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Sun 2 August 2026 0:30, UK
For the last 50 years, any director would gladly welcome Steven Spielberg onto their set, just for the chance to shoot the breeze and pick the brains of one of cinema’s greatest directors.
Even in his younger days, his reputation as the wunderkind who single-handedly transformed the very nature of the industry with Jaws would have given him the leeway to go wherever he pleased, especially when that production was shooting on his erstwhile home turf of the Universal Studios backlot.
Then again, he may have been getting a little too big for his boots after Jaws turned Hollywood upside down, with Spielberg operating under the impression that he could do whatever he wanted. In some ways, he absolutely could, but that didn’t extend as far as meeting one of his heroes.
Ever since he was a wide-eyed kid growing up obsessed with cinema, he’d been a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock. As one of the best and most influential auteurs in history, that was completely understandable, with the up-and-comer thinking he could use his newfound status to wrangle his way into a meeting.
Spielberg could have gone through the official channels, but he didn’t. Instead, he decided that the ‘Master of Suspense’ shooting 1976’s Family Plot, with production beginning in May 1975, weeks before Jaws swam its way to record-breaking and history-making success, was the ideal opportunity.
“I tried to meet Hitchcock several times; he wouldn’t meet me,” the director sighed. “And then, after Jaws came out, I thought I had a little more chance to meet Hitchcock, because it became a big hit that summer. And he was shooting a movie right around the time in 1975 when Jaws came out.”
He was indeed, but whereas Spielberg saw it as fate or destiny, Hitchcock saw it more as an inconvenience. When the interloper swung by the Family Plot set unannounced, he didn’t meet Hitchcock. It doesn’t even sound as if they made eye contact, with the Psycho and Vertigo mastermind waving his version of a magic wand to get the new kid on the block to fuck off.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
“I noticed that Hitchcock made a gesture with his hand,” the three-time Academy Award winner remembered. “And an assistant director came running over, and Hitchcock whispered something to the AD, and the AD turned and looked right at me, walked right over, and said, ‘You have to leave.’”
That was the closest Spielberg ever came to meeting one of his heroes, but at least they got to breathe the same air for a few seconds. Hitchcock couldn’t have cared less about the exuberant youngster’s long-held wish to speak to him, and he didn’t even bother getting out of his seat to get rid of him.
