It is an October day in the afternoon; Destry Allyn Spielberg (Los Angeles, 27 years old) stretches, one arm above her head, with the Mediterranean in the background, in a huge hotel room. The place is Sitges, the city where the youngest of the Spielberg-Capshaws – her mother is the woman to whom the very famous and Oscar-winning director has been married since 1991, the actress whom he met on the filming of Indiana Jones and the cursed temple, and that, although she acted until 2002, she never did so again in a film by her husband, since then, has come to present her first film at the Fantastic Film Festival, a terrifying dystopia – in more ways than one – titled Please, Don’t Feed the Children (Please do not feed the children). “I expect some very bad reviews,” he says, and underlines the word very bad. He knows what he’s talking about. “I’m tired of being judged,” she says.
Destry Allyn, whose name has cinematic overtones — comes from the original title of the western starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich Destry Rides Again, which in Spain was called Arizona—, he did not plan to dedicate himself to cinema. “It wasn’t in my plans. My life was horse riding,” he confesses. “But then I had a really bad fall, and I hurt my back. I spent a year sunk. What was I going to do with my life?” He stretches out one arm again, and then the other. Maybe it’s a consequence of the accident. “I was looking for something that I could feel the same passion for that I felt for horses. I tried acting. I signed up for theater school, and I thought it was fun, I don’t know. What if I became an actress? “Actually, I wasn’t really excited about it, because I didn’t want to have to deal with the constant judgment that it entails,” he says.
What is it referring to? “Because when you are an actress, as a woman, you are constantly judged by your physique, in case you are not pretty enough, or thin enough for a role. And I’m already judged enough for being Steven Spielberg’s daughter,” she answers. “Hurts. No matter how much you believe in yourself, it hurts that what they see is just that,” he adds. And yet he says he tried. went to castingsbut there was no way. “That is why I have decided to give opportunities to actors who are starting out. Because even though she was Spielberg’s daughter, she wasn’t able to get a role,” she says. The protagonists of Please, Don’t Feed the Children They are very young and unknown performers. “We shot the film in 18 days, almost the entire casting They were minors with no experience, it has been a real miracle,” he says.
There are two well-known names, however, in the film. One is Giancarlo Esposito—the Gus Fring of Breaking Bad, who has revolutionized the Sitges Festival this year with her presence: she has come to collect a Time Machine Award for her career in the genre—, who has a tiny role, and another is that of Michelle Dockery, known for the series Downton Abbey. For Spielberg, the role of Dockery – an evil housewife, who prepares poisoned cookies and keeps children in her house like the witch in a Grimm fairy tale – has a lot of Coraline’s Other Mother, the film that is based on the book by Neil Gaiman. “My inspiration comes from animated films,” he admits. From animated cinema – he mentions Spirited Away— and Stanley Kubrick. Your favorite movie of all time is The glow.
“Every time I see her she tells me something different. I like Kubrick’s cinema because it hides things. There are secrets everywhere that you only discover through viewings. I love when you watch a movie again and suddenly everything you believed about it changes,” he explains. But he admits that he hasn’t seen much film. She’s not a big reader either. “In fact, I’m not a reader at all,” she confesses. “But I’ve spent a lot of time on film sets. As a child I remember filming. I didn’t go to a normal school: I used to study at home, and since I was the youngest of seven, well, the others already had their lives when I was still with my parents, so they took me with them. And I think I know more about how movies are made than about movies,” he says. That’s why, he believes, he had the kind of revelation he had when he got behind the camera for the first time.
“What if I direct it?”
What happened is that, “with a friend, we decided to write our own script and star in our own movie, because they weren’t calling her for any role either. And when we had everything, since we couldn’t afford a director, I said to myself: ‘What if I direct it?’ And then I realized I knew how it all worked. That, unconsciously, I had learned to be behind the camera, and I no longer want to be in front of it,” he recalls. She is not referring to the short film she directed later, the one written by Owen King, Stephen King’s son, and starring Hopper Penn, Sean Penn’s son, and for which she was accused of nepotism, but to something she did before. “What do you expect? Of course I am a daughter of, But what do I do, am I born again to stop being? Do I ask the oneup there that makes me the daughter of other people? Hey, Lord, can I really start from scratch? No matter what I did, they would judge me, so who cares,” he says.
That’s why it has a purpose, he says. “I know what it’s like not to be seen: when I wanted to be an actress and no one hired me, not even as a Spielberg. I know what it’s like to believe you’re worth something and no one is noticing. That’s why I want to promote careers, work with people who haven’t done anything before. Discover new talents. I want the privilege and curse of being seen as I am now to count for something. Because cinema is not about yourself. Cinema is about creating a team. A small family,” he says. And speaking of family, have your parents seen the movie? “Not my mother yet. But my father does. He gave me a hug when he finished it. I know you are proud. But I know there are things you don’t like. He gave me advice, and I followed it. We did what we could with what we had. The next one will be better,” he assures. The next one is already underway. The only thing he can say about it is that it will be a murder mystery film.