Amblin and Universal kept the lid on Steven Spielberg’s auto-biopic The Fabelmans until last night’s world premiere at TIFF which went off with great fireworks as a frontrunner for this year’s awards season.
Quite often there’s a delicate balance for an actor when it comes to playing parts of a filmmaker’s life and brining their own interpretation to it. So, how’d it go in regards to preparation for Paul Dano (playing Burt, inspired by the Saving Private Ryan director’s father), Seth Rogen (as Ben, Spielberg’s uncle and mother’s lover) and Gabriel LaBelle (as Sammy aka Spielberg)?
“You had to ask, he wouldn’t volunteer any information,” explained LaBelle, “Sometime you’d have to pry because it’s very personal, you could see him working out in his own head how much of these issues that ‘I will share, how much of it will benefit the movie and their performances. If you asked, he’d give it to you.”
Dano explains there were “three Steves there at work…there’s a lot of process of discover.”
“We settled into the version of his parents, and into our characters and were we met them. The process was really alive,” Dano continues.
The trio talked with us about how Spielberg emerged from the best sides of his father, and his mother, played by Michelle Williams. Papa “the scientist, the engineer, the computer genius, the technician, and the one who is this Peter Pan, the dreamy artist in his mother,” says Dano.
The Love & Mercy thespian points to a direct example of Spielberg’s parents in Close Encounters of the Third Kind: “There’s an alien space ship talking through music…I think it’s both of his parents right in that moment,” says Dano.
Also chatted above — is the pic’s chilling scene where Spielberg learns about his mom’s love for Seth Rogen’s Ben.
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