Steven Spielberg

I would never play with Stanley because I could only make four moves and he'd mate me, checkmate me.

But when I found out that in the 80s they had made a little, you know, tabletop electric computer chess game...

I sent it to Stanley, and Stanley called me back a week later, and he said, couldn't you have sent me a smarter one?

Couldn't you have sent me a smarter electronic chess game?

Because you kept beating it.

It would take me out of it if Steve McQueen were in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Yeah.

Because I would have too much baggage to unpack from all the movies I've seen.

Right.

You know, from basically from, you know, The Blob to Bullet, which came out that year.

Yeah, I thought it was really smart to hire Gary Lockwood and Keira Julia.

Keira, of course, was brilliant.

Frank and Eleanor Perry's David and Lisa.

And he had a wonderful career.

And Gary Lockwood did some great stuff, too.

I really admired both of them.

But they were more like astronauts who were a little more, there was more anonymity in casting them.

And nobody, William Sylvester was an American living in England, working on stage, and nobody had seen him in American movies before.

I mean, Drew Barrymore became a big star about two months after E.T.

opened.