Steven Spielberg, who received a lifetime achievement award at the Berlin Film Festival, said that the thought of making new films still excites him at the age of 76, and revealed new details about his planned HBO series. The director, whose credits include Jurassic Park, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jaws, has just completed two films back to back: the semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans and West Side Story, a film adaptation of the legendary Broadway musical. “Whatever gripped me as a child is the same feeling I have preserved all these decades later,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
“When I find a book or a script or come up with an original idea that I think would make a good movie: that excitement … supersedes everything,” he added.
Spielberg, who says he “loves to work and needs to work,” is completing a script left incomplete by his buddy Stanley Kubrick when he died in 1999.
“We’re mounting a large production for HBO based on Stanley’s original script Napoleon,” he said. “A seven-part limited series.”
While reflecting on the previous two years of hectic filmmaking, Spielberg stated that the pandemic inspired him to relive his boyhood in The Fabelmans.
“My mom used to say: ‘I’ve given you so much good material. When are you going to use that material?'” he said. “The fear I felt about the pandemic gave me the courage to tell my personal story.”
Spielberg, who is recognized for his accessible, engaging films, encouraged aspiring filmmakers to begin with the story.
“If you want to be a movie director, first of all, write,” he said. “Because it’s the stories that will get an audience to pay attention to you, not the shots.”