The E.T. Characters: Elliott, His Family, and the Alien Who Just Wanted to Go Home

E.T. phone home. Four words, a glowing finger pointed at the sky, and one of the most quoted lines in movie history. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore. Here’s who was in the Taylor house that stray alien wandered into, who played them, and the candy-brand rejection that quietly built a marketing phenomenon.

Elliott Taylor (Henry Thomas)

The 10-year-old at the center of it all, the first Taylor kid to find the stranded alien hiding in the family shed and the one who forms the deepest bond with him, sharing thoughts and physical sensations as their connection grows. It’s Elliott’s idea to lure the creature inside with a trail of candy, Elliott who names him E.T., and Elliott whose own health starts failing in sympathy as E.T. weakens near the end of the film.

What casual fans forget: Thomas’s audition is the reason the film exists in the form it does. He didn’t perform well in the formal reading, but an improvised scene turned real: thoughts of his own dead dog brought on genuine tears, and that’s what convinced Spielberg he’d found his Elliott.

E.T. (voiced by Pat Welsh)

The stranded alien himself, left behind on Earth when government agents scatter his collecting party in a California forest. He’s telekinetic, able to revive dead plants and heal wounds with a glowing fingertip, and single-mindedly focused on one goal once Elliott’s family takes him in: building a device out of household junk to call his people and go home.

What casual fans forget: the voice belongs to Pat Welsh, a retired heavy smoker in her seventies discovered by the sound team specifically for her raspy, otherworldly voice, credited only after the fact since her involvement wasn’t publicized during the film’s original release.

Michael and Gertie Taylor (Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore)

Michael is Elliott’s older brother, skeptical of the alien at first and the one who eventually helps organize the bike chase that gets E.T. back to his ship. Gertie is their five-year-old sister, let in on the secret early and the one who taught E.T. the phrase “be good,” a line he repeats right back to her in one of the film’s most quoted farewell exchanges.

What casual fans forget: Barrymore was seven years old during filming and had already appeared in a handful of earlier roles, but E.T. is the one that made her a household name for the rest of her childhood.

Mary Taylor (Dee Wallace) and Keys (Peter Coyote)

Mary is Elliott, Michael and Gertie’s single mother, kept in the dark about E.T.’s presence in her own house for most of the film despite the increasingly strange things happening around her. Keys is the lead government agent tracking the alien, identified throughout by the ring of keys jangling at his belt rather than by name until late in the film, and the one adult who ultimately helps rather than hinders Elliott.

What casual fans forget: Keys isn’t written as a villain, even though the marketing and the film’s early tension frame him that way. By the final act he’s the one asking Elliott how to save E.T., and he’s shown quietly moved watching the ship leave at the end.

Greg, Steve, Tyler, and the rest of the neighborhood

Michael’s friends who join the climactic bike chase are Greg (K.C. Martel), Steve (Sean Frye), and Tyler, played by a young C. Thomas Howell a year before he became a star in his own right in The Outsiders. Elsewhere at school, the classmate Elliott kisses under E.T.’s influence is played by Erika Eleniak, who’d go on to Baywatch fame later in the decade.

Remember when Elliott, hiding E.T. from his mother, laid down a trail of candy to coax him out of the woods and into the house, and the specific candy became a real-world marketing phenomenon almost by accident? Mars, Incorporated turned down the chance to use M&M’s, worried the design would frighten children. Hershey said yes to Reese’s Pieces instead, and the company’s profits jumped 65 percent on the back of one movie.

Why it endures

E.T. opened in the summer of 1982 and became the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it held for eleven years until Spielberg’s own Jurassic Park passed it in 1993. It earned nine Academy Award nominations and won four, including Best Original Score for John Williams, plus five Saturn Awards and two Golden Globes. The film was added to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in 1994 as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” and it’s been re-released theatrically three separate times, including a 40th-anniversary IMAX run in 2022.

The honest bottom line

This is a movie about a kid who gets a friend nobody else can see and then has to give him back, and it never once talks down to that grief. E.T. doesn’t stay. Elliott doesn’t get a tidy consolation prize. The ship leaves, the rainbow fades, and the film trusts a generation of kids to sit with that ending instead of softening it. That’s the whole reason it’s still standing 40 years later while a hundred imitators aren’t.

FAQ

Who are the main E.T. characters?
Elliott Taylor (Henry Thomas), E.T. (voiced by Pat Welsh), Michael Taylor (Robert MacNaughton), Gertie Taylor (Drew Barrymore), Mary Taylor (Dee Wallace), and the government agent Keys (Peter Coyote).

Who voiced E.T.?
Pat Welsh, a woman in her seventies with a distinctively raspy smoker’s voice, chosen specifically for that quality and credited after the film’s release.

Why is it Reese’s Pieces and not M&M’s in the movie?
Mars, Incorporated declined to let M&M’s be used, fearing E.T.’s appearance would frighten children. The Hershey Company agreed to Reese’s Pieces instead, and sales rose sharply after the film’s release.

How old was Drew Barrymore when she filmed E.T.?
Seven. It was one of her earliest roles and the one that made her widely famous as a child actor.

Did E.T. really hold the box office record?
Yes. It surpassed Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time and held that record for eleven years, until Jurassic Park overtook it in 1993.

Get the full story of that friendship in our E.T. and Elliott character page, then see who else defined the decade in our iconic 80s movie characters countdown. Every figure above is sourced and dated, the way we do everything on this site.