Brett Goldstein says watching Drew Barrymore’s 1982 film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial traumatized him.
The sci-fi family film “ruined my life” when he first watched it as a child, Goldstein explained to the former child star on Tuesday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show.
“I did see E.T. when I was young, and Drew Barrymore, you’ve actually given me PTSD,” the Ted Lasso star told Barrymore, who was just 6 years old when she starred in the film.
The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean
“Not what I meant to do!” the actress replied. “Maybe I can cure that today.”
Goldstein went on to equate his visit to the daytime talk show to “exposure therapy” before recounting his experience watching the film.
“When I was 3 or 4, there was like a re-release [of E.T.], and my dad took me and my sister, and he said, ‘Oh! This is the best film ever, you’re gonna love this film!'” he recalled. “And toward the end of the film, I was crying so much I turned to my dad and I said, ‘Why have you brought us to this?'”
Directed by Steven Spielberg, E.T. chronicles the unlikely friendship between a little boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas) and its titular alien. Barrymore starred as Elliott’s younger sister Gertie, who famously gives E.T. a makeover and teaches the cutesy creature how to talk.
Barrymore noted that she could completely relate to Goldstein’s sentiment about feeling totally crushed after watching a film.
“In all sincerity, I can’t even make a joke, I had experiences like that where a film just destroyed me so much,” she confessed. “And it made me realize what is possible in what we do.”
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She continued, “There is great power in storytelling. I watched [the films] Captains Courageous and The Color Purple, and I remember those two experiences being — I could not function for a little while afterward. So I’m glad to know films, storytelling, can affect you the same way.”
To which Goldstein jokingly added, “Oh, yeah, [E.T.] ruined my life.”
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Released in 1937, Captains Courageous is a coming-of-age film that centers around a spoiled young boy as he adapts to the world around him after falling overboard and getting rescued by a small fishing vessel. The film also notably starred Barrymore’s great-uncle, Lionel Barrymore, as fishing boat captain Disko Troop.
Based on Alice Walker’s 1982 novel of the same name, The Color Purple tells the story of a young girl named Celie as she experiences racism, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and sexism while growing up in rural Georgia in the early 1900s. It was first adapted for the screen by Spielberg in 1985, and again decades later as a movie musical by Blitz Bazawule in 2023.
The Drew Barrymore Show airs weekdays on CBS.
