How Harrison Ford saved Steven Spielberg’s ‘E.T.’ and still had his scene deleted

Posted On June 1, 2025June 1, 2025

Steven Spielberg has made many memorable projects over the course of his illustrious career, and E.T. the Extra Terrestrial is definitely among them. Some fans might have watched the 1982 sci-fi classic multiple times throughout their lives, but few people know that Harrison Ford had a cameo in the film, and perhaps even fewer know just how pivotal the actor was to the story coming to life.

By 1981, Spielberg was busy making Raiders of the Lost Ark in Tunisia, starring the swashbuckling Star Wars hero Harrison Ford in the leading role as Indiana Jones. The director was struggling personally at the time, embroiled in a sense of loneliness that seemed to prevail over him, leading him to remember an imaginary alien companion he had once created for himself as a child. The alien was “a friend who could be the brother [he] never had and a father that [he] didn’t feel [he] had anymore,” and became a companion for the fledgling filmmaker as his parents divorced.

Now, as an adult, the director used his loneliness to begin working on a new story, Night Skies, about an alien who lands on Earth and never returns to his home planet. Working on the set of his new movie, his mind began to float towards what the story could become. He told Ford’s girlfriend Melissa Mathison about Night Skies, since he was a big fan of The Black Stallion, a film she had written in 1979.

According to Spielberg: “She said, ‘Well, I’m retired from writing. I don’t write anymore. I’m not interested in writing anymore, it’s too hard.’ I went to Harrison and said, ‘Your girlfriend turned me down. She doesn’t want to write my next movie’”. Spielberg did what all smart filmmakers do, and found himself a way forward. Met with the blockade, he found a way to break through, and used the ‘boyfriend battering ram’.

Thankfully, Ford was on board: “He said, ‘Well, let me talk to her.’ He talked to her, and she came to me the next day and said, ‘OK you got Harrison so excited about this. What is it that I missed?’ I think I hadn’t told her the story very well because I told her the story again, and she got really emotional, and she committed right there in the Tunisian desert.”

Both Spielberg and Mathison worked on the script for E.T. while the director completed the editing on Raiders of the Lost Ark in Marina del Rey. He details that “We would spend two hours a day for five days, and she would go off and write pages and come back. There were so many details for character that Melissa brought into my world from her world.”

The first draft of the script was sent to Kathleen Kennedy, who would go on to become one of Hollywood’s most prolific producers and saw the potential in the story. Spielberg said: “I went over to her and said, ‘I think I just read the greatest first draft of my life — you have to read this.’ And she read it overnight and called me the next day and said, ‘I haven’t read a lot of scripts but this is the best script I’ve ever read.’”

Considering his position as one of the contributing factors to the movie being made, it’s not surprising that Spielberg offered Ford the chance at an acting credit on the production. But if you’re scratching your head wondering why you can’t remember the moment Ford graced the story, then fear not. The cameo was eventually removed from the final cut of the film, but after it resurfaced online, many felt that it should never have been taken out of the film in the first place. Although Ford has worked with Spielberg on many more iconic projects such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, this cameo is pretty special too.

During an E.T. reunion in 2012, the film’s star Henry Thomas, revealed that he was a big fan of Harrison Ford when he got the opportunity to work for Spielberg. Thomas told EW: “When I met Steven, the first thing out of my mouth was I think, ‘I love Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ and my hero was Harrison Ford. I basically was just excited to meet Steven in hopes that I would meet Harrison.”

At the time, Thomas hoped that he would get to star alongside Ford as a part of a cinematic duo. Unfortunately for him, Ford only got involved by taking on a minor part as the principal of Elliot’s (played by Thomas) school. Ford’s cameo featured him lecturing Elliot about the ways of the world while the young boy floated in the air.

Spielberg also commented on the scene, providing details about the hilarious events on screen. The filmmaker said: “He did the scene where E.T. is home levitating all of the stuff for his communicator up the stairs. Elliot is in the principal’s office after the frog incident. We don’t ever see Harrison’s face. We just hear his voice, see his body.”

He added: “Henry’s chair starts levitating. So, as E.T. is lifting all of the communicator paraphernalia up the stairs, Henry starts rising off the ground in the chair until his head hits the ceiling. Just as Harrison turns, E.T. loses control of the weight of everything, and it all falls down the stairs, and Henry comes crashing down to the ground, and lands perfectly. Four-point landing. The principal turns around, and as far as he’s concerned, nothing ever happened.”

When it came to the final decisions, Spielberg chose to eliminate the scene from the final cut of E.T. but watching it now definitely makes it seem perfectly goofy due to all the nostalgia associated with the film. Although the scene was deleted, it proved to be a wonderful day for Thomas, who finally got to meet Ford for the first time.

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