The notion of an author writing an autobiographical book is nothing unusual, but it’s extremely rare for moviemakers to tell their own life stories on film. That’s what Steven Spielberg is apparently planning to do with his own next project.
The film doesn’t have a title yet, but a casting announcement from Amblin Partners today revealed that three young actors will be playing the roles of “high school classmates of the young, aspiring filmmaker at the center of the story.” The announcement said the movie was based loosely on Spielberg’s childhood, and will costar Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, and Paul Dano, as well as Julia Butters and Sam Rechner in unspecified roles.
Gabriel LaBelle will play the young “Steve,” as he was known before his screen credit forever formalized him, and Chloe East (HBO Max’s Generation), Oakes Fegley (The Goldfinch and Wonderstruck), and Isabelle Kusman, who will make her feature-film debut in this year’s still-untitled Paul Thomas Anderson film in December, have been cast as his childhood friends.
(L to R): Isabelle Kusman, Chloe East and Oakes Fegley
From left, by Diedre Fahey, Shane McCauley, and Andrew Tomasino.Spielberg became interested in filmmaking as a young boy, often enlisting his neighborhood friends to perform in homemade World War II battle films and low-fi alien-invasion sagas staged in the desert around his home in Phoenix. The filmmaker’s parents divorced when he was young, which profoundly impacted him emotionally and professionally, with the reunion of parents and children becoming a running theme in his Hollywood projects. He has spoken often about discord with his father, who died last year at age 103, and their efforts to patch things up after decades of uneasiness.
Spielberg’s home life impacted everything from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to Bridge of Spies, and he told Vanity Fair last year that his mother’s love of music, particularly the Broadway cast recording of West Side Story, led him to adapt that show as his new feature film, debuting in December.
The filmmaker co-wrote the screenplay for this semi-autobiographical story with Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, who previously collaborated with him on Lincoln, Munich, and West Side Story. The pair are also producing the new film, along with Spielberg’s longtime producing partner Kristie Macosko Krieger.
It’s not clear how closely Spielberg’s film will follow the course of his actual life, or how far along it will go. He famously turned a multiday visitor’s pass into a summer-long exploration of Universal Studios, which he detailed in the video interview below.
Will the new film explore all of those stories too? There’s no way of knowing yet. But only Spielberg could create an autobiography full of potential spoiler alerts.
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