NEED TO KNOW
Steven Spielberg may have already been a fully grown man by the time he made Jaws in 1974, but he still needed his mom.
In National Geographic’s new documentary Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, Spielberg recalls calling his mother — musician, artist and restaurateur Leah Adler, who died in 2017 at age 97 — when he was having a particularly hard time on set.
“I talked to my mom a lot,” Spielberg says, adding with a smile, “I mean, I was talking to my mom kinda like, ‘Mommy, this is really impossible, help!’ ”
The making of Jaws was plagued with widely known issues, which the filmmaker has been open about and discusses in detail in the documentary, including how it affected his mental health.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.
Zanuck/Brown Productions/Universal Pictures / Album
And while Spielberg “never once felt like I wanted to quit” his work on Jaws despite the issues, he admits he “was terrified I was gonna be fired.”
“At one point, Sid Sheinberg, who ran the studio, flew to Martha’s Vineyard just to assess the damage,” he recalls. “And he said, ‘I’m not sure this is possible, finishing the film this way. What do you think we should do?’ ”
“I just said, ‘No, I wanna go — I wanna finish it. I can finish this movie,’ ” Spielberg says.
Aside from his mother over the phone, Spielberg says in the documentary that he had in-person support in another young filmmaker: Martin Scorsese.
“Scorsese used to come over to the set from New York. He’d fly down to Martha’s Vineyard. And he’d just sit there feeling sorry for me,” Spielberg says, laughing. “We would commiserate.”
He also had to deal with his fair amount of naysayers outside of those who made decisions concerning Jaws’ production, including one Hollywood actor who told him, when they were 20 days behind schedule, ” ‘Everybody is talking about [how] you’re never gonna get a job after this movie because you’re irresponsible with budget.’ ”
“This actor was so sure I would never work again, they didn’t care if they told me that,” Spielberg says of the “demoralizing” comment. “It was a very mean thing, by the way, to do.”
The PEOPLE App is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more!
Looking back five decades on, Spielberg can see the bigger picture, and feel the pride. As he explains in Jaws @ 50, “To me, Jaws was a life-altering experience.”
“On the one hand, it was a traumatizing experience for me that was mostly about survival. And I think all of us feel we survived something,” he continues. “And I just hope that all the people who worked on Jaws wore that experience proudly, like a badge of honor.”
Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story premieres Thursday, July 10, on National Geographic, and will be streaming the following day on Disney+ and Hulu.
