The director’s latest film is a deeply personal ode to family and making movies.

He would know; he once put his head in lions' mouths for a living.

Unlike Boris, Bennie is not actually an uncle.

(from left) Burt Fabelman (Paul Dano), younger Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryan Francis-DeFord) and Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams) in The Fabelmans, co-written and directed by Steven Spielberg.

Paul Dano and Michelle Williams in Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Fabelmans.'.Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment

But there are also pretty girls, and a new kind of unraveling at home to distract him.