Steven Spielberg

speaker

2,912 appearances 7 recordings 7 series first heard May 2026 last heard 3 Jul

Steven Spielberg’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 5.

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Fresh Air · Steven Spielberg · 3 Jul 2026 podcast

I was in college at the time.

And they were announcing the lottery, and we all ran to a friend's apartment, about 15, maybe 20 of us.

And we turned on the TV, and we watched the numbers come out of the drum.

And my birthday, my number was 275.

So right away, I was off the hook.

But suddenly, a number would come up for somebody else.

It was number 19.

And that person would start screaming and burst into tears.

And then another number would come over that was on the bubble, like 110.

And you didn't know whether that was going to be the number that sent you to Vietnam.

But that was quite a day.

I'll never forget that.

You know, I just think I was attracted to the sacrifice and to the gallantry.

War...

It kind of glorifies heroism and Hollywood glorified war.

I knew based on the stories my dad and his friends were telling about World War II that there was no glory in war and it was ugly and it was cruel and it was visually devastating.

And so I thought someday if I ever do make a war movie, for real, it's got to be something that tells the truth about what those experiences had been for those young 17-, 18-, 19-year-old boys storming Omaha Beach, let's say.

So when I had the opportunity to make Robert Rodak's script into a movie, Saving Private Ryan, it can't be a glorification of war.

It's just going to have to be the low-down, dirty truth of what it was like for these young boys.

Yes, I was willing to sacrifice the funding that my own company was provided with by

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