Steven Spielberg, a three-time Oscar winner, revealed on Tuesday that his work has been largely influenced by childhood trauma as he got ready to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Berlinale film festival.
Spielberg, 76, claimed that the experience of conflict in his family and his parent’s split had left him “obviously… very traumatized.”
Because of this, he claimed, “I’d be drawn to topics like ‘Empire of the Sun,'” in which a young child is taken from his family in China and placed in a Japanese internment camp.
“I’m sure had my parents not gotten a divorce, I would not have chosen ‘Empire of the Sun’ as a film to direct,” he said.
The Hollywood A-lister also mentioned that when he creates movies today, he still gets the same inspiration that he did “as a little kid.”
“All those decades later, I feel… the same level of excitement when I find a book or a script or come up with an original idea that I think could make a good movie,” he said.
