The Fabelmans' Gabriel LaBelle: "You’re aware that you’re on-set with masters"

Hitting Irish cinemas today, Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical drama The Fabelmans represents a late career masterpiece for the superstar director. Focusing on a surrogate teenage version of Spielberg, Sammy Fabelman – brilliantly played by rising star Gabriel LaBelle – the movie explores the character’s troubled relationship with his parents, Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano).

With their marriage threatened by Mitzi’s burgeoning feelings for family friend Bennie (Seth Rogen), Sammy also has to negotiate the issues arising from his filmmaking obsession, as well as teenage angst and, more gravely, occasional anti-Semitic abuse from his classmates. It’s a mesmeric effort, with the family turmoil and socio-cultural rifts hitting on some darker territory for Spielberg, who nonetheless directs with his customary bravura flair.

Unsurprisingly, the maestro received his ninth Best Director nod at this week’s Oscar announcements, with his inclusion for West Side Story last year meaning he became the first director nominated across six different decades. It was just one of a plethora of deserved nominations for The Fabelmans, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (co-written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner), Best Actress (Michelle Williams) and more.

When Hot Press catches up with the affable LaBelle in London, the 20-year-old acknowledges that landing the lead role in The Fabelmans was a life-changing moment.

“I was very of what I was stepping into,” he notes. “These things don’t really happen. In terms of researching the part, I watched as many interviews with Steven as I could find. I also watched documentaries and saw as many of his films as I could. But most of it was talking to him and asking him what it was like growing up. I heard the stories of his parents, and his perspectives and relationships. I was trying to understand who he was as a person.

“I could also watch a lot of the Spielberg family archives, all of the footage that he shot – he was obsessed with filming everything when he was a kid. That was it, mostly. I wanted to honour the script and story, but in terms of the behaviour and performance, that was all up to me.”

Did he emphasise how close to his heart the material was?

“Well, you ask him and it’s about his parents,” replies LaBelle, “and paying tribute to the people who made him who he is. It’s a lot. He’s mourning the death of his parents – his Dad died two years before we filmed, and his Mom five years before that. He’s walking into a set that was a recreation of his family home; his sisters were on-set and it was really emotional for all of them. It’s not just a movie, it’s a representation of the memories they have of their parents.

“They’re mourning their childhood, and nobody other than he and his sisters will ever know what that’s like.”

As you might expect, the actor says that the Oscar-nominated screenplay gave him plenty of material to mine.

“The writing’s really rich,” reflects Gabriel. “I was listening to Bryan Cranston talk on Conan O’Brien’s podcast recently. He was discussing working on Breaking Bad, and he said, ‘If I’m given B writing, I might be able to bring it up to an A. But if I’m given C writing, the best I can do is a B.’ So when you’re given A-plus writing, you have to cherish that and honour it to the best of your ability. It’s nerve-racking because I’m still figuring myself out as an actor, what I need to do to where I wanna go.

“You also want to honour Michelle and Paul, who deserve nothing but the best across from them. You’re aware that you’re on-set with masters – these are people who worked on Indiana Jones, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List. These people watched Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, and they have an expectation of how to show up to set. You don’t want to let anybody down, but you’re very supported, so it works out.”

One fascinating theme teased out in The Fabelmans is the emotional tariff paid for embracing the life of an artist, with Sammy often encountering unexpected consequences for his creative acts. This is starkly laid out for him in a memorable scene with his great-uncle Boris (played by the great Judd Hirsch, also Oscar nominated), who tells Sammy of his suspicions that, as much the budding director loves his family, he loves filmmaking just a bit more.

“He says, “You want to join the circus, don’t you? You can hardly wait!’” says Gabriel, enthusiastically recalling the scene. “I mean, look, anyone who grows up has to leave the nest eventually. I moved away from Canada, I live in Los Angeles now, and my family still live in Vancouver. I’m in London right now selling this movie, and I’ll go wherever I need to go to act. I’ll always call home, but I’m never gonna live with them again.

“There are a lot of themes that anyone with a passion can really relate to. It’s like, ‘Yeah, you have a family, but this is what you want to devote your life to. This is the person you wanna be and the identity you associate with.’ It’s huge to grapple with the morality of that. At one point, Michelle’s character says to Sammy, ‘You don’t owe anybody your life, not even me.’ But I think you do owe people your life, so it’s a really interesting discussion to be had, which I think this film explores so beautifully.

“Every character is going through a version of that – it’s a really beautiful theme that’s unique to this story.”

The Fabelmans is in cinemas now.