[Editor’s note: The following contains mild spoilers for The Fabelmans, specifically the casting of one cameo.]
When it comes to The Fabelmans, newcomer Gabriel LaBelle knows that everything he’s playing is based off the true story of Steven Spielberg’s life, “organized in a way to fit a script.” But while the pressure of personifying the director as a teenager was real, it did help a little that his character wasn’t named Steven Spielberg.
“There’s freedom in [knowing] I don’t have to do an exact impression, because nobody knows what Steven would’ve acted like 60 years ago. It’s impossible to know that,” he tells Consequence. “But I just wanted to know what [Spielberg] wanted out of this movie — I wanted to know how he remembered his family, what he felt about them back then, how he feels about now, what he felt about himself, who he was as a person. I just tried to understand that to help influence and inspire this character.”
We first meet “Sammy Fabelman” as a very young boy in the 1950s, getting to experience his first taste of the magic that happens in a movie theater. As he grows up (and LaBelle takes over the role from younger actor Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord), we see his passion for making his own films blossom, even while his parents’ complicated marriage eventually leads him to adulthood faster than he’d ever wanted.
The events of the film hew closely to Spielberg’s own upbringing. “You’re very conscious of it constantly, because there’s an emotional scene between him and his mom, or him and his dad, and he’s right there,” LaBelle says. “And what if he doesn’t get what he wants? And what if you mess it up? What if you mess up his life story? That’s horrible.”
But LaBelle says that Spielberg didn’t push him too hard on his interpretation of the character. While the first few days, Spielberg did spend some time reassuring him, eventually “you could feel if you’re doing a good take or not. He was very hands off, like, ‘Yeah, figure it out. You know what you’re doing.’”
The Fabelmans concludes with a bold cameo from legendary director David Lynch as legendary director John Ford, who young Sammy meets in Ford’s office. “You could tell it meant a lot to Steven in terms of the movie, so there was a lot of pressure in paying homage to that character,” LaBelle says. “But it was a lot of fun. It’s really cool to be a part of something like that, because it really is a tribute to film and what inspired [Spielberg].”
LaBelle didn’t interact much with Lynch in between takes, because LaBelle “would be off in a corner pacing in a circle — It helps me. It’s like a white noise for my body, I guess. It gets my heart rate up, and for emotional stuff, for heavy stuff, it helps me drill into this character.”
So, he says, “the only interaction we had as people, was that he gave me a hug at the end. And then he left. But I know that he prepped a lot for that role.”
Gabriel LaBelle and Steven Spielberg on the set of The Fabelmans (Universal)
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