The Pittsburgh Press report on the filming of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Ray Bradbury, George Pal and George Lucas are among the interviewees in this piece about the rise of science fiction from the October 5th 1976 edition of the Waycross Journal-Herald.
Francois Truffaut tells the July 31st 1976 edition of The Phoenix about his role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
“I thought it was a wonderful movie [‘The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz’], but I didn’t like my performance, because I had no experience in watching me for that amount of time. I saw all the things I didn’t do. I didn’t’ see it as story-telling. It took me 20 years to really look at it and see it for what it was.
“Then I saw Duddy and called Steven and begged for the part [in ‘Jaws’]. “Because I thought if that film got sold in America, I would never work again. I called [Spielberg] from New York and said, ‘Have you cast it?’ He said. ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’ll do it!’”.
“Back then [Spielberg] was the uncrowned king. I was a prince in L.A. And I made myself a prince by turning down work. People didn’t do that. I also was a very good actor. But Steven was signed to a contract before he was legally able to sign a contract—that’s how young he was. He directed Joan Crawford before he was 21 years old. One either survives the experience or doesn’t.”
“If you walked on the set of ‘Jaws’, you never would have picked out Steven as the authority figure. If you walked on the set of ‘Close Encounters’, you would.
“The only time I ever bad-mouthed another actor to get a job was Close Encounters, because that was originally written for Gene Hackman. I knew something about that part. And so I would walk by Steven’s office and say ‘Al Pacino’s crazy’ or ‘Dustin Hoffman’s neurotic.’ I finally got the part because I said ‘Steven, you need a child.’ He looked up and said, ‘You got the part.’ I knew he needed a man who had a child-like view. I told Steven once the name of the book I’ll never write is Steven, Have They Figured Out What I’m Looking up in Awe at.’ … (Sharks, aliens).”
Richard Dreyfuss talks about how he landed the roles of Matt Hooper and Roy Neary in Jaws and Close Encounters.
Spielberg is interviewed on TV’s The Tomorrow Show about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This is audio only, but an interesting listen.
Special guest for Cannes Classics 2013 : @richarddreyfuss Merci !
— Festival de Cannes (@FdC_officiel)
The Cannes Twitter feed reveals that Close Encounters, Jaws and Always star Richard Dreyfuss will be appearing at the festival.
