Speaking over at Deadline, Kathleen Kennedy looks back at the highs and lows of her time as Lucasfilm president, forward to what’s ahead for Lucasfilm and for herself as she prepares to return to her first love – producing, and the thrill of filmmaking.
DEADLINE: You’ve just wrapped the sixth film in the Star Wars universe. Is Starfighter meant to be an ongoing theatrical series?
KENNEDY: It was envisioned as a single film. Shawn Levy just made the experience so pleasant for everybody, and we found this 14-year-old kid out of Ireland who had virtually no experience. That’s always risky, hanging a story so much on a child actor. You’re not exactly sure how comfortable they’re going to be. Flynn Gray turned out to be such a special kid.
When you cast kids, a lot of it becomes about the parents. He has great parents and got lucky there, too.
Not only was he there with Ryan Gosling; this movie is structured in a way that he had kind of a new actor coming in every few weeks that he was one-on-one with. Matt Smith, Amy Adams, Aaron Pierre. And each one, it was so great to watch him because he would just get so excited by the actors he got to work with. It was like he was in the best university you could possibly be in.
DEADLINE: What have been the highs and lows or running a company built on such beloved IP?
KENNEDY: The highs include realizing how many people love Star Wars. The majority of people, and certainly the people that I run into, and people outside the business, they love Star Wars. They love the movies, they might love all the shows, they might love some of the shows. But when I came into this, I realized a few things. We had walked in at a moment when there hadn’t been any movies for 10 years or more, but there was still the memory of the greatest series of movies in cinema history. So you’re walking into something that has enormous expectations. Yet at the same time, you know that you’ve got to find new characters and you have to expand the galaxy, and you need to think about who the new audience is. That’s what I feel that I did, and that’s what I feel all the people that I’ve worked with over this last decade did. The highs include bringing in a new audience. I think we did find new characters. We continue to find new characters.
DEADLINE: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist, Back to the Future, Jurassic, Schindler’s List, Twister, The Sixth Sense. Big hits, each with storytelling and technical complexity. You certainly seem like you know what you’re doing…
KENNEDY: I certainly feel like I know what I’m doing by now, but I also just love it. The adage that you’ll never work a day in your life if you love what you’re doing? I always feel that. Most of the time, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing, mainly because of the people, because there’s just something very fun about being involved with a group of people that you admire and like and want to be with, and you’re all trying to make the best possible story you can. That’s incredibly satisfying. I feel very, very fortunate that I’ve been able to make a living doing this. It’s just like tonight, when Shawn Levy was making his eloquent wrap speech, reminding me that he flew to London 10 years ago on his own dime to sit down with me and tell me what Star Wars meant to him and how much he wanted to do a Star Wars movie. And in 2022, I called him up and said, let’s go. Let’s figure out what that movie might be. And here we are. He got to realize his dream, and the process along the way was just a blast. What’s better than that?
She also makes some interesting quotes about future productions:
“Everything I just reeled off to you is taking a bit of a chance because none of those filmmakers are just walking in trying to do same old, same old. I’m excited by that, but the studio’s nervous about that, and that’s kind of where it sits at the moment.”
It’s an extensive interview, well worth a read and one we’ll dive into on the next edition of Making Tracks.
