Steven Spielberg's Acting Advice To Josh O'Connor Was Too Good To Be True

The annals of filmmaking history are full of stories about great directors' notes helping actors instantly unlock scenes. Gary Oldman told "Happy Sad Confused" that, while filming a scene for one of his Batman movies, Christopher Nolan gave him this advice: "There's more at stake." Oldman immediately understood the assignment. Now, Josh O'Connor can claim to have received just as good a note from Steven Spielberg during the filming of his upcoming alien-invasion movie "Disclosure Day." That is, he can almost claim to have received such a note, as it turns out Spielberg's ingeniously terse words of advice were too good to be true.

In an interview with the Associated Press, O'Connor claimed to have "the greatest Steven Spielberg story," to the extent he was "punching the air" when he realized how good a tale it would be for the "Disclosure Day" press tour. "I was halfway through the shoot, and we had a scene coming up, which is quite an emotional scene," he explained. "And I was struggling with it. I was in my hotel room trying to prep." O'Connor reached out to Spielberg, and they discussed the scene. "I felt quite satisfied, but not completely with it," the actor continued, adding:

"Then I got a text from him quite late at night, just saying, 'The door is on the latch, just push.' And it made so much sense. I was like, 'Of course.' The character's kind of got all this emotion, it's built up and it's like a door on the latch and you just push and it all comes out and it's an emotional release. I was so thrilled with that note."

In this moment, Spielberg's years of experience had seemingly coalesced to produce this effortless aphorism just for Josh O'Connor. Except that's actually not what happened.

As Josh O'Connor explained to the Associated Press, when he returned to the "Disclosure Day" set the day after receiving that illuminating text from Steven Spielberg, he discovered that the revelatory pearl of wisdom was really something else entirely. "I came in the next day and said, 'Steven, you totally unlocked it for me, that was amazing,'" he recalled. "And [Spielberg] was like, 'What are you talking about?' I said, 'The text about 'the door on the latch just push' it's incredible.' And he laughed and said that the text was supposed to be for his wife."

According to O'Connor, as you might expect, this whole thing became "a very big joke" on-set. Still, the actor credits Spielberg's unintentional advice with helping him. "It did unlock the scene for me, so, fair play," he said. Sadly, Spielberg's simple note for "Jurassic World Rebirth" wasn't quite as effective, judging by how the movie turned out. Perhaps he should repurpose texts to his wife as filming notes more often.

O'Connor plays cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner in Spielberg's upcoming UFO movie, and while details remain somewhat sparse ahead of the film's release, the "Disclosure Day" trailer has promised the revelation of an Earth-shattering conspiracy that brings the planet to a standstill. 

Just which scene the actor was struggling with similarly remains unclear, but it will be fun to try to spot it when "Disclosure Day" lands in theaters June 12, 2026