Star Wars Interview with Kathleen Kennedy: President of LucasFilm and Hollywood Powerhouse

It’s not every day you get to sit in a room with 24 other bloggers, and the producer of Star: Wars The Force Awakens and President of LucasFilm Kathleen Kennedy. I can’t even tell you how nervous I became when I learned we would get an exclusive Star Wars Interview with Kathleen Kennedy, probably the biggest female powerhouse in Hollywood right now. But it happened, and she was one of the most down to earth women I’ve ever interviewed.

(Thanks to Disney/LucasFilm/ABC/Marvel for this all expenses paid experience.)

Star Wars Interview with Kathleen Kennedy
{President of LucasFilm and Hollywood Powerhouse}

Back in 1977 when New Hope hit theaters by George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy was “actually in film school when I saw Star wars for the first time. As you can imagine it was just jaw dropping, mind blowing. Everybody in film school was talking about it.” I wasn’t alive until the 80’s but people were still talking about Star Wars when I was born, and they were still talking about it when my first child was born in 20th century.

 You realized there was so much possible beyond anything you could imagine, once we all saw that movie. It was sort of perfectly timed. – Kathleen Kennedy

You can bet George Lucas had some involvement in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Early on in the process, when Kathleen Kennedy was chatting with George Lucas, she said to him, “There’s a lot to absorb here George, you know. How do we go about doing that? Are things written down?” The answer? Nope. All that awesomeness was inside of George Lucas’s head.

Realizing that so much of it was in George’s head meant that there had to be a lot of discussion. That’s what we all started doing right from the beginning. We created this kind of brain crust of certain people within LucasFilm, who had been there for a long long time with George, and had worked with with him day in and day out in the story telling process. We started pulling all those people together, and added into that some new people, and tried to get as much out of his head as we possibly could, for as long as we could, before he retired. – Kathleen Kennedy

Not only did Kathleen Kennedy get to pick the brain of George Lucas for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, she also had the pleasure of working with Bob Iger, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company. It’s fairly well known the Bob Iger is not usually so involved, especially in a hands on way. That was different with Star Wars: The Force Awakens so I’m guessing it’s safe to say that the force was strong with this movie. 😉

The fantastic thing was, often times when I would be in London where we shot the film, and you always look at the clock when you are working in London because you have a period of time where you’re sort of at ease because your just focused on getting the movie made. Then you realize that LA is about to wake up and your whole day is going to start over again. At about 2:30 in the afternoon, if my phone rang early, it was often Bob. He’d looked at dailies, he just wanted to check in, he was excited about something. He was absolutely involved. He’s been involved in every aspect of marketing. He’s had an absolute blast doing this with us. I think he’s really really enjoyed it. How often do CEOs in a company really get to touch what’s going on? They see bits and pieces but they sit at 30,000 feet most of the time, and I think this has been a really wonderful experience for him, and for us by the way. – Kathleen Kennedy

As a mother of daughters, I love that during our interview with Kathleen Kennedy we got to ask about a very obvious fact regarding the new Star Wars film. Rey (Daisy Ridley) is a prominent character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and she’s female. Was that a decision that came early on?

Yeah, it was right from the beginning. It’s something J.J. Abrams and I started talking about from day one. It was really important to us. We both have daughters, so very important. – Kathleen Kennedy

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
L to R: Director/Producer/Screenwriter J.J. Abrams and Producer Kathleen Kennedy
Ph: David James
©Lucasfilm 2015

Now we know Kathleen Kennedy had the amazing opportunity to work with George Lucas and Bob Iger while making Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When it comes to director J.J. Abrams, how did Kathleen Kennedy know he was the perfect director for Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

I think there’s very few directors that have the bandwidth, if you will, that somebody like J.J. has. I think Steven Spielberg is an example, and George Lucas is an example. There’s certain filmmakers where, it’s just who they are as a person. The exuberance, the child like quality, the sense of humor, and the understanding of what it is to be delighted by entertaining stories and movies. I think J.J. is definitely one of those filmmakers. He accesses every beat of the story telling process in a way that you feel he’s always connected to the audience, whether they’re 7 or 700. He has that unique ability. He made it such a fun experience. He’s meticulous about story. He’s meticulous about the technical aspect of making the movie, but he makes it a totally inclusive, really fun experience on the set. I remember, all the years I worked with Steven he used to always say that “that kind of energy in the creative process gets translated to the screen” and I think that’s very much what J.J. does as well. – Kathleen Kennedy

It wasn’t hard to tell during the interview with Kathleen Kennedy, that she loved Star Wars. Her love seemed to come from somewhere else beyond the fandom of it all. She gets it from the behind the scene stand point…the passion and love that go into the story from the beginning. So, what does Star Wars personally mean to Kathleen Kenndy?

I think what has always been very obvious to me, is that George Lucas created this from a very strong personal point of view. When he made New Hope in 1977, obviously he was a young man coming out of film school and he had something to say. He didn’t step into New Hope and decide he was going to make some huge blockbuster movie that we would be sitting here 40 years later talking about.  I think that’s what I’ve always recognized with any of the filmmakers I’ve worked with. The really really good ones, they want to find something of themselves as a reason to tell the story. They are looking for something they want to infuse into the characters, and the storytelling, and the emotion of the piece. J.J. did the same thing with this movie. As a producer, I love recognizing that in somebody, and then helping to find the resources to nurture that and guide that. When somebody can’t find that, then I get a little concerned because if somebody is just going to go through the motions of making a movie without having that personal connection, then usually they’re not going to be able to excavate what is emotionally powerful in Star Wars, or any movie for that matter. – Kathleen Kennedy

I couldn’t interview a powerful women balancing a career, life, and parenthood without asking if she has any tips for moms trying to balance career, life, and parenthood as well? She said she does get asked that question a lot, but went on to share some wonderful advice…..

You just instinctually know how to make those choices. At least that’s what I ‘ve ended up doing. In the heat of them moment, I weigh what is the right thing to do. Obviously 9.5 out of 10 times it’s the family. You figure out what that means and try to find a way to have a discussion about it. I’ve been incredibly fortunate in that I have an amazing husband, and we’ve both done the same thing, and for a long time, before we had kids, we worked together. Then when we had kids, we started leapfrogging. It was this sort of unspoken agreement that depending on how things were shaping up, we would shift responsibilities. For the most part, we supported one another in that as often as we could and we’d make it work. Some things you just sacrifice as a consequence, but I think that’s pretty normal in the course of trying to weigh how to handle a career in general, and kids just make it more complicated, but you’re still doing the same thing. What I’m getting at is, there is no cookie cutter approach to ‘here’s what you do to balance career and family’. I think it’s so much the individual and where your values are and what’s important you and the stage you are at. I talk to mom’s who are like “if I can just get past the infant stage” and I’m like oh no no no (laughs) – Kathleen Kennedy

Not only has Kathleen Kennedy been busy producing Star Wars: The Force Awakens and being president of LucasFilm, but she’s also just wrapping up filming of Rouge One and awaiting the release of the upcoming Steven Spielberg film The BGF that she also produced Have you seen The BFG trailer? It is SO good and I included it below for your viewing pleasure. 😉

The BFG is something that I had spent years off and on developing. Many many years and I must say many many conversations with Steven who I kept saying “you know, this is really right for you.” Then, of course, I’d say within a month after I decided to take over LucasFilm, he called me up and goes “you know I read the script again and I really want to make the movie.” I was ready to go through the phone and strangle him. But, not only having Steven Spielberg involved in this, but the fact that technology has caught up with making the film is really quite spectacular. What he’s doing with this is gonna be mind blowing and very emotional. Sadly, we had Melissa Mathison pass away recently. She wrote the script and she did ET. I think people are going to be incredibly pleased with how this movie turns out. – Kathleen Kennedy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG5MtenlP-A

Force for Change is another amazing thing that has come about with the making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I’m a big fan of doing things for good and I love when something as big as Star Wars gives back to those that need it.

That was really important to us when we started out the process of making the movie. For J.J. and Bad Robot and Disney, all of us sat down and said “ok, we are lucky enough to be involved in a franchise that’s going to generate tremendous good will and huge want to see, what can we do to give back as a part of this phenomenon?” We sat doing very early to start to talk about where that might go. The idea for calling it Force for Change I think was a pretty brilliant one and it came about very early. We’ve spent a bit of time kinda getting our heads around what that means, and how broad it can be. I sat down with Carol Stern at UNICEF, she is brilliant. It’s funny how you sit down with somebody and you don’t know why you click right away, and with Carol….she and I clicked immediately in recognizing that what they are doing with their initiative called Kid Power, fit perfectly with some of the objectives Disney and LucasFilm had with some of the philanthropy that we were starting to look at. That was a partnership that we formed almost immediately. By the time we went to celebration that’s, when we announced it. Then we started the Omaze programs, and now under the umbrella of Force for Change we’ve gone to each of the cast members and let them identify what it is they’d like to pull under the umbrella of Force for Change. It really does feel like it’s an initiative that can take on a lot of flexibility in how we acknowledged what the philanthropy is that we’re looking at. It’s primarily looking at how do you recognize empowering people around the world who are making a contribution and that gives us a lot of empowerment ourselves. – Kathleen Kennedy

I’ve already seen wonderful things happen with Force for Change and am excited to see lots more! Not only is Star Wars making an impact through Force for Change, they are also making a change through female empowerment for our daughters.

Without ruining the movie, I’m going to tell you that your daughters are going to be so excited. This character, Rey, is I think one of the most wonderful heroins to come along in movie history. I mean, she is great.  So, I think they are going to be very happy. They are going to have their own Luke Skywalker now. – Kathleen Kennedy

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