this time for director steven speilberg in "the fablemans." >> yeah, yeah.ver had to be in any other movie. i had to bring it, be him, all by myself. >> reporter: he has been doing it by himself since the beginning. the son of european immigrants, hirsch was born into poverty, bouncing from apartment to apartment in the bronx then brooklyn. >> we didn't have it easy. my mother and father split when i was 2. came back five years late erlt. we lived in basements, furnished rooms, rooming houses. >> reporter: at college hirsch was well on his way to becoming an engineer, just one semester to go, but his circuits weren't connecting. you nearly were done and you thought i don't want to do this? >> three and a half years to a full year degree and dropped everything. it was like a little vce saying, youe happy? what do you want to be the same guy you have been all this time? >> reporter: that little voice pushed him to try something creative, to be an artist, a performer. >> nobody in my family came from the what acting was. all i knew was, if they convince me they