“Your girlfriend turned me down!”: Steven Spielberg’s ‘E.T.’ Story Made Harrison Ford’s Girlfriend Pass Out in the Middle of a Desert

Being a pioneer of modern cinema, Steven Spielberg’s mind is a never-ending bag of stories. From creature debacles like Jaws and Jurrasic Park to heartfelt dramas like E.T. and The Fabelmans, Spielberg never ceases to amaze his fans and lovers of cinema in general.

Even the stories of how he came up with interesting film concepts leave fans intrigued. The filmmaker is on a journey of reinventing the wheel in the way stories are made and told. He is looking at the bigger picture while accumulating all his past learnings to make better movies for future generations to look up to.

Harrison Ford helped Steven Spielberg get the Screenplay Writer on board

Steven Spielberg wanted writer Melissa Mathison on board to pen the script for E.T. Spielberg had the idea and the flow ready, but he needed a visionary writer to bring everything together and give the story a satisfying structure. However, Mathison turned him down at first. At the time, she was dating actor Harrison Ford and working with him on Raiders of the Lost Ark.

When Spielberg got turned down by Mathison, he went to Ford on the set of the movie and asked him to speak to his girlfriend. According to Variety, the actor told TCM host Ben Mankiewicz as they were celebrating the 40th anniversary of E.T. in 2022,

I went to Harrison and said, ‘Your girlfriend turned me down!’

Eventually, when Ford convinced Mathison to give Spielberg’s story a chance, things went differently. The Jaws filmmaker recalls,

Mathison said, ‘You’ve got Harrison so excited about this, what is it that I missed?’ And I think I hadn’t told the story to her very well, because I told her the story again. and she got really emotional hearing the story (for a second time) and she fainted right in the middle of the Tunisian desert.

Spielberg further shared with the audience how E.T. was inspired by his experience with his parents’ divorce. He wanted to create a movie that encapsulated the impact on children and teenagers when they see their parents go through such a tough time. Consequently, the script Mathison wrote is considered one of the best Spielberg and his producer have ever read. They credit the writer with making the movie such a phenomenal hit.

Steven Spielberg revealed why E.T. was shot in continuity

Most movies are not shot in one continuous sequence because of location and logistics constraints. However, Spielberg had a very strong reason to shoot E.T. in a particular sequence, eventually making the movie in continuity. He shared,

I especially shot ‘E.T.’ in continuity because of the ages of the (kids)… and Dee Wallace. The reason I cast Dee was, she had the heart of a child…. So in a sense I cast the child in Dee Wallace to be part of it. She wasn’t really the adult; Peter Coyote was the adult, but Dee was part of the kids’ group. And I wanted the kids to know that what we were shooting now, today, is happening today, and the next three pages of the script will happen tomorrow. What we just shot happened yesterday. I wanted them to actually to live the life of the story, which they did. So at the end of the movie – I don’t want to give it away,

This exceptional technique ensured the actors were well-acquainted with the events of the movie without fearing the emotional imbalances in a few scenes. Spielberg wanted every actor to emote the scenes well, due to which he filmed the story in an order that even the kid actors could familiarize themselves with.

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E.T. The Extraterrestrial is streaming on Netflix.