How after 20 years of talking, Tony Kushner got Steven Spielberg to open up

Tony Kushner co-wrote “The Fabelmans” with director Steven Spielberg. “I found it a great joy to be working with somebody.” On the very first night of filming their earliest collaboration — 2005’s “Munich” — Tony Kushner asked Steven Spielberg when he’d gotten his start. “He said, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’d ever want to do anything like that.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t see how you cannot, because there’s so much in that story.’” It took nearly 20 years, two more joint efforts, many casual mentions, plus a few more serious sessions during which Spielberg reminisced and Kushner took notes — not to mention the deaths of Spielberg’s parents — before the pair finally committed to sitting down and turning their “decent outline” into the script of “The Fabelmans.” For the first time, Spielberg and Kushner would share writing credit, working on collaboration software via Zoom for two months — three times a week, four hours per sitting. Steven has an incredible ear for language, for the music of it, for its subtleties.” Awards How Steven Spielberg scared Tony Kushner into tackling ‘West Side Story’ “I felt I had permission to dig into every corner of ‘West Side Story,’” writer Kushner says of talking with Stephen Sondheim before putting his mark on the remake. “Steven Soderbergh once said directing a movie is making art on the wing of a 747 in flight, and it’s really true,” says Kushner.