Kathleen Kennedy

Having a female point of view in the room - when you get into a discussion about behavior - who would say what and how they would interact with one another. In certain situations, women are going to have a different opinion on that than men. It made for a really balanced conversation in the room.

It's not just about casting female protagonists. It's gotta be across the board throughout the industry.

The 'Star Wars' saga is about a series of seemingly chance encounters. They impact the destiny of everyone involved.

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.

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.

We have an amazing team at ILM who can create fantastic effects.

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've always said that I don't want to be in front of the camera.

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.

We don't have any intention of beginning a trend of re-creating actors who are gone.

When I joined Lucasfilm, I immediately saw the true passion shared by 'Star Wars' fans around the world.

The most important thing is to have a point of view and have something to say. That is important if you are filmmaker or artist. That means you have to experience the world.