buzzed the the the capital grounds. And and this was in the 50s, early 50s. So, it's not that everything started in 2017. Everything got very um I would say um the New York Times when I guess when Helen Cooper and Ralph Blumenthal and Lesley Keane wrote their story and revealed the um tic tac UAP unidentified aerial phenomenon. I prefer UFO.
So we all prefer UFO.
I'm not in control of any of this. uh um you know all of a sudden because it was the New York Times because they gave the story such prominence that everybody suddenly started to wake up from the malaise of the National Inquirer sensationalized reportage about UFOs you know you know for the last you know 80 years suddenly this was an august you know you know you know um um paper perhaps one of the greatest papers giving us this information.
We prefer the greatest but thank you. Yes.
Yes. The greatest. Yes. But I really feel that things started to get into uh uh the mainstream and then after that there was a lot a lot of documentaries were being made and I I saw all of them. Every doc made about this and and you can't make a doc unless people come forward. Now it's not under oath. you're giving testimony to a documentary crew, but a lot of people from Congress, from the military, started coming forward.
Did you actually talk to any of those whistleblowers in preparation for this? Did you try to reach out to anyone?
I I actually purposely stayed away from that.
Really? Why?
Because I wrote a story. My story is a science fiction story, but it it's the foundation upon which I built my science fiction story is is a very very credible foundation just based on everything that I've absorbed over many many decades but especially over the last you know the last I would say decade.
One of the things that you are known for, of course, is that even in your big crowd-pleasing films, there is often some kind of social commentary that really resonates with people and it's about something bigger. I wonder if you could articulate for our audience what messages you want them to take away from this movie.
Well, I always like to like like to allow the audience to tell me what messages they took away from the movie. I I always find that if I drill down on a core message, it tends to not allow people to they tend to listen to me. They tend to say, "Well, this is the only way. This is this is the raiser that he made this movie, and therefore, I cannot I I'm not going to dare risk any kind of an interpretation based on how the film affected me." So, I never really give a a reason I made the film. I will say that this film is more about humanity and people and community and 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.
Yes.
Such as realizing that the thing that we need to preserve in our society more than anything else, which is something which I believe is as fragile as democracy, is empathy. And that that our two characters, Margaret Fairchild and Daniel Kelner, played by Joshua Connor plays Daniel and Emily Blunt plays Margaret. There is a very large emphasis put on their abilities, their superpowers. And their superpowers are not being able to fly and be able to bend steel in their bare hands and all faster than the speeding bullet. Their superpowers are really being able to look at somebody and and and drop in on someone and in six seconds you know that you know that person you know intimately.
I understand that empathy is one of the big themes of the film. That is actually something that came across very strongly. I also read that it took you and your writer, longtime collaborator, David Kemp, 42 drafts to get the script the way you wanted it to.
It was all about character. The the drafts were never about structure. I I pretty much had the structure now when I wrote my story, my 55page story, and then David, you know, basically, you know, did a a his interpretation of my story and wrote a an amazing draft of the script. Um, but I I when I cast the movie, every actor I cast changed my opinion of the character because they were bringing their own experiences as Emily Blunt, as Colin FTH, as you know, Josh O'Connor, as Eve Houston and Wyatt Russell. I mean, everybody was bringing their own lives into these characters, and I'd see things about them that I wanted to fold into their characters, fold into the script.
And you had said earlier, of course, you you do not try to dictate to people how they interpret your movies.
Yes.
However, I will point out that the way that people think about aliens and what they should look like is probably more based on you and how you see aliens than any anything else. So, I wonder just sort of what goes into how you think about what what an alien should look like.
You know, I I love everybody that interprets aliens based on, you know, what's within their own imaginations. I mean, I really admired Denu's arrival. His aliens didn't have eyes, noses, and mouths. They were tentacled, and they were kind of very amorphous. Okay? They almost looked like, you know, something you find, you know, in a trench somewhere at the deepest part of our oceans. It's never been discovered before. It was really compelling. But I had to base our aliens on what people have reported who claim to have had close encounters to the third kind. 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 seen things. And and obviously the first thing that comes to mind when you when you go back and you you investigate what Dr. Mac, you know, investigated himself, you know, from, you know, from Harvard. He went to Zimbabwe to the aerial school where 65 school children saw a craft land and saw beings come out of that craft and they all described the eyes that were completely hypnotic and the eyes were wraparound eyes like Ray-B bands, you know, from the sides of the head, right? almost touching and that is a something that is completely part of you eupfology the whole mythology if you don't believe it or the science if you do of what these off-world entities appear like.
You sound very much like you believe aliens exist that is what I'm I'm getting from you in this conversation 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 for 50 years. Close Encounters, you remember um I made it 50 years ago. Next year will be the the actual, you know, 50th year of its um its release in theaters. It's just the circumstantial evidence wasn't there when I made Close Encounters in 1976, came out in 77. It just wasn't there. It's there now and it's compelling and it's convincing and back I would have I called Close Encounters in 1996 when I talked to the press I called it science speculation. I wouldn't call it science fiction but also I was of a mind to claim to to state seeing is believing and 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.
Do you think they've seen your movies?
Come on. Probably not. But I mean kind of like I'm I feel like their agent and yet I haven't even seen 10% of of of flyover. 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. And it's not just about believers as you are talking about, but it's also about faith in something higher than yourself. It's about faith in humanity and the ability of other people to deal with difficult circumstances.
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 felt that this was an opportunity to talk about, you know, the loss of community and therefore the loss of human connection, the loss of trying to attempt to find common ground with people you absolutely oppose in all areas of of of belief systems. And I just I just have seen this draining out of us. And I thought that I didn't just want to make an alien movie. As I said at the beginning of our conversation, I wanted to do a story about how to bring humanity together again.
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 not just about the themes of faith in your film and the importance of faith in terms of bringing people together, but the actual art the actual going to see a movie and losing yourself and for and forgetting what's going on in the outside world. I I feel like I see a bit of a throughine here.
Yeah. Well, I've been saying like a broken record that that movies build community. So does theater, you know. So so so does 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 us. Um, and it it absolutely is one of the that that is one of the greatest nighters of any culture on the face of the planet.
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 and distract you perhaps from things you don't want to think about for a short period of time. Could you tell that story for us?
I was in high school. and uh 18 and um and I wasn't Vietnam was on television every night on all three networks. So it was something you couldn't couldn't get away from. Friends of mine had been called up and I was waiting in line in the rain in San Jose to watch Doctor Strange Love and I heard a honking. I turned away and my dad was half in the street with his window rolled down gesturing frantically for me to come over and I ran over to the car and he just looked like the grim reaper and he just had 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,
right?
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 get 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 I the movie I got my seat, lights went down, Dr. Strange Love began. And about 5 minutes into Strange Love, I forgot my dad had ever pulled up in the car. Yeah. And given me a letter that could have been a death sentence. And the movie completely swarmed all of my five senses.
Hey, what about Major Kong?
And 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 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 because 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, you know, awe and wonder? Is it uh is it it normal people in extraordinary circumstances? I mean, you've 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 Spilbergian. So could you just articulate that for us and settle this?
Well, that that would that would require me to actually um you know 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?
That would be very difficult. You know, it's it's not a formula. It's not a chemistry set. I haul around with me and and take out just those those you know beers and graduated cylinders that that you know that that works every time. It's it's not 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 film making.
But it it's movies for me anyway is all about it's 80% intuition. And so, you know, I feel that when I'm making movies, the first thing I try to do, even if some of the themes are have have a lot in common with other themes from other films, what I try to do is make a different genre movie every time I I work, I don't want to make the same movie over and over and over again.
In science fiction, I am guilty as charged. I'm science fiction. I have a a thread. I I pretty much really know what I'm doing. But the but the stuff that terrifies me the most are the um genres I haven't tried yet that I that I've I've just maybe dabbled in like like a musical or like a political thriller like I did with both. I wouldn't call Munich a thriller, but that was political or The Post was political. Even Minority Report was somewhat of a political movie. Those are different genres that I've never played in the sandbox with before and it challenges me and it scares me and I've always said that fear is my fuel and the more frightened I am I I tend to be able to get myself out of jams better that way and more creatively.
Especially as audience attention spans have changed like can you just help us understand a little bit about how what you look for to get somebody to want to watch that movie all the way to the end?
Well, 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? Uh not necessarily a star you hitch your wagons to, 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. So, the two most important things for me is premise and allowing the audience to identify and and 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 trusting a character allows you to trust the ride they're taking or the adventure they're on or the 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 you're making me think of this. My dad used to be a screenwriter. He used to teach film and he 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.
MR. HAVLOCK, ANYBODY
Specifically for the reasons you're mentioning just the idea that this world is very clear and the dynamics between these characters are very clear. The father son dynamic specifically.
Dad,
what's important?
Then wait, count to 20.
No, Dad. You listen. Junior
1 2 3 4
in Greek.
You know, I I've spent a a lot of my life working out my relationship with my father. And when he passed, he was 103. And we and and before he passed, we had 23 wonderful years together. But there were years before that that of of kind of I would call it a mild estrangement. 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 McGuffin that I want to make an Indiana Jones movie, George said, where 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 Indie's been estranged from his father, and they kind of have a meeting of the hearts. They meet halfway. And so the Holy Grail becomes a metaphor. The Holy Grail is representative of what you've been seeking for your entire life. The golden fleece of that relationship, the grail of that relationship was really the understanding and the communion the father and son have by the third act of Last Crusade.
You know, film is therapy. Sometimes I'll go into a movie consciously saying this film like when I made the Fablemans, I said, "Well, somebody's going to have to write a check for $40 million of therapy for me. I didn't pay for it."
WHY ARE YOU BEING SUCH A LITTLE TO ME? DAVID THE HELL I'M YOUR MOTHER. I WISH YOU WEREN'T.
It was autobiographical.
Oh, yeah. Totally autobiographical. Very, very accurate to my my own memory of my experiences, my relationships with my sisters, my mom, my dad, all that. But um 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, you know, you know, self therapy. I 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.
What is so interesting about that is the idea of working through trauma in film. I think you've said before that you've tried to in some some of your films, you have recreated trauma to as a way to maybe get power over it. In am I if am I describing that correct?
Well, when 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 produce and wrote. And 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 feel really good that I got some control over my fear. But now I've disseminated my fear on a lot of people I 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. And uh and 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 did Jaws help you with your fear of the water?
No, I'm just afraid now. But but it sure it sure didn't help a lot of other people that saw the movie.
One of the reasons why I think this is so interesting is I happen to be in the middle of Lena Dunham's memoir and she talks about something very similar about how childhood 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 listening to you reading this I'm I 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.
I have I have heard this before when we sit around painting models at GMO del Toro's house on Saturday or Sunday mornings it's all directors this is a what this is a regular A regular thing we do, we paint monsters. These are plastic porcelain sometimes even metal die cast. 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, in our profession, in this in this art. We have so much that in common within the gestalt of of of who we are and why we do this. And it all comes out in the wash of painting models.
And so what what about painting? 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 it's sort of a you know, you're you're you're focusing on on on painting, but you're also really engaged in in conversation. It's like how I imagined the new wave in Paris might have been with Trufo and Benwell. Just everybody sitting around, you know, 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 we would love to be there. I I can only imagine how interesting the conversations that you have and all the things that you might discuss. I'm curious about the audience specifically as as filmmakers who have been in this business collectively. I don't even know how many years off the top of my head from from this group that you mentioned, but what do you think about the ways that the audience has changed besides just attention spans? Like I am 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 a new generation. U I I don't like my company does because I also make movies as a producer. So my company does make adjustments to what we think Gen Z and the new gen wants to see. But in terms of myself, I can only make movies from myself and I don't adjust myself from decade to decade.
I 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 what
perish with thought? It's okay when when the movie's been out for a year but or older, right? What or older but go ahead. But but what do you so what do you lose when you don't watch a movie surrounded by other people?
It's not what I I lose because I can watch a movie alone and I can I can get the same way in a sense when I watched Doctor Strange Love. It was a full house when I was 18 years old. I was but I felt like I was alone watching it because it had affected me and it it excluded everybody in the theater and I was all by myself. That's how deeply the film had grabbed grabbed up all of my attention. But then when I at the end of the movie when 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. The same thing happens, I guess, when you're um in a rock concert, when you're watching somebody perform. You know, it is just infectious. You don't get that feeling watching a music video by yourself, but you get that in a stadium. You get that in a in a in a a venue, even with a couple hundred people. It's just it's 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 an experience. And and it doesn't preclude watching something by yourself. I'm just saying that it's an additive. It's a contagion. It really makes the experience it it it larges the experience. Makes it bigger than life when you watch a movie with people.
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 on on Instagram.
Yeah. Wait, wait. Can you explain more? What do you mean by that?
I'm a foodie.
Okay.
So, I'd like I like I like nine different ways you can make a taco. Okay.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
Um I I just 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 Stephen Spielberg likes ASMR food videos.
I do.
And is it what is it about them? Is it is it the craft of how somebody like are you are you watching this because you're like, "My god, how do they get me to watch a video about tacos?" Or is it the craft that it get 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' I've made some of this stuff.
You made which stuff? The 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.
I can imagine. Yes. As all of us have experienced. Yes.
I mean, my wife right now is into something about about dribbling, you know, a hot fudge over potato chips and making a openf face sandwich out of it. I'm not ready for that yet, but she's been threatening to make it for the last week.
Is there anything you've learned from watching these short form videos on Instagram about food that you've taken to your film making?
Well, there's not a movie in it.
You mean there is there isn't tough film in it. There's not PGO the IP. Okay. All right. Well, 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 ear early early in their career, understand that the way that you get better is by having people tell you that your ideas are not very good and challenge you, right? 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 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 um got started very early. I was dro No, it was Joan Crawford. It was a the pilot of Night Gallery. Oh, wow. Okay. The series. It was it was a trilogy and I directed the center of the three. And um I was just really a kid. I was I just finished my sophomore year. I dropped out of school to sign a long-term to sign a a seven-year contract with Universal to direct television and everybody helped me and the help was fantastic. When I made Duel, everybody was helping me make that better. When I when I made my first film, Sugarland, I had a lot of help from the actors, from Goldie Han, from the crew, they were all there to help me. They they asked me questions. They gave me suggestions. Then Jaws was made and Jaws was a phenomenon and people stopped talking to me.
They stopped talking period.
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. And suddenly it was radio silence because I had made this big shark movie and suddenly nobody everybody assumed I knew everything and didn't need any help. I solicited I went around asking people questions.
Were they honest?
I Yeah, I think so. But they were intimidated. One hit movie and there was an intimidation factor which I had never experienced anything like it before. It took it 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.
Stephen, thank you so much for all of this. We, if I may call you Stephen, I I should have asked you at the beginning of this.
Why not?
Please call me Stephen.
Um, we had envisioned in just the last remaining moments that we would do a little lightning round of questions.
Okay.
So, if you'll indulge us.
Okay.
What is a movie you might redo differently if you had the chance?
Hook.
Why?
No second act. you 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.
Riskiest casting decision that paid off.
Riskiest casting decision to paid off. Oh gee, what what would that be? Um, you know something? I've never 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 is Drew Barammore in ET.
Best movie that you've seen in recent years.
In recent years, it's going to have to be one battle after another.
Why? Why is that?
It was just an intoxicant.
It was an intoxicant. It was about something.
Uhhuh.
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?
ET, what's a wild question. ET I was a little moist, but never slimy.
A little moist but never. Was that an actual directive you gave?
ET was only dry when ET got sick, right? And ET was dry.
Okay. Moist, but not
I've never been asked that question before. Ever.
So, basically the answer is in the middle. Also, all the all the friends I've argued with about this over the years, everybody's a little right.
When I hear the word slimy, I think it's I think it's Ridley's, you know, HR Geer alien with when the teeth come out.
That's slimy.
Okay.
ET never had the tendrils of of of Drool, right? It's true. We didn't go that far.
Which of your films do you like watching the most? And is there a movie that you find it hard to watch?
very hard for me to watch Schindler's List. It was so hard to make, so hard to watch. I understand it's hard to watch for people, too. That's hard to watch. But it's a film that I I couldn't have lived without making. I don't watch a lot of my own movies. Um I I 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 ET is really dying when ET 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 ET ET
Uh 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 um entertainment through 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 Worlds, HG Wells's 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 and if you use it. Now,
let me just tell you something I'm I'm embarking 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 comprehensively. And I am spending part of this summer being AI trained.
By whom?
I 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 any more or less critical of it. I need to know more about it. And that's what I'm doing this summer.
So, you're going to you're being trained to to understand or do what specifically?
I'm just being trained to understand its complexities and also the dangers of AI and also the benefits the what's beneficial about AI especially in terms of science and medicine. And so I just need to know more about it before I can answer that question.
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.
Good. I'm glad to hear that.