Steven Spielberg Says He’s ‘Sixth-Happiest Person In World’ After Receiving Best Director For Autobiographical Movie

NEW YORK (VINnews)— Famous movie producer Steven Spielberg said that he was the “sixth-happiest person in the world” after receiving best director for an autobiographical film “The Fablemans” which tells the story of his Jewish family.

“I think … there’s five people happier than I am,” he said in his acceptance speech, which he said he had not prepared in advance out of superstition. “There’s my sister Anne, my sister Sue, my sister Nancy, my dad Arnold and my mom. She is up there kvelling about this right now.”

“Kvell” is the Yiddish word meaning to feel quiet pride in the accomplishment of others — and it’s closely associated with Jewish mothers who are proud of their children. Spielberg’s mother, Leah Adler, a concert pianist and artist, owned a kosher Los Angeles restaurant until her death in 2017 at age 97. His father Arnold, who helped him make his first movie, died in 2020 at 103.

“The Fabelmans,” which also won best picture among dramas, tells the story of a child who falls in love with filmmaking and weaves his family’s Jewish identity into the drama. The character based on Adler is played by Michele Williams, a non-Jewish actor who is raising her children Jewish, while Paul Dano plays the character based on Arnold Spielberg.

During the awards ceremony, host Jerrod Carmichael joked that he watched “The Fabelmans” with Kanye West “and it changed everything for him” — alluding to the rapper’s months-long antisemitic tirade that has cost him millions in sponsorships and led to him becoming a show-business pariah. Addressing Spielberg, Carmichael said, “That’s how good you are. You changed Kanye West’s mind.”

Spielberg’s partner in the movie, writer Tony Kushner, praised Spielberg prior to the movie’s release for the “easy way that Jewishness lives in this movie” and said that this is a “profound part of Steven’s identity.”