Before E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial became the most beloved alien movie ever made — before it dethroned Star Wars at the box office, before kids everywhere pointed glowing fingers at each other in suburban backyards — Henry Thomas thought he’d already lost the part.
“I felt like I had done the worst job possible,” Thomas says on The Hollywood Reporter’s It Happened in Hollywood podcast. “I thought I blew it the minute I opened my mouth.”
What happened next is now the stuff of Hollywood legend. Steven Spielberg, unsatisfied with the scripted read, pivoted. Forget the sides, he said. He gave the 10-year-old actor a scenario: Your best friend is being taken away. And so Thomas didn’t act — he remembered.
He thought about his dog — killed by a neighbor’s dog in front of him as a child — and collapsed into something raw enough to make Spielberg cry. “That’s what you see,” he says now. “I just plugged into that.” Spielberg didn’t hesitate: “OK, kid, you got the job,” he said, casting Thomas as Elliott, the suburban child hero of the film.
The performance that followed would define a generation. But at the time, almost no one — not even the — believed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial would be a hit.
“It was kind of like, ‘Go off and do this little movie,’” Thomas recalls. The prevailing wisdom, shaped by Alien, was that audiences wanted monsters, not something gentle and homesick. “They assumed the mean alien would do better,” Thomas explains, referring to John Carpenter’s much-anticipated The Thing, released two weeks after E.T. on June 25, 1982.
The Thing would flop — though go no to become a much-admired classic. But E.T. made $793 million — $2.5 billion in today’s dollars — enough to dethrone Star Wars, then the box office record holder with $775 million in ticket sales.
The film clicked with audiences young and old because Spielberg made a film about loneliness, childhood and loss — and built its emotional core on a child who didn’t even think the script sounded exciting. “No lightsabers, no space battles,” Thomas remembers thinking. “My 10-year-old brain was like, ‘This doesn’t seem that exciting.’”
On set, Spielberg attempted something radical: preserve the illusion. He shot largely in sequence, kept technical details hidden and encouraged the young cast to treat E. T. as real. For Drew Barrymore, who played Elliot’s little sister, it worked. She’d wrap the animatronic creature in a scarf so it wouldn’t get cold.
For Thomas, it was harder. The illusion broke under the mechanics — whirring servos, inflatable bladders, multiple versions of the creature. The breakthrough came from somewhere else entirely: a mime named Caprice Roth, who performed E.T.‘s hands.
In the film’s devastating farewell, Thomas wasn’t acting opposite a puppet. He was saying goodbye to her. “That’s what made it real,” he says. “It’s always a human connection.”
That human connection is what made E.T. endure. It’s also what made it devastating. Spielberg pushed the film to the brink of something most family movies avoid: death.
The famous “death” scene, in which E. T. turns pale and lifeless while Elliott sobs over him, remains one of the first times many viewers confronted grief. And then, just as suddenly, resurrection. The flower revives. The heart glows. Relief floods in.
Spielberg, the great manipulator, had done it. But while audiences processed grief and catharsis in the dark, the film’s young star was about to experience a far more disorienting aftershock.
“I wasn’t ready for the fame,” Thomas admits. “I had never even thought about being famous.” One week, agencies wouldn’t return his calls because he lived in Texas. Two weeks later, after E.T. hit No. 1, “my phone started ringing.”
He stayed in Texas anyway — a decision that may have saved him. While some of his co-stars spiraled under the weight of early fame, Thomas drifted in and out of the industry on his own terms, building a career that was anything but conventional.
“There were times where everything was great and times where you couldn’t get arrested, ” he says. “You realize it’s all cyclical.”
More than four decades later, E. T. hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s grown. The first generation of merchandising may have been an afterthought — “little stuff they could produce quickly, ” he says — but the emotional imprint was permanent.
It’s still the rare blockbuster that feels handmade, intimate and deeply personal. A story about a boy and a creature, yes, but really about absence, longing and the fragile magic of connection. Or, as Thomas puts it, with the clarity of someone who’s lived both the illusion and the aftermath.
“We all get born and we all die. You don’t get a rule book,” he says. Somewhere in between, if you’re lucky, you make something that lasts forever.
Conversation highlights:
You’ve said you didn’t expect E. T. to be a hit. But it was Spielberg. Didn’t that signal something big?
It was a big deal to work with Steven, of course. He’d done Jaws, Raiders, Close Encounters. Everybody knew who he was. But E. T. felt like a smaller, more personal project. The studio basically said, “Go off and do this with your friends,” and gave him $10 million. At the time, the idea of an alien movie meant something like Alien, something scary. I think they assumed a mean alien would connect more than a gentle one. No one really knew how audiences would react to something this tender.
Your audition has become legendary. What actually happened in that room?
What people see online is only the second half. First I read dummy sides and felt like I completely blew it. If you watch the tape, I’m looking down at the start because I thought I’d lost the part. Then Spielberg and casting suggested we try an improv: I had a friend the government was taking away. The only thing I could connect it to was losing my dog as a kid. I saw it happen, and it was traumatic. So I just went there emotionally. When Steven said, “Okay, kid, you got the job,” I was shocked.
Did you even know what the movie was about at that point?
No. I didn’t know anything about the story until a couple of weeks before filming. They kept everything very secret. When I finally read the script, I remember being a little disappointed. There were no lightsabers, no space battles. My 10-year-old brain was like, “This doesn’t seem that exciting.”
Spielberg famously tried to preserve the illusion of E. T. for the kids. Did it feel real on set?
That was the intention, and to a degree it worked. Drew Barrymore was young enough that she really believed in E. T. sometimes. She’d wrap a scarf around him so he wouldn’t get cold. For me, it was harder. I knew it was a construction. There were multiple versions of E. T., lots of mechanics, and it could be noisy and distracting. What made it real for me was a mime named Caprice Roth, who performed his hands. In the goodbye scene, I was really saying goodbye to her. That human connection is what sells it.
What do you remember about working with Spielberg as a director?
He was incredibly hands-on. He’d talk to me constantly, even during takes, adjusting things on the fly. It was so ingrained that when I first saw the finished film, I thought I could still hear his voice in it. I told Kathleen Kennedy, “You’ve got to take Steven’s voice out.” She said, “Henry, it’s not there.” But it felt like it was.
You became one of the most famous kids in the world almost overnight. How did you handle that?
Not very well. I wasn’t ready for it and never saw it coming. The first time someone recognized me, it felt bizarre. And then there was this pressure to follow it up. I stayed in Texas for a long time, which in hindsight probably helped. I didn’t approach my career in a strategic way. It was always about the experience or the people. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t.
You’ve had a remarkably steady career. Was that intentional?
Not really. I just kept going. There were periods where things were great and periods where it felt like you couldn’t get arrested. You realize eventually it’s all cyclical. You don’t get a rule book. You just keep showing up.
Looking back now, what does E.T. mean to you?
It’s strange because it’s so far behind me now, but it’s also something people never stopped loving. It stayed in theaters for over a year around the world. That kind of connection is rare. I think it’s because at its core, it’s about something very simple and human. And that’s what people respond to.
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