Blessed Are The Geek

Steven Spielberg gives Henry Thomas direction on the set of E.T. Spielberg filmed the movie in roughly chronological order. This helped him capture some of the best child performances ever as the children bonded with E.T. over the course of the film (they didn’t always know what was going to happen next) making the hospital scenes all the more convincing. Spielberg ordered the puppeteers performing E.T. to stay away from the set as much as possible to maintain the illusion of a real alien for the children. In the scene where Michael sees E.T. for the first time, actor Robert McNaughton was seeing the creature for the first time as well. It caused him to jump and knock the shelves off the wall, which was not in the script but remained in the movie.

(picture via Digital Spy)