Last week I had a day full of Stars Wars: The Force Awakens and learning awesome things like how was BB-8 created! The morning kicked off with the Star Wars Press Day, moved into the Global Press Event, and wrapped up with Exclusive Interviews that I’ve been sharing all week. The final Star Wars the Force Awakens Interview with J.J. Abrams was more than fascinating think I ever imagined! He answered lots of questions and gave us insight on what it’s like to be such a huge Star Wars Fan who takes on the role of directing the newest Star Wars film.
(Thanks to Disney/LucasFilm/ABC/Marvel for this all expenses paid experience.)
How Was BB-8 Created
{Exclusive Star Wars: The Force Awakens Interview
with J.J. Abrams}
J.J. Abrams and President of LucasFilm, Kathleen Kennedy, have known each other for a long time. Long before she asked him to direct the first movie in the newest Star Wars trilogy. Being such a huge Star Wars fan, you would think Abrams would have jumped at the opportunity. Nope. So, why did J.J. Abrams originally turn down the role as director for Star Wars: The Force Awakens?
It was Kathleen Kennedy, whom I’ve known for a long time, and she called and asked if I was interested in working on Star Wars. Of course it was a very surreal question, and it was very flattering, and my answer was no. Partly because Katie, my wife and I, had plans to take our kids away. I’d been working on a lot of back to back projects for awhile. Partly because I’ve worked on a number of sequels and it felt like enough is enough. And, partly because I care about Star Wars so much that the idea of taking it on felt like, kind of a thing that I couldn’t even imagine, and intimidating. So, I said ‘no thank you’ and she said ‘can we get together’ and I said yes. and….. when Kathy Kennedy and you get together, she’ll convince you of whatever it is she wants you to, and she just was amazing. – J.J Abrams
So, what finally convinced J.J. Abrams to say yes, and take on one of the most anticipated films of all time?
Basically she said this is going to be an opportunity to continue the story since Return of the Jedi. As we were talking, I realized this is 30 some years after the fact. The main characters would have been born 10-15 years after that movie. Looking back on what we know of the story, that would be ancient history for kids who are 19 – 20 years old. “What do they know? What do they believe and what do they believe in?” The idea of finding these young people who exists in the Star Wars universe was so compelling to me, and that feeling of rediscovering a world and a feeling that was so powerful, for me growing up, was undeniable. – J.J. Abrams
I’m glad J.J. started asking himself those questions while chatting with Kathleen Kennedy, because Star Wars Fans have been asking them too. Obviously, because movies don’t break Fandango with record ticket sales when no one cares. As a crazy busy multi-tasking mother, I have to give a huge thank you to Katie, J.J. Abrams wife, for having the outlook she does and for supporting her husband. Without that, his creatively genius brain may not have been behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
After the meeting I went downstairs and found Katie, my wife, and I just said ‘I think I really want to do this’ and she said ‘really?’ and I said yes, and she said, ‘this is definitely a once in a life time opportunity and you really need to consider it if its something you want to do’ and I did. It wasn’t an easy decision for us, for our family, for my company Bad Robot. There were a lot of issues that came with it, and yet I knew that as challenging as it would be, that if we could all get our sea legs and do it right, that it could be an extraordinary situation and an amazing experience. In every category from prep and figuring out the story, and writing the script with Lawrence Kasdan, and designing the movie and shooting it and editing it and doing posts and scoring it. – J.J Abrams
If you’ve been debating about seeing Star Wars in 2D or 3D, check out what J.J. Abrams had to say about the affects. But, I will tell you that you should go ahead and see it both ways. 😀 I have 2D tickets for my son and I this weekend and have plans to see it in 3D over Winter Break after what J.J. said.
I’m not always the biggest 3D fan, but I will tell you there are things in this movie that I actually felt were shockingly better in 3D. There were literally shots that I couldn’t believe I saw things in 3D that I hadn’t seen in 2D. It was so strange. I know this might sound like I’m selling the 3D, and to anyone who doesn’t really care, see it in 2D, don’t see it in 3D, that’s okay. I was amazed at how great that looked. Every stage has been as gratifying as it was challenging and it’s all because of the unparalleled and unbelievable work that everyone did at every turn and I’m very grateful. – J.J. Abrams
Much like when I go into interviews with some of my favorite celebrities, J.J. Abrams had to set his Star Wars fanboy self aside. Did the fact that he was not quite 11 years old when Star Wars came out, influence the way he approached producing the film?
Of course it did because it was something that meant so much to me for so long. The thing is, because it’s been ingrained in sort of all of our consciousnesses for so long, that it’s become a birth right to just know Star Wars. Your just sort of born and you know what a lightsaber is, Darth Vader you understand. At 3 years old kids talk about Star Wars in a way that is so eerie because you think ‘how can you possibly know so much’ and somehow they do. Even those kids who haven’t played the games or seen the shows. I don’t know how it is that they understand Star Wars immediately. But my job wasn’t to be a fanboy, or an 11 year old kid. It was to be a nearly 50 year old movie director. So, I tried to approach this thing from the point of view of obviously, acknowledging how much I love what George Lucas created, but understand that being a fan doesn’t make the story work, doesn’t make the scene any good. Being a fan is great, but we all had to be storytellers and filmmakers. I was surrounded by people like Lawrence Kasdan who had written the original Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and actors who had been there from the beginning, all the way through visual affects and sounds, to of course John Williams, who collaborating with him is like cheating because he speaks to our soul with music in a way that I think is super human. The whole process was really about trying to love it, but also be hard on it so that the story meant something andd was emotional, and not just a fan film. – J.J. Abrams
Collaborating with Lin-Manuel Miranda for the Cantina music piece was “preposterously fun” according to J.J. Abrams. If you are not familiar with Miranda, he is an American composer who is best known for Hamilton, among others. That’s now on my bucket list of must see musicals and we got the chance to hear what it was like working with Lin-Manuel Miranda during our Exclusive Star Wars: The Force Awakens interview.
Our 17 year old son and I went to see Hamilton, which if you haven’t seen it, is one of the great experiences of all time, which can not be oversold, and you hear crazy hyperbolic language being used about it. Then you go to see it, and it’s better than anyone described and it gets better as it goes, which is impossible. At intermission I was thinking it can’t possibly continue at this level, and it just gets better. Then I was distracted at intermission by a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around and it was Lin-Manuel Miranda, who normally stars in this thing he wrote, and wrote the songs for, but this night it was his understudy. He said ‘hi’ and I was like ‘oh my god do you understand what you’ve done’ and he’s like ‘yes’ and I was essentially fawning over him, and he said in this jokey off hand way ‘if you need music for the Cantina I’m happy to do it’. It was so weird because a couple weeks earlier John Williams had said to me he really wanted to focus on the score (there is a lot of music in the movie) and he said this one scene in the film which is essentially, if we have a version of kind of Cantina, if someone I work with said Star Wars is a western, there is sort of a saloon in every western. This is our saloon. John said ‘I’d rather not work on this music because I have so much other score to do and this is really source music’ and I was like all right…I thought crap. What are we gonna do? I started working on something as a hobbyist musician myself, anyways, Miranda says this to me, and I cant believe it. So, I email Lin-Manuel and I say ‘listen, I know you were joking but the truth is we sort of have a need for some music in this scene if your serious?’ an he emails back and he’s like ‘I’ll drop everything’ and I’m like ‘oh my god your kidding me’ and so we started collaborating on this music. We both use the same music software and we have a Dropbox, and we would send files back and forth. We came up with two pieces of music for this sequence. To get to work with him was preposterously fun and I got to hang out with him subsequently.
J.J. Abrams also added that if “you haven’t seen his appearance on Jimmy Fallon, it’s one of the greatest things you’ve ever seen. It’s free style rap, which is actually truly unprepared in any way, and staggering. He’s amazing.” Just in case you haven’t, I’ve got it below for your viewing pleasure. 😀
Not only did J.J. Abrams get to work with the awesomely talented Lin-Manuel Miranda, he also go to work with puppeteer Neal Scanlan who is an Oscar winning industry leader in animatronic effects. Abrams said “I remember feeling like ‘oh my god it’s like we’re on the set of a Muppet movie'” and that may leave you wondering about the puppets in Star Wars? Here is your answer….
I remember seeing Star Wars and Empire and Jedi, and of course that was before there was such a thing as a CG character and the use of puppetry was so brilliant. It reminded me, this is so strange, because when we were shooting the scene that I was referring to, Cantina, and there were a number of creatures there, as well as other sequences, but a lot in that one scene. I remember looking around and there were puppeteers under every table, and poking through things, and there were all of these people that were basically invisible, but they were performing these characters that Neal Scanlan and his team created, and I remember feeling like ‘oh my god it’s like we’re on the set of a Muppet movie‘ and it was so cool and I realized of course frank oz, and this Veen diagram of what Jim Henson and his workshop did, and what George Lucas did, not only did it overlap obviously in Yoda, but there was kind of creative homespun do it yourself genius that when the Muppets were brought to life, of course they were playing these often plush comedic characters, and George Lucas used the same technology to create what appear to be living breathing, flesh and blood characters. It was so wonderful to have that. As the shoot continued, the biggest advantage was in BB-8, who is our new droid, who in scenes with the other actors, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Harrison Ford, this droid was alive, was expressive, was passionate curious helpful afraid daring. He was literally on camera in scenes doing everything that you could have ever dreamed of. We could have worked with our extraordinary computer graphics department at ILM and made that work, but it never would have looked quite right, quite as good, quite as real. And Daisy, who is now starring in her first movie, and is fearless and sweet and vulnerable and tough and a revelation in this movie…to have her interact with BB-8 (performed by Brian and David – Brian always right there next to him off and on camera, and Dave with the remote control off camera) and we use CG for BB-8 not to bring BB-8 into the shot but to remove the puppeteers. We use CG quite a bit to actually get rid of legs poking out from the bottom of a creature, wires, rigs, arms, and stuff like that. But it was really an amazing thing to have all those creatures, and BB-8 the most important one, live and present and in the frame and in the shot. So, when there were CG creatures, when there were things we couldn’t do physically, there was a standard to match which was actually captured on film. – J.J. Abrams
Thanks to EnzasBargains for snapping this photo of me and BB- 8 at the Star Wars Press Event!
Now we’ve reached BB-8 status! Everyone has been wanting to know how was BB-8 created, and no it wasn’t by Sphero and the “Droid You’re Looking For”, that came later. BB-8 is probably the most adorable droid I’ve ever met and he has a “slightly better hologram than R2D2 does” said J.J. Abrams. I bet Luke Skywalker wishes he had that technology back then! 😉
What happened was, we were working on the story trying to figure it out, and we knew we had a droid that was going to be a critical piece of the puzzle. But, we didn’t know if he was going to be bi-pedal like C3PO or roll around like R2D2, or some other thing. I just had this idea that if we had a sphere and semi-sphere on top, you could get quite a bit of expression without a face. So I drew a sketch of BB-8 and I had the eye and the little antenna and everything. It didn’t have a color pattern and it didn’t have all the critical details that Neal Scanlan and his team brought in, but I sent that to Neal and they began to come up with designs that would sort of follow that. It was amazing how quickly it looked like it could work! I didn’t know if they would be able to create something that could be performed on camera, which I knew was going to be important. and they did! I will never forget the first day that we came to their office to see BB-8 being performed, after we agreed on designs and scale and everything. We walked in and Brian the puppeteer came out and wheeled out BB-8 on his rig, and literally within seconds Brian disappeared. He was right there, but he wasn’t there and this thing was looking around and curious and you could feel the soul because Brian was imbuing him with life. Daisy said earlier today ‘every time we weren’t shooting and we were on a break and BB-8 was just sort of sitting there not being performed, it was like heartbreaking’ because he was this inert thing, and you were like ‘where is he’ and Brian would get him and you’d be like ‘there he is.’ it was all a result of Neal Scanlan and his amazing team. – J.J. Abrams
Droids aside, there is another stand out character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. She is Maz Kanata, one of the first female villains in the Star Wars universe. After interviewing Lupita Nyong’o we still didn’t know a lot about the Maz, but we did chat with J.J. about the decision to go with a female villain.
It was really important when we began working on the script, that this movie feel and look a little bit more like the world than one might of thought. When I say ‘one might of thought’ I don’t know who that one is, but I’m sure that person is out there because when people say ‘thank you for this’ it sort of means that they haven’t seen it like this before on some level. I know looking at the story from the very beginning Rey, and she wasn’t always named Ray, but Rey was always at the center of the story. We knew Leia was going to be in the movie from the beginning of course. This character Maz Kanata, who is played beautifully by Lupita Nyong’o, was always a character and somehow always named Maz Kanta, who is part of this world. Phasma came about because we were trying to figure out the look of Kylo Ren, and this amazing design was presented and we were floored. It was the coolest thing we’d ever seen. We knew it didn’t make sense for Kylo Ren, but it was really great. So we started coming up with this character that was inspired by this, that was head of all the Stromtroopers. Working on that character and the idea, we knew we wanted to have female Stromtroopers, and there are in the movie, but we knew wanted to have the head of the Stormtroopers be an important character, and we thought why not have her be female. Gwendolyn Christie’s name came up and I was already a fan, but just thought ‘oh my god that would be unbelievable if that was possible’ and somehow she was available, and our British casting director Nina Gold also cast Game of Thrones and so luckily there was a connection there already. Gwendolyn came in and is as lovely as you’d ever want someone to be, and was such a Star Wars fan, and she got exactly what it needed to be instantly and was just an utter joy to work with. – J.J. Abrams
Now you know how Gwendolyn Christie landed a role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. How about some of the other cast members though?
In casting Finn for example, we had no idea what he’d look like. We had no idea what Rey would look like, we just started casting people knowing, like with Lost for example you need to be inclusive, we ended up finding Daisy Ridley who was like a prayer answered. We ended up finding John Boyega whose work I was an enormous fan of from Attack the Block. Oscar Isaac who couldn’t be better, and Adam Driver who was Kathleen Kennedy’s idea. The only name ever mentioned for this part, we said ‘okay who should we cast for Kylo Ren?’ and Kathy said ‘what about Adam Driver?’ and we said ‘done. next.’ and I’m grateful to Judd Apatow and Lena Dunham who actually had to do crazy sneaky work to get him available to us because they had him as first position on their show Girls, and contorted things somehow to allow him to be in this movie, so I’m enormously grateful of them. – J.J. Abrams
Okay, we’ve talked to J.J. Abrams about taking on the role as director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, answered the question of how BB-8 was created, and learned a lot about the cast. Now, it’s time to find the thing that has been on fan’s minds……how does one find the balance of preservation of Star Wars and integrating new technology?
This whole process has been going backwards to go forwards. It’s the next chapter in what happened in 4, 5, 6, this is 7. It needs to feel like the continuum to that, but the important thing was recognizing what are the tenents of Star Wars, and the things that make Star Wars specifically Star Wars and not one of the many attempts to rip off what George Lucas created. The beauty of what we had was we actually inherited Star Wars. We could actually put TIE fighters and lightsabers and Star Destroyers in our movie, and it feel essential as opposed to derivative. But, this was all about telling a new story so the brilliant luck of having Lawrence Kasdan along for the ride is he knew, having written Empire and Jedi and having lived with it for decades, about that world and where it might have gone. Discussions with him were informed discussions and the most important thing was always ‘Why are we doing this? what’s the point of telling a new Star Wars story? What do we want people to feel? Who are the main characters?’ and that was the most exciting part. Finding this young woman, Rey, this character who from the beginning was an essential role and character and voice in the story. To find this character Finn who we start to fall in love with very early on, and to realize that their story of discovering what their role is in this universe and not just any universe, but the Star Wars universe, that was thrilling and all of that was happening before we were even really talking about what the original characters were going to do. That was why we started getting excited. We realized there was a story that was working, not because it was a nostalgic trip and that we were relying on things that came before, but because there was a pulse to the story now, that could use the fabric of what had come before to tell that story. – J.J.Abrams
Now that J.J. Abrams has directed the first new Star Wars movie in the trilogy, will he be able to sit back and enjoy it as a fan, without thinking about the creative stamp on it, as the Star Wars Saga continues?
I will say that I knew getting involved in this project, that it was an honor to be asked, and I knew that my role would be as temporary guardian of this saga. I knew also, as I was working on it, that if the movie works, what a great time to step down and if the movie doesn’t work, who wants me to work on the next one anyway. So it’s was a win win. I ‘m really looking forward to telling original stories. I’ve been sort of wonderfully and happily sidetracked with the movies I’ve been working on, but I do look forward to working on something that doesn’t need to have a number in the title. I can not wait to see what the directors, who are named and being discussed, will do in this universe coming up because there are some really talented people that I know are doing extraordinary things. So it’s very exciting and to get to work with Lawrence Kasdan to begin, what we knew was the start of a trilogy is a rare thing in a movie, which is to start a story that you know needs to be satisfying in and of itself, but also as the beginning of a larger tale. That was really cool to get to do. – J.J. Abrams
Speaking of being “wonderfully and happily sidetracked with the movies”, we had to find out which of the projects he’s been working on is his personal favorite. I know, that’s like picking a favorite kid, but I bet you’ll never guess his answer. 😉
Everything has it’s own sort of story, and it’s hard to think about any of the things that I’ve been lucky enough to work on, and not feel like ‘oh my god’ those kids from Super 8 or doing Felicity with Keri Russel was so amazing or Alias with Jen Garner, and obviously getting to work with Tom Cruise and the opportunity he gave me to do that, finding the cast for Star trek was such an unbelievable lightning in a bottle thing to get that group together, they were so incredible. My knee jerk reaction for whatever reason, you know The Force Awakens aside because I feel like I’m so close to this thing in the moment, it’s hard to know, but I look back on the pilot of Lost and I think that working on that with Damon, it was so crazy and so exciting and so quick how the whole thing came together that it’s hard to think of something that was more nuts and kind of seat of your pants. Lets just figure this out and do it and that was really a special moment. But, having said all that I really desperately can’t wait for you too see The Force Awakens, and really, the work that the cast has done is unbelievable. You’ll see it and you’ll know what I mean. – J.J. Abrams
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now in theaters! There are “good guys and bad guys who are not guys” and “female humans and non humans” and that’s about it when it come to Star Wars: The Force Awakens spoilers given to us by J.J. Abrams! 😉
The experience of working on this movie really has been nothing short of shocking to me because it kept living up to its potential in a way that didn’t really feel like it would. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and its never to let I guess for that to happen, but regardless of what the perception is or what the result of the movie is, I know for a fact when you see the movie, you will be seeing truly extraordinary work by thousands of people and it is something I will be grateful for forever, and to you guys for being here and staying so late. – J.J. Abrams
Staying late? Psshhh….one waits for J.J. Abrams especially when you can find out if there are any Beastie Boys nods in Star Wars. The answer? No, but look for one in Star Trek! 😀
Exclusive Harrison Ford Interview
Exclusive Daisy Ridley Interview
Exclusive John Boyega Interview
Exclusive Kathleen Kennedy Interview
Exclusive Lupita Nyong’o and Oscar Isaac Interview
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