Page "Steve McQueen" Paragraph 33

He was the first choice for director Steven Spielberg for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

According to Spielberg on a documentary on the Close Encounters DVD, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer.

Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue.

Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the movie, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the whole script.

The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.