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Exclusive Kathleen Kennedy Interview: STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS #StarWarsEvent

 

Kathleen Kennedy

Disney provided me with an expense paid trip to Los Angeles for the #StarWarsEvent in exchange for my coverage of the events of the trip. No other compensation was given. All opinions, experiences, memories and character crushes are 100% my own. 

Only 2 more days until STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hits theaters! This week I will be sharing my exclusive cast interviews, so if you are a STAR WARS fan, stay tuned for some exciting coverage!

Kathleen Kennedy 2

This week, I have shared my exclusive interview with Harrison Ford, AKA Han Solo Daisy Ridley who plays Rey and John Boyega who plays Stormtrooper Finn.

Today, I’m sharing my interview with Producer & President of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy. Aside from all of the amazing things that she is (and she is amazing!) she was such a pleasure to speak with. Obviously brilliant, but also very real. What stood out the most to me is that on top of everything that she is, and all that she has accomplished, she is a mom. Her answers reflected that, and as you can see below, she finds a balance in the middle of all of the action to make it all work. Such an inspiration to women everywhere, and I love that she does it all with such certainty and confidence. Such an easy interview too as she is so well spoken and clearly very well versed in the Star Wars universe.

I also love that she ends a lot of her statements with the word “so”. I even left them in my interview clips below, because only super cool people do that. So….

On parenting, career and balance

Well, as you can imagine I get asked this all the time, and what I end up saying is that you just instinctually know how to make those choices. At least that’s what I’ve ended up doing. In the heat of the moment, I weigh what is the right thing to do. Obviously nine and a half out of the ten times it’s the family.

And you figure out what that means and then you 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 leap-frogging and it was this, sort of, you know, unspoken agreement that depending on how things were shaping up we would shift responsibilities. 

And for the most part we just supported one another in that as often as we could, and then we’d make it work. And some things you just sacrifice as a consequence. But I think that 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.  So. 

What I’m getting at, is there’s 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 you’re values are and what’s important to you and, and the stage your kids are at. You know, I always talk to moms who have babies and they’re like, “Oh, if I could just get past the infant stage.” I’m like, “Oh!” So. 

On what Star Wars means to her personally

To me. I think that what has always been very obvious to me is that George created this from a very strong personal point of view. When he made this movie New Hope in 1977, obviously he was a young man coming out of film school and had something to say. 

He didn’t step into New Hope and decide that he was gonna make some huge blockbuster movie that we would be sitting here 40 years later talking about. So I think that that’s what I’ve always recognized with any of the filmmakers I work with is that the really good ones, they want to find something of themselves as a reason to tell the story. So they’re looking for something that 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. 

And as a producer, I love recognizing that in somebody and then helping to find the resources to nurture that and guide that. And when somebody can’t find that, then I get a little concerned because if somebody’s just gonna go through the motions of making a movie without having that personal connection, then usually they’re not gonna be able to excavate what’s emotionally powerful in Star Wars, or in any movie for that matter.

A day in her life

I have a very bifurcated life because I’m running the company and producing the movie. So even when I’m here in L.A. I would go, before we went to London, I would go up to San Francisco two days a week and then I would come back here. And then when I got to London I set up a system where I would do video conferencing and I set up the meetings on a weekly basis so that I can maintain a connection to everybody on the executive team.

So I can’t say that my day operates in any kind of a routine way. But I usually try to stay focused on the movies in the morning and then as I said, as L.A. wakes up in the afternoon I’ll move into my office and begin to make those phone calls or do those video conference connections in order to get that work done. 

I don’t drive in London. I’m terrified to drive on the other side of the road, but I have a driver. As we make our way into London, the car is set up with Wi-Fi so I sit in the back seat, open my laptop, put an earphone in my ear and start making phone calls and dealing with business. And then the hope is by the time I get home at around 8:30 – 9:00 I can pretty much stop.

Every now and then if there’s a, you know, a complication somewhere I’ll be on the phone late. But I’ve gotten to the point where I can keep that pretty much under control. And this, this last series of months since August really, I’ve been in London doing Rogue One ’cause Rogue One finishes shooting on December 18th. But this time my husband is doing a new Bourne series, so we brought our 16 year old kicking and screaming I might add to go to school in London.

She’s ended up having an absolutely fantastic time. It’s one of the best things we ever did. But that’s worked out actually quite well. And that’s affected my routine because I’ve ended up where I’ve just sort of laid down the law that when I get home we have dinner. When I get up in the morning, I go in a little bit late. I’m not there at call so I can be home when Megan is eating breakfast and get her on the bus. 

The great thing about htis school she’s at is the bus literally comes to the door and picks her up, which has been fantastic. It’s one of the reasons we chose the house that we’re staying in. But, you know, that’s an example of where and how things can change.

When she first saw Star Wars…

I was actually in film school when I saw Star Wars for the first time. So as you can imagine, it was just jaw-dropping, mind-blowing. Everybody in film school was talking about it. You realize that there was so much possible beyond anything you could imagine once, once we all saw that movie. So it was sort of perfectly timed. I suppose you were either seven or eight or you’re in film school. Those would be touchstones.

Force for Change

That was really important to us when we started out the process of making the movie. And I might add for J.J. and Bad Robot, Disney, all of us sat down and said, “Okay, we’re, we’re lucky enough to be involved in a franchise that’s gonna generate tremendous goodwill. What can we do to give back as a part of this phenomenon?” So we sat down 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. It came about very early. We’ve spent a bit of time kind of getting our head around what that means and how broad it can be. I sat down with Carol Stern at Unicef. She is brilliant. And it was funny, you know, how you sit down with somebody and you don’t know why you click right away?

And with Carol she and I just clicked immediately in recognizing that what they were doing with their initiative called Kid Power fit perfectly with some of the objectives that Disney and Lucasfilm had with some of the philanthropies that we were starting to look at. So that was a partnership that we formed almost immediately. And by the time we went to celebration, that’s when we announced it. And then we started the Amaze programs.

And now under the umbrella of Force For Change we’ve gone to each of the cast members. We’ve let them identify what it is they’d like to pull under the umbrella of Force For Change. And it really does feel like it’s an initiative that can take on a lot of flexibility in how we acknowledge what the philanthropy is that we’re looking at. But 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. So.

Kathleen Kennedy Star Wars

On J.J. Abrams as director

I think there are very few directors that have the bandwidth, if you will, that somebody like J.J. has. I think Steven’s an example. George is an example. There’s certain filmmakers where just who they are as a person, the exuberance, the childlike quality, the sense of humor. That just the understanding of what it is to just be delighted by entertaining stories and movies.

I think J.J.’s very definitely one of those filmmakers. He just accesses every beat of the storytelling process in a way that you feel that he’s always connected to the audience, whether they’re seven or 700. He just 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. And 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 that’s very much what J.J. does as well.

On George Lucas

You know, the interesting thing is early in the process I said to him, “You know, so there’s a lot to absorb here, George. You know, how do we go about doing that? Are things written down?  Is, is there…?”  He said, “No!  It’s in my head!” And so realizing that so much of it was in his head meant that there had to be a lot of discussion and that’s what we all started doing right from the beginning.

And we created this kind of brain trust where certain people within Lucasfilm who had been there for a long, long time with George and had worked with him day in and day out in the storytelling process or say inside of I.L.M. with creative visuals and production design and artwork and what not. So we started pulling all of those people together and then 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.

On a female lead character

We made that decision right from the beginning. It’s something that J.J. and I started talking about day one.  It was really important to us. We both have daughters, so, very important.

On what this film means for young girls

Without ruining the movie, I’m gonna tell you that your daughters are going to be so excited.  This character of Rey is, I think, one of the most wonderful heroines to come along in movie history. I mean, she is great. So I think they’re gonna be very happy. They’re going to have their own Luke Skywalker now. Let’s put it that way.

“They’re going to have their own Luke Skywalker now.

Let’s put it that way.”~Kathleen Kennedy

 

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS in theaters December 18, 2015!

Star-Wars-Poster

Can’t get enough of the STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS excitement? Check out my post from the STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS press junket which includes fun new merchandise photos, costumes, a BB-8 video and more!

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Trailer

Make sure to keep up with all of the latest STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS excitement!!
Follow STAR WARS on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The STAR WARS:THE FORCE AWAKENS website is also an awesome resource for fans!

Photo credits to Disney and MomStart.com

Remember! STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS in theaters December 18, 2015!

Meet the author – Keri Lyn

The creative and frugal mind behind She Saved for over 12 years now, Keri Lyn shares her adventures in parenting along with her love for family travel, country living and brand marketing. A self-proclaimed “brand loyalist”, Keri Lyn is known for her strong and enthusiastic voice when it comes to the products and brands that she loves. She Saved has become a community for like-minded consumers who appreciate saving money, time and sanity by getting the best deals on quality products and experiences.

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