When we built Amblin, we even put Murphy beds in there because we thought that was so practical. Why would anybody, if you were working on something, need to go home at night? You'd just stay there, wake up in the morning, and carry on.
If all you're doing is playing it safe - trying to make the same movie over and over again - that's when the audiences say, 'Oh, this is just a moneymaking machine.' But if it's genuinely in service to the art form, then the franchise concept is being used in a way that's exciting.
I would hate to be in a situation where my entire focus was obsessing around the issue of whether we're going to win best picture.
I've had filmmakers, I even had Bono come and talk to me about having a sequel to 'E.T.' help with an environmental message - I listened. I can certainly understand. I mean, the great thing about Bono is that everything he does is in service to a greater cause.
Lucasfilm looks out for 'Star Wars.' What are the values inherent in 'Star Wars' that we want to protect? It's fragile to a certain extent in that it's a single IP.
Sports teaches you to understand the meaning of a team. You need to be able to work with everybody; you don't have to be their best friend. You can experience the fun of competition and driving toward a common goal without pushing to bond in some major way with each individual on a project.
Creating authentic emotional experiences, whether it's 'Star Wars' or 'Spotlight,' are driven by characters and stories that are engaging.
In the creative community, there's no excuse for not making a more equitable environment.
We look at Marvel, but we're not trying to emulate that in any way. In fact, we talked often about how distinctive what we're trying to do with 'Star Wars' is from Marvel. They've been extremely successful in exploiting the characters in that universe, and we have a place. We have the galaxy.
I loved David Lean, he had a huge influence on me when I was going to film school.
I had a teacher who loved movies. He had a little theatre called The Flick, and he would let a bunch of us volunteer to work there, and he also let us make little movies in class.
I started out as a camera operator. I was doing news, and I was doing sports - baseball games and football games. And I was acutely aware of women not really being in those roles then.
I have a very fun husband. He's managed to hang on to every person he's known since grammar school.
Many great stories are father issues, mother issues or death.
There's no way a director can communicate with every single person on the set and yet they need to motivate and instill an ambition to want to do their best work.
When Princess Leia hit the scene in 1977, she was a pretty formidable character.
From a producing standpoint, I think prep is everything.
It's not just about casting female protagonists. It's gotta be across the board throughout the industry.
Everybody always asks us how we choose the movies we have going right now, and it's hard to explain sometimes. There's a randomness to the way things kind of happen and get done. And sometimes you have this perfect storm, and you have to accept that and do the best you can.
The 'Star Wars' saga is about a series of seemingly chance encounters. They impact the destiny of everyone involved.
