Kathleen Kennedy’s job is to focus on the past, present, and future all at once.

Speaking to Vanity Fair for our latest cover story, “Star Wars: The Rebellion Will Be Televised,” Kennedy discussed the lessons learned during her now decade-long tenure as Lucasfilm’s president, and expressed enthusiasm about both the new filmmaking technologies they’ve developed and the new stories on the galaxy’s horizon. 

The producer turned executive has a filmography that includes not just Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, and The Sixth Sense, but also dozens of other crowd-pleasers and Oscar nominees. Still, she remains eager to explore other worlds. Managing both the galaxy’s legacy and destiny would be a test for anyone, especially in an era when TV and movies are blurring, capturing an audience is harder than ever, and success means giving fans what they desperately crave while also taking them to places they’ve never even considered.

In this extended Q&A, she dives deeper into her plan to create more “persistent” storytelling that expands on the trilogy model, explains why it’s vital to move beyond the Skywalker era, and discusses why they must be careful every time they revisit a beloved character.

Vanity Fair: The story we’re doing is about Lucasfilm’s Star Wars TV universe, but I remember at the last Star Wars Celebration held in Chicago in 2019, you announced that there was a bit of a hiatus coming for the films.

Kathleen Kennedy: Yes. Which is ironic, right?

I guess, since you didn’t have theaters open for the next two years. Was that original “hiatus” because you knew there was going to be this new focus on developing television content for Disney+?

Not necessarily. It really had more to do with recognizing that we were drawing to a close on the saga that George [Lucas] had created and that we were moving into the future of storytelling in the Star Wars universe. We all recognized, every single one of us inside of Lucasfilm, that this was a new chapter for the company and that we needed to all work together to create the architecture for where we were going. 

Simultaneous to us taking a hiatus, [then CEO] Bob Iger changed the strategy of the Walt Disney Company to shift focus toward streaming. At the time, they didn’t even know what the streaming service was going to be called. That’s how new the idea was.

Did it require a lot of adjustment?

What’s unique about Star Wars is that we’re one story, basically. George was always dealing with “episodes.” Ironically, he was serializing his storytelling. He was influenced by Flash Gordon and the cliff-hangers on Saturdays at movie theaters. All of that informed the DNA of what Star Wars is, which is why I think it’s just organic that we made the transition into television.

So all of this coalesced. I love to say that we’re all strategic geniuses—we’re not. I think what we all did, very effectively, was we pivoted. I got lucky. I knew that Jon Favreau was always deeply interested in Star Wars. He was the first person I went to. What’s unique about Jon is his commitment. He’s had a sole focus pretty much on this for the last several years. That’s been a godsend.

When you went to talk to Favreau, was it with a TV series in mind?

It wasn’t an assignment by any means. I went to talk to him because Bob Iger was beginning to have these conversations about creating streaming. I said, “Hey, I don’t know if you would have an interest in coming in and working with us.” He said, “Not only would I have an interest, I have an idea.” So he had been thinking about this, unbeknownst to me. 

Consequently, once Jon wanted to get involved in Star Wars, I had known for a long time that Dave Filoni [who created the Clone Wars series with Lucas] had always been interested in making a transition from animation to live action. I have known this almost from the moment I came into the company and really encouraged him. I tried to create opportunities for him to come over to London, to be on the set [of feature films], to talk to our directors, to get a sense of what that transition might look and feel like. 

So I said to Favreau, “You need to sit down with Dave.” Not because I thought that Dave was going to immediately jump in and start directing, but because I knew that Dave would be a huge, huge added bonus to Jon’s vision.

You arranged a playdate?

Yeah! I arranged a playdate. [Laughs] That’s exactly what I did. They got along instantly, like gangbusters. Dave obviously remembered when Jon Favreau had come in and done voices a couple of times on The Clone Wars. But they didn’t know each other that well. Now they’re two peas in a pod. I mean, they just work together beautifully.

[Favreau and Filoni also revealed in their joint interview with V.F. that they had started with competing Mandalorian ideas. That’s why Kennedy wanted them to join forces. “She says, ‘Dave’s working on something with Mandalorians too,’ but it was more the history of the Mandalorians as it related to the work he had done on The Clone Wars,” Favreau recalled. “So I think she felt that there was potentially two conflicting projects.”]

The biggest challenge is getting all these great minds together and arriving at a structural point of view. We really drive our storytelling through the lens of filmmakers. We depend on people like Favreau and Dave and J.J. Abrams and the filmmakers we’ve worked with, like Tony Gilroy [on the upcoming Andor series]. We put the basic guardrails around what makes something Star Wars, those fundamental values inherent in Star Wars, that sense of place, the deeper meanings around selflessness, selfishness, and the mythology that George created. Then we pretty much leave them to their own devices and try to support that. 

So there’s a little bit of luck that comes into this too. With Jon Favreau and the TV side, we’ve gotten very fortunate that he’s made the long-term commitment. I would love to find somebody on the feature side that would make that kind of a long-term commitment. There’s a couple of people I’m pretty close to that we may get there, but it’s such a competitive landscape right now that availability, exclusivity, those kind of ideas [make it] tough.

When did you first encounter Grogu—the Baby Yoda concept? Was that a part of it from the beginning, or did that evolve as the story developed?

No, that was part of it from the beginning. There’s always some evolution. That character and what it looked like took a bit of time, but that character was something that he had identified right from the beginning. There was a lot of discussion around whether that was something we should or shouldn’t do.

I imagine that gave you some pause.

Yeah, it gave us some pause. But the thing I love about Jon is he’s very definitive. He also gives a lot of thought to what he wants to do. He’s always, always respectful of Star Wars and what it means and not just doing things flippantly. So he and Dave debated that quite ferociously. Both came to the conclusion that—why not? Everybody knows that Yoda is not just a singular being; he is of a species. That could develop into something interesting.

That seems like a turning point. I assume somebody in your position would look at these two guys debating—one was for, and one was against…

Not against. Cautious. Cautious.

There must have been a part of you that’s like, Is this too cute? Are people going to reject it? Walk me through that process and what ultimately convinced you. 

I internalized a lot of the debate they were having. I think what struck me was it was a bold idea. I’m always attracted to that. You could look back and maybe think that was an expected idea—but it wasn’t.

Initially, he was just trying to create a character—the Mandalorian is taking care of The Child. That’s the basic concept. It was The Child. What that The Child looked like is what evolved over time. The bold idea that maybe it’s of the species that Yoda is immediately gives you a context and a potential backstory. That’s exciting in Star Wars because all these things need to be connected. That’s what I recognized right away when he was talking about it. Then when we saw it, I mean… come on.

It’s pretty obvious Jon has an interest in that other Mandalorian since he wrote The Book of Boba Fett. Was Fett his initial idea for The Mandalorian?

No. He was certainly intrigued by Boba Fett. He knew that we were working on Boba Fett in the feature space for a while. So when he started to develop The Mandalorian, there’s no question that there was a lot of conversation around: How do we separate the two? If we were ever to do something with Boba Fett, what would that mean? 

Was The Book of Boba Fett similar to those previous ideas Lucasfilm explored as feature films? 

We didn’t really get too far down the road on what we were going to do in features with Boba. As you know, with development there’s a lot of things that get talked about and don’t necessarily move forward—or they move forward and they hit a wall. It’s a difficult process. So no, we never got to a point where there was anything that Jon either used or rejected.

You’ve mentioned a couple times that Star Wars is one unified story. That’s immense pressure. If Warner Bros. makes a Batman film that doesn’t work, they can reboot and do a different Batman film. But I don’t think you can really say, “The Obi-Wan series we made doesn’t count…”

We also can’t go do something with Luke Skywalker that isn’t Mark Hamill. We’re not going to suddenly go try to do that. The beauty of Obi-Wan Kenobi is Ewan [McGregor] desperately wanted to do this. He has been so engaged in the entire process, and our excitement and reason for doing this is that the real Obi-Wan wanted to tell this story. We got excited by the idea that Ewan McGregor wanted to come back, and Hayden Christensen wanted to come back. 

Just as fans, everybody inside the company was like, “Let’s see if we can make this work.” Deborah Chow’s done a beautiful job with it. Again, it’s a singular vision. She’s directed all six [episodes]. It has a consistent feel and style to it. 

I don’t want to put you in an awkward spot, but was this an understanding you’ve come to that was developed from Solo? I don’t want to trash Alden [Ehrenreich], I think he did a good job. But the idea that you can’t really replace Luke Skywalker, was that something you learned from that movie—or how would you put it?

Maybe. As you say it, Anthony…maybe. I think back, and Solo was one of the first ideas that came up when the company was sold. One of the first people I went to was [screenwriter] Larry Kasdan. Larry and I have known each other forever. He was so excited to tell that story. We genuinely believed at the time it was a good idea. 

So yeah. There should be moments along the way when you learn things. That may have certainly been a learning moment. Some people have talked about how, well, maybe Solo should have been a TV show. But even doing Solo as a TV show without Harrison Ford as Han Solo…it’s the same thinking. Maybe I should have recognized this before. We would never make Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. Having just finished the fifth movie, I can tell you, there wasn’t a day I wasn’t on set where I wasn’t like, Yes—this is Indiana Jones.

Maybe I’m closer to the DNA of Indy, and always have been, than I was when I came into Star Wars, because now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that. You get excited by these things, and you want to revisit things you want. You want to have that feeling again, and you’re trying to resurrect that. I think that’s what we do even with our new characters. With Star Wars, everybody talks about a “feeling” they have about Star Wars. That’s that intangible idea that you’re looking for.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is about to premiere. Can you talk to me a little about Deborah Chow and where she’s taking the story?

I think what Deborah’s done really effectively is she’s explored the interior life of Obi-Wan, because we find Obi-Wan at a point when he thinks he’s killed Anakin. He is at a pretty low point when we find him. He’s questioning who he is. I think she does a really great job of having him find that humanity again.… There’s so much I can’t tell you!

Initially, with The Force Awakens, J.J. created a mystery around Rey’s origin. That’s been something fans have been debating now for years.

Oh yeah.

I’d heard that Obi-Wan was possibly one of the resolutions—that Rey could have been a descendant of his. I’ve heard this idea was carried along for a while, then it was put aside partly because Rian [Johnson] had a different approach, but also because Lucasfilm didn’t want to tie up Obi-Wan for a different story down the line. Is that about right?

The bigger issue is talking about Obi-Wan as a Master Jedi, and the issue of attachment and selflessness. In order for Obi-Wan to have a child, you are really, really impacting the rules around the Jedi. What does that mean? If that were explored—and certainly there were a lot of ideas being thrown around—but anything to do with Obi-Wan in that regard was pretty much off the table because it flies in the face of everything George created in the mythology. We’re not rigid about it. It’s certainly open for discussion all the time. But that’s a pretty significant tenet in the mythology of the Jedi that we’d be reluctant to mess with.

I know The Acolyte hasn’t started shooting yet, but that’s also on the horizon for Lucasfilm. That series is not as tied into the characters we already know, right?

That one sits right on the edge of the High Republic Era. It’s a bit of an experiment for us because it isn’t building within the timeline and the era that Jon and Dave are. It isn’t necessarily going to be where features are. We are moving into a new era with what [showrunner] Leslye Headland is doing. 

There are certainly reflections of things that people are going to recognize, and it will have connectivity in Star Wars. But this will be a whole new [era] of storytelling if we determine—like we did with The Mandalorian—that it works and that there’s interest. I think there will be.

How important is it to get outside the gravity of the Skywalker saga, moving beyond the characters we know? How vital is it to open up those new realms?

I think it is vital. Just staying within the construct of George’s storytelling, to keep chipping away at that, I think would be wrong. It’s our job to step away now, but still have a connection to the mythology that George created. That won’t stop. But we are moving on from the Skywalker saga. That’s what’s taking a lot of time, discussion, and thought right now. 

Is publishing the test kitchen for some of these new eras?

It is. That’s something we put into motion about five years ago because we don’t have the benefit of just pulling a book off the shelf…

And adapting it.

As we look at where Star Wars is going, we don’t just assume it’s only going to be on television and in movie theaters. That’s another evolution we’re having a lot of conversation around.

Where else could it be? Virtual reality?

It could. I think it’s beyond just V.R. Think of some of the things Epic Games is doing with Fortnite: the ability to immerse people in stories, building avatars around your character that could actually participate in some way. 

We talk so much about the movie experience being something that is a community. You get to hear people interact. You get to hear them laugh. You get to hear them cheer. Well, in the future, you’re going to have that opportunity to experience that feeling and that interaction virtually. That may not be ideal to a lot of people, but there’s no question that’s where it’s going.

So what does that mean for us as storytellers? Since we work so far ahead of what the audience interacts with, we have to be thinking about these things.

It’ll be interesting to follow along with that as the years go by.

It’s right on the horizon. We’re already having conversations around what we’re going to experiment with [regarding] immersive technology. I know everybody kicks around the word metaverse. But in a funny way, George created Star Wars as a part of the metaverse a long time ago.

Because Star Wars fans surround themselves with this thing they love? 

If you can live a part of that all the time…how do we enrich that? That’s what the fans want. You want to enter this world, whatever it is that interests you, and feel that investment of time is worthwhile.

Can we touch upon “storytelling classic”—the movies? I know about Taika Waititi’s untitled film written by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and Patty Jenkins is doing Rogue Squadron. Do you have a road map for features, or are you still developing that?

We have a road map. I would say that Taika’s story fits more specifically into that. Rogue Squadron…we kind of pushed off to the side for the moment. Patty is developing the script further. Then we will talk about how that connects to the central spine that we’re working on. There’s a couple of [filmmakers] that we’ve been in conversation with over quite a long period of time that I’m hoping will come in and make the overall commitment that Jon and Dave have made. That’s ideally what I would love to see happen in the feature space.

Are you talking about a commitment to make, say, three movies, or are you talking about an even bigger commitment of shepherding phases of films in the way that Kevin Feige did with Marvel?

I wouldn’t go so far. Kevin is an anomaly—an amazing one. But [the goal is] definitely having somebody make more of a commitment. I hesitate to use the word trilogies anymore because Star Wars is much more about persistent storytelling.

One of the enduring questions that the fans have is about Rian Johnson and his future with Star Wars. Is there anything you can tell me about that? I know it’s been said that that trilogy is still on. But it’s been so many years since it was announced. Is that still the case? Can we resolve what’s going on with his idea?

Star Wars: The Rebellion Will Be Televised

Rian has been unbelievably busy with Knives Out and the deal that he made at Netflix for multiple movies. I’ve had meetings with Rian; he’s somebody that’s come in as part of our little brain trust discussions along the way. He remains very committed to what it is we’re trying to do. He just literally hasn’t had the time to devote. That’s what I’m saying: Anyone who comes into the Star Wars universe needs to know that it’s a three, four, five-year commitment. That’s what it takes. You can’t step in for a year and shoot something and then walk away. It just doesn’t work that way. So it requires that kind of nurturing.

I mentioned Kevin Feige before, and I know it’s been reported he’s producing something for you. Can you tell me about that?

[That’s] the rumor mill. Kevin, I think everybody knows, is a huge Star Wars fan. He’s clearly been inspired by Star Wars in the way in which he’s handled Marvel. I know he’s got a lot on his plate right now. I would love to see at some point what movie he might come up with. But right now, no. There isn’t anything specifically on the horizon. [UPDATE: This interview with Kennedy was in March, and last week screenwriter Michael Waldron told Variety he was working on a script for the rumored Feige project: “We’re finally into it in earnest.”]

Was there anything else about the film side of things that you’d like to talk about?

We’ll probably get a little bit more specific in a couple of months.

In your filmography, you’ve made silly comedies, heavy dramas, historical films, and sci-fi movies…Do you ever see Star Wars branching off into different genres?

I think that’s exactly why I get excited about working on Star Wars. George was inspired by so many different genres. I love that. In fact, that is a tenet of any story discussion we’re having. I usually start by saying, “What genre is this?” Once you have that touchstone, then you understand what the rules are. I think that leads to better storytelling.

It’s funny you mentioned this because George and I [got] the PGA Milestone Award together. The team cut this reel together, and I just looked at it a couple of days ago. First of all, I don’t know where they found some of the footage. It goes way back.

But what I was so taken with is how much fun we were having. It amounted to this moment of realization: I do think a little bit of fun has gone out of making these gigantic movies. The business, the stakes, everything that’s been infused in the last 10 years or so. There’s a kind of spontaneity and good time that we have to be careful to preserve. I keep holding on to: It better be fun.