The competition for this job is out of this world.

Steven Spielberg would like to serve as Earth’s ambassador to alien life, despite Barack Obama calling dibs

The competition for this job is out of this world.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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May 20, 2026 11:27 a.m. ET

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Spielberg; alien; Obama. Credit:

Kevin Winter/Getty; Getty; Earl Gibson III/Getty

- Steven Spielberg is entering the race to become Earth's alien ambassador.

- The *E.T. *director revealed he thinks he'd be a good fit for the position, even though Barack Obama called dibs on the role earlier this month.

- “I love Barack. We're friends. I love him. I love his family, but he's had his eight years, you know?” Spielberg said.

Good luck to literally anyone else hoping to become Earth’s alien ambassador now that both Steven Spielberg *and* Barack Obama are vying for the role.

Spielberg, the director who shaped the world’s perception of extraterrestrial life with films like *E.T. *and *Close Encounters of the Third Kind*, explained why he considers himself to be a better candidate for the position than the former president on Tuesday’s episode of *The Late Show*.

“I think I should represent — I mean, my whole thing is it should be me!” Spielberg declared to loud cheers from the audience. Host Stephen Colbert replied, “Everybody wants the gig!”

Steven Spielberg directing 'E.T.'.

Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty

The filmmaker, whose upcoming film *Disclosure Day* also involves aliens, made it clear that he bears no ill will toward Obama in their fictional job race.

“I love Barack. We're friends. I love him,” he emphasized. “I love his family, but he's had his eight years, you know?”

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And, besides, Spielberg’s got some pretty stellar qualifications of his own, too. “I think the whole thing is, I made *Close Encounters*,” he said. “My first alien movie, I was 17 years old, was called *Firelight*, an 8-millimeter. I made *E.T. *and I co-produced *Men in Black* and *War of the Worlds*.”

Colbert interjected, “Now you’re just bragging.”

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“No, I'm not bragging,” Spielberg said, defending himself and his alien credentials. “Here’s the point I'm trying to make: I've made all these movies where I've kind of played an ambassadorial role. They've never shown themselves to me. Why is that? It's so unfair.”

When Colbert suggested that aliens are afraid of contacting Spielberg in case he uses footage of them in one of his films, the director replied, “I have no idea, but I'm available, guys!”

Earlier this month, Obama revealed that he believed he’d make a “good emissary for the planet” if humans ever make contact with aliens. "I've got a diverse background, some experience in statecraft and diplomacy. I'm friendly," the former president said on the May 5 episode of *The Late Show*. "So I actually think I could do a pretty good job."

He also shot down speculation that the government knew more about aliens than it was telling Americans.

“This idea of conspiracy theories… If there were aliens or alien spaceships or anything under the control of the United States government that we knew about — seen photographs, what have you — I promise you some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend to impress her,” he said. “It would leak!”

Donald Trump also beamed himself into the alien conversation, posting an AI-generated image of himself walking alongside a super tall and shredded alien in handcuffs on a military base over the weekend.

Watch Spielberg discuss aliens in the clip above.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Late”