Kathleen Kennedy Promises She'll Hire a Female Director For a STAR WARS Movie
In a discussion with Fortune, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy had some interesting things to say about the people responsible for the reinvigorated Star Wars film franchise.
Some of you may know this already, but it was news to me that half of the executives at the company are women, and six out of eight people in the Lucasfilm story group — the team responsible for shaping the stories of all Star Wars-related properties — are women. That's awesome, and Kennedy says "it makes a huge difference in the stories we're trying to tell." Hollywood is a place that's been traditionally dominated by men for so long, it's good to hear that Kennedy and Disney are looking to change up that dynamic by bringing more women into the fold. She touts the difference it makes in storytelling, and that's absolutely true, especially when it comes to female characters on screen: that kind of representation is huge, and any marginalized group seeing movies characters they can identify with is a very big deal. (Not only protagonists like Rey in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but villains like Captain Phasma, too.)
Kennedy also promised a female director will direct a Star Wars movie, though the timing on that is still murky.
"I feel it is going to happen — we are going to hire a woman who's going to direct a Star Wars movie. I have no doubt. On the other hand, I want to make sure we put somebody in that position who's set up for success. It's not just a token job to look out and try to find a woman that we can put into a position of directing Star Wars. It is interesting because I have a huge number of men who call me constantly and tell me how much of a Star Wars fan they are and how much they want to get involved in anything to do with Star Wars — I don't have a lot of women who call and have those conversations with me. Now, that's not to say that there aren't Star Wars fans out there and women whose careers have been shaped in some way by Star Wars if they're in film, but it's not in the same way that it is for me. So that's one of the challenges that we keep talking about. If we do want to bring a woman in to direct a Star Wars movie, we want to make sure that it's somebody who's passionate and really, really wants to do a Star Wars movie. We don't want to talk somebody into it."
A couple of things worth bringing up here. I think in regard to her comments about women not calling her as often as men, there's probably some societal and industry-related reasons for that: women traditionally aren't given the same opportunities as men (especially when it comes to directing big budget movies), so it stands to reason that there wouldn't be as many women that would try to talk their way into a big film like that. But it's great that she wants to bring a woman in to get behind the camera, and it's also sort of a common sense thing that she'd want that person to be passionate about directing a Star Wars movie instead of just being a diversity hire to fill some sort of quota. It sounds like the story really comes first with Kennedy, and whoever is the best fit to tell that particular story will be hired to do it.