E.T. The Animatronic Puppet

When producing the film, the character of E.T. was played by a robot puppet. This robot puppet in the film E.T. is almost just as tall as his friend Elliot. Compared to this toy, which is approximately 8 cm high, it was a large puppet. For the making of the animatronic puppet, the producers hired Carlo Rambaldi, who had designed other aliens for different films before. They also hired Institute staffers to create E.T.'s eyes, which they felt were particularly important in engaging the audience. There were also four heads created for filming, one as the main animatronic and the others for facial expressions. E.T.'s face was controlled by a team of puppeteers using animatronics. There was also a costume made in which multiple people took turns wearing the E.T. costume, depending on what scene was being filmed (Kuta, 2022). One of those actors was a 12-year-old boy who was born without legs (McVay, 2024). The puppet was created in three months at the cost of $1.5 million. Spielberg declared that it was "something that only a mother could love" (McBride, 2012). 

In this video you can see how the E.T. puppet moves and how in different scene's of the film E.T. is played by different aractors.