Henry Thomas Shares Details About “E.T.” Deleted Scene Featuring Harrison Ford and the Actor's Requirement to Film It

Virginia ChamleeWed, March 25, 2026 at 4:22 PM UTC

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Henry Thomas (left), Harrison Ford)Credit: Victoria Sirakova/Getty; VALERIE MACON / AFP via Getty -

Henry Thomas recalled a scene for E.T. that he shot with Harrison Ford

While Ford shot the cameo without revealing his face, it never made the final cut of the film

In a new interview, Thomas explained how Ford's cameo came to be and what the scene was like

Henry Thomas is recounting a brief cameo Harrison Ford made in 1982's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — which was left on the cutting room floor.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter's It Happened in Hollywood podcast, 54-year-old Thomas noted that Ford — a close friend of director Steven Spielberg — was dating the movie's screenwriter, Melissa Mathison, at the time E.T. was filmed.

"Harrison was on set quite a bit," Thomas recalled. "And of course, with his history with Steven and everything... Steven was always bugging him. You know, he wanted to put him in the movie, and Harrison was like, 'No, no, I don't wanna I don't wanna do it.' "

Henry Thomas on the set of "E.T.".Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty

— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.He continued: "But [Spielberg] finally got him to play the principal. And the only the condition was that Harrison didn't want to be seen. He didn't want his face to be shown. He just wanted to talk and have his hands in the movie. So it was a fun day."

Thomas explained that in the scene, his character Elliot walks into the principal's office and Ford, 83, "kind of spins his chair around."

"We just see the back of his chair and his hands," Thomas explained, saying that at the time E.T. was "drunk on beer at home." As a result of his bond with Elliot, the child "starts levitating in the chair, and he's, like, floating up in the principal's office to the ceiling."

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He continued: "And then he just comes down and lands, like, right when Harrison Ford turns around so that he never notices."

Thomas said filming with Ford was especially exciting considering he was such a big fan of Indiana Jones — so much so that he paid homage to the character when he first met Spielberg.

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"I met Steven the day before, on the set of Poltergeist ... I had a bullwhip tied to my waist because because, you know, Indiana Jones was my hero at the time," he said.

Thomas continued, added, "I loved that film. I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark ... So when I knew I was meeting Spielberg, I really just thought, 'Well, I'm gonna ask him. I'm gonna talk to him about Raiders of the Lost Ark.' And I was very disappointed when he met me on the set, and he didn't say anything about my bullwhip."

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