Steven Spielberg has contracted COVID-19, forcing him to miss out on an award show appearance on Monday night. The 75-year-old filmmaker announced that he could not attend the Gotham Awards in New York City because of his illness. According to a report by Deadline, Spielberg was meant to introduce a special tribute to actress Michelle Williams.
Spielberg did not appear at the Gotham Awards on Monday, but he was replaced by actor Paul Dano. During his introduction for Williams, Dano divulged that Spielberg was at home dealing with a case of coronavirus. He managed to work the news into his speech, recounting a conversation he had with Williams about their struggles to break into the acting business, years before they worked together on Spielberg’s movie The Fabelmans.
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“Michelle said, ‘I remember just driving around town looking for work,’” Dano remembered. “And I thought, ‘imagine if that teenage girl knew that at the midpoint of her career she’d be seeing a tribute award at the Gothams from none other than Steven Spielberg, and what would she have thought?’ …And then I thought, ‘Well, what if we had to tell that girl that Steven got COVID?’ She’d be like, ‘What’s COVID?’ And that Paul Dano was going to introduce you?’ She’d be like, ‘Who the f- is Paul Dano?’”
This delivery got some chuckles for Dano, who did not mention Spielberg or his absence again. There were no other mentions of Spielberg during the show, but reporters confirmed that he was not in attendance. Some critics worried that Spielberg’s recovery and isolation period might impact the promotion of his new movie The Fabelmans, which is vying for award show slots as we speak.
The Fabelmans is a coming-of-age drama directed by Spielberg and co-written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner. It is loosely based on Spielberg’s adolescence and his early years as a professional filmmaker, though the plot reportedly deviates a great deal from his real life. Gabriel LaBelle plays Sammy Fabelman, the character based on Spielberg, while Williams plays Sammy’s mother Mitzi Schildkraut-Fabelman. Dano plays Sammy’s father Burt Fableman, while Seth Rogen plays Sammy’s surrogate uncle Bennie Loewy.
Spielberg will likely recover from COVID-19 in time to attend other important events during award season, but his diagnosis has some organizers nervous about the surge in cases to come. Test positivity in Los Angeles has reportedly doubled in the last week, and indoor holiday gatherings have not even been accounted for yet. As always, the CDC has information on local COVID-19 safety guidelines.
