Kathleen Kennedy

We knew that for E.T. to feel real, you had to have some connection to his eyes.

A lot of directors will do a certain amount of storyboarding and pre-vis, and yet when they get on the set, everything starts to change, and they have new ideas.

Creating authentic emotional experiences, whether it's 'Star Wars' or 'Spotlight,' are driven by characters and stories that are engaging.

The producer, in effect, has to work as a translator. You form a very tight relationship with the director and writer from the beginning, and then you are constantly communicating to the various people that begin to come into the process, as you are trying to manage to hold on to a vision that needs to be communicated over a long period of time.

I think 'E.T.' came along at a time when it was probably meant to be.

I think most fans of movies that have withstood the test of time don't like for them to be tinkered with. I think that's a pretty general consensus. You like to remember what you started with.

I don't analyze things all the time, I just do them.

Many great stories are father issues, mother issues or death.

It's an interesting thing when you're casting a film - especially when you're trying to discover someone - you're waiting for someone to step into the room in an audition process and claim the role.

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.

Not every script that rolls in is ready to shoot. Few are, actually. So you go back and work on the thing.

I'm just a member of the audience with each project I work on, and I hope to never lose that. It's my touchstone. It's the thing I never want to overanalyze.