Hollywood icon Steven Spielberg has won hearts and minds and multiple Oscars for everything from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to Jurassic Park - but there was still one thing at the top of his cinematic bucket list.
If you're wondering why the man who gifted us action heroes like Indiana Jones and awesome aliens like ET is now directing a musical, it turns out Spielberg has been obsessed with West Side Story since he was a kid.
"It has also been in my life since I was ten years old," Spielberg tells Newshub. "My parents bought the soundtrack and brought it home - the original Broadway album.
"I listened to it till I wore it out so much they had to buy another record three months later. I had scratched the record up that they'd brought home for me initially. I've had this in my bloodstream I think certainly for 60 to 64 years."
Spielberg hopes when people see the newly-released musical West Side Story, they will stop asking him what he still wants to achieve in his career.
"People always ask at the end of the interview, 'what do you want to do that you've never done before', and I always say every time and nobody believes me - 'a musical'," Spielberg says.
"Well, I hope now they'll stop asking me that question after they see the West Side Story."
The casting process was intense. The two lovers Maria and Tony - the leads - were of course key.
Rachel Zegler had never been in a film before, so even just meeting the director at the audition was terrifying.
"The idea of meeting Steven Spielberg was the scariest part," Zegler tells Newshub. "When I met Steven Spielberg, that fear was gone. There was no fear whatsoever."
As for casting the part of Tony? Spielberg did what all good fathers should always do, listen to their daughters.
"I'd been a big fan of Baby Driver," Spielberg says. "I just had my fingers crossed he could sing.
"I have four daughters, they are all nuts about him, in fact at a party, a couple of my daughters brought me over and said 'introduce me to that guy'."
That guy is Ansel Elgort and while he's no stranger to the big screen, even just the audition was cool.
"And just that in itself, even if I don't get this, this is really cool," Elgort tells Newshub. "From then on it was still really cool and it stayed really cool and even right now it's really cool."
You can now see West Side Story and it's on at an air-conditioned cinema near you.
Watch the full story above.
