Versitile, charming and prolific, Dee Wallace’s first acting role was as the baby Jesus in a church production put on by her mother. Since then, she’s gone on to star in more than 100 cinematic and televised works, most memorably as TV’s “Police Woman,” and on the big screen in “The Howling,” Stephen King’s “Cujo” and as Elliot’s Mom in a little film called “E.T.” Continuing her work today, she was most recently seen in Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” remake, and she has just signed on for a role on the T.V show “My Name is Earl.” The very model of a successful modern actress, her life hasn’t been without struggle. The daughter of an abusive alcoholic, she has also been victimized by an industry that is infamously cruel to its starlets. She has made a life’s work of embracing challenge as opportunity, finding strength in adversity and bringing her experience to bear with years of teaching young actors and hosting inspirational self-healing seminars. Her new book on the subject is due to be published in coming months. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of “E.T.,” Wallace will attend a special screening of the film this weekend in Concord. The Wire caught up with her this week.

You’ve played an amazing range of characters. Have you chosen your roles, or do they choose you?
Oh (laughs), they choose me, for sure. I’ve been so lucky to get good roles, but even Julia Roberts has roles she’d like that just go to other actresses. Even when you’re successful, you can only take what’s offered to you.

How would you compare the climate for actresses now to, say, 25 years back?
Well, certainly, the roles for women have been getting much stronger. When I started, all the roles for women were mostly those of housewives or victims. The roles have become much more empowered lately, for sure, but the competition for them has increased, too. It can be harder now to get good roles, simply because there are so many people out there trying to get them. Reality TV has made it just about impossible for an actress to find good work. And they used to have the movie of the week on TV, which I was the queen of for awhile (laughs), and that gave a lot of people a lot of opportunities, but that’s gone away, too, so it can be a lot harder these days.

Do you have any fond memories of working on the E.T. set?
Oh, so many. I loved working with the kids, and Steven (Spielberg) had such a great way of working with each actor to find the strengths within each one’s acting constraints. I think my favorite parts were really when I was working with E.T. himself. He was so sweet. You know, it was always him … sometimes a dwarf or a child in the suit, or sometimes just a puppet. But they made sure, mostly for the kids, I think, but they made sure that he always seemed like just another actor on the set. They never walked around without the head off, you know? Those were some of my favorite times.

What impact did E.T. have on your career?
It made me more bankable. I knew I’d be getting “Cujo,” because that was with the same folks I did “The Howling” with, but after “E.T.” more people knew who I was, and in this business, when you’re more bankable, you’re more successful, you know? 

There were some low times for you after those years, in the mid-’80s, but you seem to have pulled through. Could you speak to that?
It’s a really tough business, you know? I just found myself being pulled in all these directions that just weren’t me, and I had to really look at what was happening to me and say to myself, “This isn’t the me I want to be,” to step away and find a path to doing what I wanted to do while keeping my own center at the same time. You need to find your light and hold onto it. That’s what I tell my students, too—that everyone goes through hard times, but they need to hold on to who they are. We live in this culture where the talk is all about, “What terrible thing happened to you?” and “my father was an alcoholic who killed himself” and “I lost someone close to me,” but hard things happen to everybody. I like to talk instead about, “How did that make you grow and what did you learn from that to make you a stronger person?” Even the hard times can feed your light if that’s how you choose to look at it, and you have a choice. You have to hold on to your light. I’ve written a book about it, which should be available online in the next couple of months.

How do you feel E.T. has affected our culture? How do you fell it’s endured?
Well, it’s the “Wizard of Oz” of our times, isn’t it? It’s touched so many lives, and its message is so like “Wizard of Oz.” It’s centered around the children, and it’s all about getting home and seeing that, even when you’re so far away and it feels like there’s no way back, but that it can be done, and in the end that you had it in you the whole time. It’s an important message, and hopeful and empowering, that deserves to be told over and over. It’s a message that can resonate with everybody, and it never gets old.

Dee Wallace will be at the Sky Pond Studios & Cinema 93 in Concord  at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 15 for a screening of “E.T.” Tickets are $10. For more information or to make reservations call 603-225-5650.