The Bearded Trio

"I've seen enough, you're fantastic!" - Steven Spielberg One of the great stories from E.T. the Extra‑Terrestrial is how a young C. Thomas Howell ended up playing Tyler, one of the boys in Michael's friend group. According to Howell, the role originally belonged to “a Mormon kid” but when the parents discovered the character had to smoke a cigarette on screen, they pulled him from the production. Suddenly, the door opened for Howell who wasn’t a smoker at all to step into a Spielberg film no less. “I learned to smoke cigarettes on the ride to the audition.” said Howell. In one retelling, Howell says that when he arrived at Steven Spielberg’s office, the director asked him straight out whether he could smoke. Howell, determined to prove he could handle the scene, pulled out a pack of Marlboros and put one between his lips. Before he could even strike a match, Spielberg stopped him. “I’ve seen enough, you’re fantastic.” The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spie...

Steven Spielberg's First Experience With D&D Ends Quickly It is known that Steven Spielberg likes to get to know his cast members when directing a movie, and that was no exception when filming E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.  When the cast were in Northern California he made the extra effort to get to know the kids. During the filming of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Steven Spielberg turned up unannounced to play Dungeons & Dragons with Robert MacNaughton and Henry Thomas while they were staying at a motel.  Steven had never played the game before so MacNaughton created a new character for the director.   Steven Spielberg's first experience with D&D was a bad roll. Robert MacNaughton recalls: "He rolled the dice and of course it's all random, but the very first thing that happens - he comes across a giant snail and gets killed.  He rolled a one, which is basically death.  Henry and I still laugh about that to this day because I started freaking out be...

What an absolutely fantastic photo featuring some of the talent that brought us E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.  (Thank you to Lauren Marems who was a sculptor for the movie for sending it across.) The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

E.T's Original Ending Featured Dungeons & Dragons We all love E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial from start to finish   and that ending will have us all in tears.  That goodbye scene and that magical John Williams score is the perfect ending to the 1982 Steven Spielberg classic.  But did you know that the ending was going to be completely different?  Spielberg had a different idea to the ending and it was, in a way thanks to the epic music by John Williams that gave us the ending we all love. Robert MacNaughton who played Michael, Elliott's older brother in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial had this to say about the ending in an interview with Yahoo Movies back in 2019: “The last scene was going to be all of us playing Dungeons & Dragons again, except this time, Elliott’s the dungeon master. Because he was the one that found ET, he sort of got in with the group. [...] And then they would pan up to the roof and you’d see the communicator and it’s still working — in other wor...