Who are Steven Spielberg’s great­est artis­tic muses?

The BFG stomps into cin­e­mas the week, mark­ing the sec­ond col­lab­o­ra­tion between direc­tor Steven Spiel­berg and its star, Mark Rylance. Fol­low­ing their Oscar glo­ry in Bridge of Spies, and with the direc­tor cast­ing Rylance in two upcom­ing projects, Ready Play­er One and The Kid­nap­ping of Edgar­do Mor­tara, it’s safe to say the film­mak­er sees some­thing spe­cial in the vet­er­an stage star, the lat­est in a num­ber of actors who embody cer­tain peri­ods in Spielberg’s career.

To find the first such muse we go right back to the ear­ly days, when he was the excit­ing new kid on the Hol­ly­wood block. His third and fourth fea­tures, Jaws and Close Encoun­ters of The Third Kind, would leave an indeli­ble mark on cin­e­ma and estab­lish a cre­ative tone that has made Spiel­berg a cher­ished fig­ure to this day. Both films fea­tured Richard Drey­fus in a promi­nent role – the sar­cas­tic shark expert Hoop­er in the for­mer, and Indi­ana fam­i­ly man Roy Neary in the lat­ter. Nei­ther were hero­ic, square-jawed mat­inée idols fear­less­ly tak­ing on the unknown; they were flawed, ordi­nary men shoved into extra­or­di­nary circumstances.

It’s a qual­i­ty that would fol­low through to his most pop­u­lar cre­ation, Indi­ana Jones. Gruff, reluc­tant and abra­sive, Dr Jones’ adven­tures may have been homage to the adven­ture seri­als of Spielberg’s youth, but Har­ri­son Ford’s char­ac­ter was very much a prod­uct of the director’s own style. The fear of snakes and ten­den­cy to attract trou­ble sep­a­rat­ed him from the One Man Armies and machis­mo of the ​’80s, instead infus­ing more char­ac­ter depth into the brash­est of cin­e­mat­ic eras.

No mat­ter the star, many of Spielberg’s block­busters leads would car­ry some bag­gage – Tom Cruise was a griev­ing drug addict in Minor­i­ty Report, while the male lead of Juras­sic Park was an awk­ward, mid­dle aged palaeon­tol­o­gist who hates kids. As the direc­tor tran­si­tioned from hit mak­er to his­to­ri­an, how­ev­er, a dif­fer­ent type of muse was need­ed. This led to one of his most fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tions, with Tom Han­ks. It was the two-time Oscar winner’s abil­i­ty to bring an every­man human­i­ty to parts that made his per­for­mance in Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan so com­pelling, bal­anc­ing the sto­icism and strength of mil­i­tary lead­er­ship with the inner dam­age the hor­rors of war can bring.

Rare mis­fire The Ter­mi­nal aside, it was a qual­i­ty Spiel­berg evoked from the actor in future asso­ci­a­tions. His dogged fraud detec­tive in Catch Me If You Can bal­ances the hon­est sen­si­bil­i­ties of a law enforcer doing his job, but nev­er so like­able that it dis­tracts from the vic­ar­i­ous enjoy­ment of Leonar­do DiCaprio’s lead. Equal­ly, he brought a hum­ble and per­son­able pres­ence to Bridge of Spies, a plain speak­er in a world of double-talk.

Being part of a Steven Spiel­berg film has usu­al­ly launched or con­sol­i­dat­ed an actor’s career, but not every­one ful­filled that promise. Hav­ing cast him while serv­ing as pro­duc­er on the film Eagle Eye and three Trans­form­ers movies, it was clear Shia LaBeouf was a star the direc­tor saw great things in, lead­ing to his cast­ing in Indi­ana Jones and The Crys­tal Skull. The end­ing of the con­tro­ver­sial film sug­gest­ed his char­ac­ter, Mutt Williams, could have picked up the fedo­ra (both fig­u­ra­tive­ly and lit­er­al­ly) in his own adven­tures, but his per­for­mance was not appre­ci­at­ed by fans. The would-be pro­tégé (who signed on to the film with­out read­ing a script) then turned on Spiel­berg, remark­ing at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val that he ​‘dropped the ball’ on the film, and that he baulked at the film maker’s advice to con­duct him­self in pub­lic like Tom Cruise.

Nev­er­the­less, a forth­com­ing Indi­ana Jones sequel (minus LaBeouf) sug­gests nei­ther film nor star were detri­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing. In Rylance, though, he has found anoth­er every­man, some­one with­out the con­ven­tion­al good looks but with a depth that means they are end­less­ly watch­able. Giv­en that he called Spiel­berg ​“one of the great­est sto­ry­tellers of all time” in his Oscar accep­tance speech. It appears to be a union that suits Rylance just fine as well.