No blessing has the potential to be quite so cursed as child stardom. It can secure plentiful joys while also exposing children to frustrations and horrors that would break plenty of adults. Now, Henry Thomas from E.T., finds himself contending with regret for the iconic, career-making role that rocketed him to stardom in his most formative of years. Why?
Released in 1982, the classic sci-fi film, formally titled E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, was directed by Steven Spielberg, and starred both Thomas and Drew Barrymore as the child leads. They were joined by Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, and Robert MacNaughton in a wholesome story about friendship between a boy and a displaced alien. But the resulting fame for Thomas wasn’t quite the stuff of dreams.
Now, Henry Thomas from ‘E.T.’ has some strong thoughts about stardom and regrets his biggest role
Thomas spoke with The Mirror about just how disorienting it was to come into international stardom so early in life. He was only nine years old when E.T.—and by extension, the movie’s cast—crashed-landed into pop culture and abducted everyone’s affections.
“My world went completely crazy,” recalled Thomas. “I was that stupid kind of famous, where you can’t go anywhere. It was like that for the first six months after E.T. was in cinemas. I’d go out and get mobbed.”
For some, this sea of attention is the dream. But not everyone’s personality is compatible with that degree of constant, invasive fanfare. “I was a shy kid,” explained Thomas, “and being approached by adults all the time just freaked me out.” Young Thomas connected the dots and, realizing this frightening swarm only surrounded him when he left the house, the already-shy kid stopped going out, and “became an 11-year-old hermit.”
Home life was not quite the escape it was supposed to be either
For a bit, Thomas might have found some sanctuary within the walls of his own home. But even that became tainted by the strain of constant mobs, attention, and more. “My whole family weren’t really well equipped to deal with anything like that,” Thomas shared. So, they just took a few precautions, but otherwise continued trying to live life without any change, which quickly proved impossible. This led to a steady stream of uncomfortable phone calls, along with strange visitors at their front door.
His mother tried not to chafe under the stress of it all, supporting the family as a whole and her struggling son at the same time while processing this new, alarming way of life for her own peace of mind. All the while, the stress really put his parents’ marriage to this test. Oh, but cousins he barely spoke to suddenly revered him.
“She was doing the best job that she knew how to do,” insisted Thomas of his mother.
Even now, Henry Thomas from E.T. does not recommend stardom to anyone, both for adults but especially for children, who he knows firsthand have fewer faculties to deal with such a whirlwind disruption to life as they know it.
Which came of childhood stardom most astonishes you?
