Drew Barrymore asked Steven Spielberg to be her father while filming E.T.

Drew Barrymore once asked director Steven Spielberg to be her father on the set of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

In a cover interview with New York Magazine, Barrymore, 48, reflected on the bond she formed with the filmmaker while making his 1982 film at the age of seven.

The Charlie's Angels actress - whose troubled relationship with her parents has been well documented - confessed that Spielberg was "the only person in my life to this day that ever was a parental figure".

According to the publication, during filming, a young Barrymore asked Spielberg to be her father. The director replied "no", so she asked him to be her godfather instead, to which he agreed.

"She was staying up way past her bedtime, going to places she should have only been hearing about, and living a life at a very tender age that I think robbed her of her childhood," the Jaws director told the magazine. "Yet I felt very helpless because I wasn't her dad. I could only kind of be a consigliere to her."

Later in the interview, Drew also opened up about her strained relationship with her mother and former manager, Jaid Barrymore, whom she emancipated herself from when she was 14-years old.

"I don't want to live in a state where I wish someone to be gone sooner than they're meant to be so I can grow," The Drew Barrymore Show host confessed. "I actually want her to be happy and thrive and be healthy. But I have to f**king grow in spite of her being on this planet."