This is where E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cast are now including surprising career changes
Topics: Film and TV, Steven Spielberg
Thomas Bamford
Featured Image Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images
Topics: Film and TV, Steven Spielberg
It's been over four decades since a wide-eyed ten-year-old from rural Texas looked up at the sky and watched his alien best friend float home in a blaze of light.
Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial turned 43 this year, and the film that once dethroned Star Wars as the highest-grossing movie of all time is now landing on Netflix, meaning a whole new generation is about to fall in love with a pumpkin-headed extraterrestrial with a taste for Reese's Pieces.
But what happened to the humans who shared the screen with him?
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Henry Thomas was just ten years old when he landed the role that would define his life, and complicate it.
The breakout performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination, but the sudden fame was a lot to process for a kid from a small town near San Antonio, Texas.
"I had no clue that my life would change in any way," he told The Guardian in 2023.
"I worked on this movie, then I'm back on the farm, I'm back at school, but now people are pointing at me in the street."
His family, unprepared for the onslaught, had to call the authorities more than once as fans descended on their home.
Now 54, Thomas has carved out a lengthy career in everything from Legends of the Fall to Gangs of New York, and more recently starred as Frederick Usher in Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher. But it hasn't always been steady work.
During the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike, with three young children to support, he seriously considered walking away from it all.
"I was really thinking of getting out of LA to start a farm and raise my kids there," he admitted. He stayed, and has three new projects currently in production.
Drew Barrymore was just seven years old when she played Gertie, Elliott's scene-stealing little sister. E.T. launched her into superstardom, and she's barely stopped since, racking up credits from Charlie's Angels to 50 First Dates, winning a Golden Globe for Grey Gardens, and eventually launching her own CBS daytime talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, which has been renewed through 2026.
C. Thomas Howell, who played Tyler, parlayed his E.T. appearance into a string of iconic '80s roles including The Outsiders, and has continued working steadily in TV and film ever since, appearing in The Walking Dead and 1923 in recent years.
Dee Wallace, who played the kids' mum Mary, has remained one of the more prolific cast members, clocking up dozens of TV and film appearances post-E.T., and has since authored several self-help books and delivered a TED Talk in 2019.
Peter Coyote, who played the menacing government agent Keys, has become an award-winning narrator, winning an Emmy in 2015 for his work on Ken Burns' The Roosevelts.
Perhaps the most surprising turn, though, belongs to K.C. Martel, who played Greg, Elliott's older friend.
After his final Hollywood credit on Growing Pains, Martel walked away from acting completely and now works in wealth management.
Robert MacNaughton, who played big brother Michael and famously played Dungeons & Dragons on set with Thomas (Spielberg apparently asked to join in), made a return to screens in 2015 before stepping back again, appearing alongside his wife in a couple of low-budget horror films.