Legendary director Steven Spielberg was unable to attend the 2022 Gotham Independent Film Awards on Tuesday in New York, New York after testing positive for COVID-19. Actor Paul Dano delivered the unfortunate news while paying tribute to Michelle Williams at the aforementioned awards ceremony.
“Michelle said, ‘I remember just driving around town looking for work and I thought, ‘Imagine if that teenage girl knew that at the midpoint of her career she’d be seeing a tribute award at the Gothams from none other than Steven Spielberg, and what would she have thought?’” Dano asked, per Variety.
“Then I thought, ‘Well, what if we had to tell that girl that Steven got Covid?’ She’d be like, ‘What’s Covid?’ and that ‘Paul Dano was going to introduce you?’ She’d be like, ‘Who the f*ck is Paul Dano?’”
Spielberg’s recent diagnosis also forced him to postpone a conversation with Martin Scorsese and a screening of his new movie, The Fablemans, in New York.
On a brighter note, Spielberg will be honored by the Berlin International Film Festival in February.
“With an incredible career, Steven Spielberg has not only enchanted generations of viewers all over the world, but has also given a new meaning to the ‘cinema’ as the factory of dream,” directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian stated, per Variety.
“Be it in the everlasting magic world of teenagers or in the reality that history has carved forever, his movies take us to a different level, where the big screen becomes the adequate surface for our emotions to be fulfilled. If Berlinale 2023 represents a new beginning we couldn’t find a better start than the one offered by Spielberg’s great work.”
