See footage of Steven Spielberg's parents in The Fabelmans bonus features clip
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When preparing to play a character, actors can turn to any number of places — their own memories, library books, film footage, photographs, and more.
But in the case of The Fabelmans, the cast had the ideal primary source in their director, Steven Spielberg. Along with co-writer Tony Kushner, Spielberg tells a fictionalized version of his own childhood, unpacking the impact of his parents and his early connection to movies on his life.
Spielberg had plenty of material to offer the cast, particularly Paul Dano and Michelle Williams, who play Mitzi and Burt Fabelman, versions of the director's parents, Arnold and Leah.
"I provided both actors with what I consider to be a treasure trove of personal memories for me, not knowing whether those memories would have any kind of personal connection with either Paul or Michelle," Spielberg says in a clip from a featurette that will be included on the film's Blu-ray release. "And histories of what my dad did as a computer scientist and what my mom did as a homemaker and a concert pianist."
The clip, which EW can exclusively debut here, showcases some of that personal treasure trove, including home movie footage that gives us a glimpse of Arnold, pretending to shape a mustache, and Leah, playing with the family dog.
Universal Paul Dano and Michelle Williams in 'The Fabelmans'
Both Williams and Dano consider the footage and memories Spielberg offered essential to their work.
"One of the first tapes I listened to of Arnold — I'm going to paraphrase now — but he says something like, 'Electronics was a way of life for me,'" Dano recounts. "And so right there, it was like, 'Okay, this guy is an engineer to his core.' He was a computer engineer. That's in every fiber of him, since he was a kid building radios, so I immediately started to get in touch with that part of myself or that part of him."
Meanwhile, the part of Mitzi that Williams tapped into was more of a sensory experience.
"One of my favorite things to do was to listen to her laugh," she explains. "It was one of my touchstones that I would use like right before we would shoot. I had so many beautiful home movies of her and just so much footage that was so dear to me that I just watched over and over and over again of her laughing at different ages in her life."
Spielberg was delighted to discover that everything he shared with his cast was as useful as he had hoped.
"I was really, really excited when I found out that they were able to really understand them on a sub-atomic level and prove that to me when they made the movie with me," he reflects.
Watch the exclusive clip above for more. The Fabelmans is now available on digital and hits Blu-ray on Feb. 14.
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