Drew Barrymore and her onscreen mother in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Dee Wallace reunited and it was the cutest thing ever! On Drew’s eponymous talk show, the pair took a trip down memory lane to gush about the 1982 hit film ahead of its 40th anniversary.
“That was the first day on the set and I’m sitting in this really high director’s chair,” Dee, 73, recalled of a photo of the two of them. “And Drew comes up to me and she says, ‘Hi, I’m going to sit on your lap now.’ And I said, ‘Well, come on up Drew.’” She added, “I mean, I knew you were going to be a director/producer back then.”
Drew then gushed about how “sexy” Dee looked in the cheetah costume her character wore for the Halloween scene in the movie. “I still fit in it too,” Dee exclaimed. “Oh, I bet you do,” Barrymore told her. “You are giving me goals!”
Drew went on to share that she “saw the wires” and “knew the deal” about the animatronic E.T. puppets used on set, but Dee butted in: “Oh, do not believe that for a moment.” She recalled finding young Drew in the corner one day talking to the puppet — as any imaginative child is want to do.
“From that time on, [director Steven Spielberg] had two guys on E.T. at all times, so that any time you went over to talk to him, his eyes could work and his head could go up and down and he could respond to you,” she said.
The actress also went on to recall Drew’s emotional connection to the character of E.T. which made the 7-year-old tearful when E.T. was on his deathbed.
“Being the mother that I am with all the kids that I work with … I went over and I said, ‘OK Drew, now we’re going to go shoot the scene where E.T.’s dying, but you know he’s not really dying sweetheart. He’s acting, just like we are, OK?’” she said. “And you looked at me and you said, ‘I know, Dee. Do you think I’m stupid?’
“So, I picked you up, we walked into the set. You took one look at E.T. and went (crying) ‘Ah, he’s dying, Dee! He’s dying,’” Dee counted, laughing.
In addition to Dee, Drew is preparing to also reunite with director Speilberg plus her onscreen brother Henry Thomas to celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary which will take place this week at the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival.