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F<\/span>or the most part, Steven Spielberg has avoided most of the indignities of the modern day press tour. He hasn\u2019t had to subject himself to any spicy chicken wings<\/a>, or summon any witticisms when presented with a cloche-covered sausage roll<\/a>. Unlike many other celebrities, he hasn\u2019t chosen to promote Disclosure Day by answering softball questions while simultaneously fashioning a Lionel Richie-style clay approximation of himself for YouTube<\/a>. For this he should be applauded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian\u2019s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.\u00a0Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Instead, Spielberg has spent this promotional cycle on something more suited to his stature. A maestro tour, if you will, on which he gets to position Disclosure Day against a body of work that is second to none. Publications have run long oral histories about his entire career<\/a>. He was a guest during the prestigious final week<\/a> of Stephen Colbert\u2019s talkshow. He was interviewed by the New York Times about the exact texture of ET\u2019s skin<\/a>.<\/p>\n Allow Instagram content?<\/p>\n This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That last one really did happen. A clip of the interview has gone mildly viral, featuring interviewer Rachel Abrams straight-out asking Spielberg \u201cWas ET slimy or dry?\u201d before suggesting that this is a decades-old conundrum that had long foxed everyone she knows. To his credit, Spielberg answered the question with tremendous gusto, if a little bewilderment. \u201cET was a little moist but never slimy,\u201d he replied, after shaking his head. He then explained that, while \u201cET was only dry when he got sick\u201d, it would be wrong to call him slimy. Xenomorphs are slimy, he pointed out. \u201cET never had tendrils of drool.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Full disclosure day \u2026 Steven Spielberg.<\/span> Photograph: Steven\/AFF-USA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Now, why Abrams asked this question is another matter. The good faith interpretation is that Spielberg has spent the last half-century in the public eye, and been interviewed so many times that he has developed a tendency to become something of an anecdote jukebox, reeling out the hits unprompted. This is something that afflicts only the truly famous but it can be debilitating. There are, after all, only so many times that a person can hear Ringo<\/a> Starr\u2019s<\/a> \u201cI<\/a> thought<\/a> it<\/a> was<\/a> you<\/a> three<\/a>\u201d story.<\/p>\n Viewed from this perspective, there is real value in extracting genuinely new information from A-list celebrities. The fact that ET is now canonically moist maybe adds something to the cultural conversation that wasn\u2019t there before? If so, the question deserves to be commended. However, if Abrams just asked a deliberately dumb question to the director of Schindler\u2019s List because she knew it would get clicks, then that is another matter entirely.<\/p>\n We must also question why the subject arose in the first place. Abrams\u2019s justification that it was in the public interest, since it had long been a discussion within her social group, rings a little false, because presumably everyone in her social group has eyes and can see perfectly well for themselves that ET isn\u2019t slimy. It\u2019s right there! All through the film! We know what texture ET\u2019s skin is because ET is a visible character throughout the entire movie. As everybody knows, ET\u2019s skin is clearly pleather or pleather-adjacent, like the skin of a Mediterranean grandmother. There is certainly no slime there. If there was, then the film would have included a scene of Drew Barrymore skidding about in ET\u2019s slug trail, or the climatic hug scene between ET and Elliott would have ended with Elliott looking down at his slime-covered clothes and tutting, \u201cThese were new on today.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Visible moisture \u2026\u00a0Drew Barrymore and ET.<\/span> Photograph: RONALD GRANT<\/p>\n But none of that happened so we can reasonably ascertain that ET isn\u2019t slimy and this was a stupid question to ask. Still, the new media landscape loves nothing more than a replicable format, so perhaps this is something we\u2019ll see more of in the future. For all we know, the New York Times is working on a series called Famous Auteurs Answer Self-Evident Questions as we speak, and this time next week they\u2019ll drag Martin Scorsese in to ask if Jake LaMotta had 12 ears, or Paul Thomas Anderson to ask if Daniel Day-Lewis is secretly a mouse. For the avoidance of doubt, I hope this happens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n