THE BFG (2016): Bill Hader’s On-Set Chats with Steven Spielberg

Bill Hader Tells Stories of His Chats with Steven Spielberg On-Set of The BFG. Bill Hader has recently finished working with Spielberg on The BFG, a Roald Dahl adaptation set to come out next year. On the set, Hader kept badgering Spielberg for stories of movies past, people he’s worked with, and general tales of adventure. Apparently, this was welcomed by Spielberg, who seems to be every bit as much the cool old adventurous grandpa we all wish we had.

According to Hader,

It was insane. Just freaking out the entire time. And he is also a giant film fan and he goes to great lengths to make you feel comfortable around him. And he will honestly, man, you’d be like “Jaws, go.” And he’ll go “All right,” and he’ll just go into an hour worth of stories. He’ll tell you anything you wanna know. He will talk about anything. He’d be excited to tell you. I even asked him, I said, “Okay, in Sugarland Express, the scene with the two cops talking to each other in the cars like this, how did you do that?” He goes, “Okay, here’s what we had. Vilmos Zsigmond had put a rig on a…” And he grabs things and plays with. “And he’s on a rig and so I’m behind them and I have a little thing I’m hitting and that is when we were supposed to go…” And he gets so excited to talk about it.

But he also gets excited about other movies. When we were shooting in Vancouver, we both watched TCM on our iPad. And it was always like “What are you watching right now?” Or “What were you watching last night?” I was like “I was watching Point Blank.” And he was like “Oh cool. I was watching Roman Holiday“. One time I got to fly with him and we were waiting and his assistant came in to the plane. And we said “Why are we waiting?” He’s like “Steven’s in the car, he’s watching Roman Holiday. There’s five minutes left.” And so he’s just sitting there watching Roman Holiday and he came in and he’s like “How terrific is that movie?” He goes, “I’ve seen it 20 times, how wonderful.”

But he’ll tell you stories. He’ll just drop things and he knows how mind blowing it is too. He’s like “Yeah, I remember, we were shooting Raiders and I walked onto the set of The Shining. And Kubrick’s there and everything.” I was like “You went on the set of The Shining?” He’s like “Yeah, yeah, you know, the room where he’s writing?” And he goes, “I went in and I was like…”

And Jaws is my favorite movie. If you put a gun to my head, “What’s your favorite movie?” I’d say Jaws. So I told him that and he just, he literally patiently sat there while I asked him [questions]. I go, “The guy who goes, ‘Oh what?’ Who’s that guy?” And he goes, “That guy his name is blah, blah, blah and I told him ‘You say ‘What? and…” I mean, I would walk away from every conversation just floating on movie geek air and I would come home and wake my wife up and tell her what happened. And just he’s the nicest person in the world. He really is a prime example of how to be as a human being.

Some people just live the dream. Good for Hader. I met him at a Scott Pilgrim screening a while back, and he was completely humble, thankful, and self-aware of his fortunate position of being able to work with all these incredible talents.

Leave your thoughts on Bill Hader’s discussions with Steven Spielberg on the set of The BFG (via Slashfilm) below in the comments section. For more The BFG photos, videos, and news, visit our The BFG Page, subscribe to us by Email, “follow” us on Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ or “like” us on Facebook for quick updates. The BFG will be released in US theaters on July 1, 2016.