And then after Jaws where I thought
"Hey this is great. I've made a big hit movie
and now I can get onto a Hitchcock set."
And the Assistant Director walked over to me and threw me off that set.
And I had a journalist with me too, who wrote the story.
There is no filmmaker in the world that has had such a huge impact on our culture
as Mr Steven Spielberg.
But what you might not know
is that in amongst the billions of dollars of box office, those really memorable scenes
old mate, apparently is a mad keen gamer.
All of which he has funnelled into his brand new movie 'Ready Player One'.
And so we have come to the United States to sit down not just with the cast
but of course the man himself.
The biggest filmmaker of our generation...
I like this.
Thanks so much for doing this, really appreciate your time.
Sure, thank you.
Alright...
Well I'd lean over and shake all your hands
but it's far too far.
So let me just say thank you for doing this, really appreciate your time.
Good, good work.
After all these years, do you still get nervous before you launch a movie like this?
Yes, it's just in my ectoplasm
or protoplasm, or plasmplasm.
I just get...
I always am
I'm nervous when I go to the set.
Because I do my best work when I'm nervous.
And I'm nervous when we have to show our efforts after three years of effort.
So there's always a little bit of anxiety.
What surprised you about stepping onto a Steven Spielberg set?
Something you didn't expect?
It felt like a big family.
I could imagine how big the movie was going to be
in scope and scale and visually.
But I was still surprised by it when I saw it for the first time
because the way the set felt completely intimate.
And our relationships with each other.
And playful as well.
Hugely playful.
I love people and I love working with actors
and we form families quite quickly.
Yeah, and I think the atmosphere just comes from how kind and generous you are.
And how much are all invested in this one project.
I don't think it's necessarily you being like
"Ok I've got to make sure everyone's..."
You're not an onset therapist.
I'm not a therapist.
It's quite well known that you're a big fan of gaming.
But I didn't fully realise how far back that went.
Yeah.
Is it true that on the set of Jaws you and Richard Dreyfuss went hunting
for a machine that would play Pong?
No we didn't go hunting.
The machine hunted us.
It was there, it was plugged into a wall at a carousel.
After shooting a couple times a week we'd go down to the carousel,
and put our quarters in
and play Pong which was a table tennis/paddle tennis game.
And the first video game ever commericially realised.
That was absolutely the birth of my interest in video gaming
Right there. In 1974.
But when I read Ernie Cline's script and I read the book,
the first thing I determined
when I decided I would direct the movie,
when it was offered to me by Warner Brothers,
the first thing I said to everybody was
we have to make a movie that if you've never played a video game in your entire life,
you will understand the movie, you'll understand the story, you'll love the characters
and you'll jump on the ride you're about to be given.
Without ever having any experience
playing videogames.
And that was very important to me.
But at the same time one of things that really powers the movie
and watching with an audience is really telling.
The pop culture references, very different parts of the cinema
got the different pop culture references.
I was curious about,
what couldn't you get?
What did you want to include that you couldn't get in the movie?
I got most everything.
I don't think there was anything that I asked for that we were said no to.
I know one thing was Blade Runner.
We weren't allowed to use Blade Runner
-because they were already making a movie
-Oh of course!
With Harrison and Ryan Gosling, Blade Runner,
so that was the only IP that was denied to us
was Blade Runner,
everything else they said yes.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the first time you were on a movie set,
-you literally sneaked in to Universal, am I correct in that?
-Yes
There is a rumour that I've long heard and I don't know if it's actually true,
but did you, years ago, sneak onto the set of an Alfred Hitchcock movie?
Twice.
Really?
I was kicked off twice. Two out of two.
What did you learn from that?
I was kicked off twice. Two out of two.
I was on the set of...
When I was sneaking around Universal I snuck onto the set of "Torn Curtain"
and got kicked off of that after 5 minutes.
And after Jaws where I thought:
"Hey this is great. I've made a big hit movie
and now I can get onto a Hitchcock set."
and I walked onto the Hitchcock set of "Family Plot"
and the Assistant Director walked over to me and threw me off that set.
And I had a journalist with me too, who wrote the story for a newspaper.
You use computer generated imagery to generate a lot of heart.
And I was wondering if you could take me back
to the first moment you realised computers could do that.
You could create emotional moments with computer imagery.
Well the computer doesn't create any emotion at all.
The computer is a tool.
All the emotion is because the actors put the emotion into their performances
and the artists at IOM were able to translate those real life emotions
into the characters that they're animating.
That they're digitally giving life to.
All the emotion in the avatars in Ready Player One
is because the actors that took these characters seriously
we had the artists at IOM were able to transpose those real life emotions into the avatars.
In a way that didn't lose
not a scintilla of emotion was lost.
because of the talent at IOM.
I love that there's an entire industry dedicated to just you guys and your faces.
Yeah, poor people.
They've spent years studying a lot of my facial expressions
Which is so scary.
"Because we're not together."
"We've never even met."
Of all the different films that you've made, which one was the steepest learning curve?
The one where you learnt the most about yourself?
About myself?
Schindler's List, was the most.
And E.T. both of those I learnt the most about myself.
What did you learn about yourself on E.T?
I wanted to be a dad.
Max wasn't born till '85 E.T. was '81
and came out in '82.
And that was the first time I realised
something I never really even wanted it my life.
I was too much of a filmophile
too much of a Cineist.
But I realised after that movie, I've gotta have kids
this is...
that's life, that's reality.
"Now he suddenly turns to you,
his eyes come open..."
-"Breathing, breathing, breathing, work yourself up."
-"Does this mean their coming?"
"Now work yourself up even more."
"Does this mean they're coming?
"Bigger! Bigger! Does this mean they're coming?!"
"Does this mean they're coming?!"
"Yes!"
There's been so many
young people whose career's you've started over the years
and I'm wondering, beyond talent,
beyond appropriateness for the role, is there something you're looking for,
in the personality of a young performer?
Well I'm looking for not just the individual but it's what they're like together on the screen
and what sparks fly when they are on the screen.
I was looking for kind of a light,
a little sparkle in their eyes that's a little bit different than others
I kinda look at the eyes and can tell about
Really?
The fire in the eyes, yeah.
When he's speaking on his set there is not one person
who has their back turned or is not listening.
I don't know how to quantify that quality but you have it and
it's a really, really powerful thing.
Okay.
Money well spent that is.
That spirit inside of me that I had,
when I was eight years old and watching his movies
for the first time, like E.T or something
that's just something that he's able to evoke in everyone
the cast and the crew and he's a great leader.
He makes it easy to get excited about working on his movie.
Steven, Tye, Olivia
thank you so much for your time,
I've really loved meeting all of you .
Nice meeting you too.
