Despite Disclosure Day boasting a star-studded cast — including Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth and Colman Domingo — an even bigger name made an appearance on the set of Steven Spielberg‘s latest film: Barack Obama.
Spielberg recently revealed the news when he was a guest on Michelle Obama’s podcast IMO (which she hosts alongside brother Craig Robinson), as he said Disclosure Day was the first set that the former president had ever been on. The two are longtime friends as he explained, “we know each other so well but on the set the kids didn’t know Barack except for what he’s done for the world and who he represents.” The iconic filmmaker also recalled that despite having a “very extroverted cast,” “you could hear a pin drop when he walked in,” as Spielberg had only given some of his actors a heads up on Obama’s visit.
Eve Hewson was not one of those actors, telling The Hollywood Reporter at the film‘s New York premiere on Monday that “I just showed up to work nervous to do my scene and then there was the Secret Service and then [Obama] showed up.”
With a particularly challenging scene on the schedule for that day, she continued, “Imagine your scariest day at work and then Obama comes to watch you. It was insane, but also probably the most extraordinary experience I’ll ever have in my life and I will always cherish it.”
Josh O’Connor, Steven Spielberg, Emily Blunt, Colman Domingo and Eve Hewson at the NYC premiere.
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
Disclosure Day follows a meteorologist (Blunt) and a cybersecurity expert (O’Connor) who team up to expose the government’s cover-up of alien life to the entire world at once.
“If there was a researcher you’d want to employ, it’d be Steven Spielberg. On this subject, he’s incredible,” O’Connor said of the director’s knowledge of extraterrestrials; he’s of course had plenty of experience, having already made a trio of alien movies in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds.
Hewson, playing O’Connor’s girlfriend who aids him in his mission, added, “The whole cast went down the rabbit hole in terms of extraterrestrials and non-human life and we all kind of became believers through the process.”
Disclosure Day hits theaters Friday.
Irene Kim contributed to this report.
