Steven Spielberg: BFG has echoes of my childhood

Steven Spielberg can see parallels between his own childhood and the story of ‘The BFG’.

The acclaimed movie-maker has helmed the new film based on Roald Dahl’s popular novel, and has revealed he can strongly relate to certain themes that run through the storyline, especially the aspects relating to bullying.

He reflected: "It’s the loneliest story I think I’ve ever told. These two lonely people find a way to make a difference. Those are touchstones that attracted me to the book.

"I read it to my kids, and the bullying was one of the things that I painfully associated with my own childhood. And also being able to grow out of my fears and often, when I do, feeling taller than the tallest giant.

"Size doesn’t matter when loneliness is what our lives have meant to us."

Spielberg was subjected to bullying while at high school in Phoenix, Arizona, and at Saratoga high in California.

But his passion for cinema helped Spielberg to find his own friendship group.

He told the Guardian newspaper: "Most of my friends were made through the camera.

"Rather than make friends, then go off down to the soda fountain or go to where the kids would hang out, I would just go home and write my scripts and cut my films. I was pretty much isolated, but I had a hobby that I was obsessed by.

"I would come home from school and I would not go to friends’ houses to play. I would go to my bedroom and I would sit with my little editing machine."