Steven Spielberg is opening up about how his parents urged him to make a movie about their lives before they died.
Ahead of the debut of his semi-autobiographical movie “The Fabelmans,” the Oscar winning filmmaker — who’s known for iconic blockbuster hits like “Jaws,” “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” — quipped to The Hollywood Reporter that his late parents “nagged” him to bring the familial project to life.
“They were actually nagging me, ‘When are you going to tell that story about our family, Steve?’ And so this was something they were very enthusiastic about,” the director said.
In 2017, Spielberg’s mother, Leah, a concert pianist and painter, died at 97. His dad, Arnold, an accomplished engineer, died in 2020 at 103.
He continued, “I started seriously thinking, if I had to make one movie I haven’t made yet, something that I really want to do on a very personally atomic level, what would that be? And there was only one story I really wanted to tell.”
Directed and co-written by Spielberg, the upcoming film inspired by his childhood and the end of his parents’ marriage, follows a young man named Sammy Fabelman who discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth, according to the film’s log line.
The film, which Spielberg told the outlet is his “first coming-of-age story,” stars Michelle Williams and Paul Dano as characters based on his parents.
“My life with my mom and dad taught me a lesson, which I hope this film in a small way imparts,” he told the outlet. “Which is, when does a young person in a family start to see his parents as human beings? In my case, because of what happened between the ages of 7 and 18, I started to appreciate my mom and dad not as parents but as real people.”
Seth Rogen, who plays family friend Benny in the film, told People last month that filming was “a very emotional experience” and Spielberg was “crying a lot on set.”
“It’s very directly based on his life and pretty much everything that happens in the movie is something that happened to him,” Rogen said.
“As we were shooting, I’d be like, ‘Did this happen in real life?’ and the answer was ‘yes’ a hundred percent of the time,” he added.
“The Fabelmans” drops in select theaters Nov. 11, and premieres nationwide this Thanksgiving.
