George Lucas Interview - Academy of Achievement - Print Preview

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Academy of Achievement Logo
George Lucas
Interview: George Lucas

Creator of "Star Wars"
June 19, 1999

Washington, D.C.
Back to George Lucas Interview
You had a bad auto accident as a teenager. Do you think that changed the course of your life?
George Lucas: I'm not sure. I think about that sometimes.
I was a terrible student in high school and the thing that the auto accident did -- and it happened just
as I graduated, so I was at this sort of crossroads -- but it made me apply myself more, because I
realized more than anything else what a thin thread we hang on in life, and I really wanted to make
something out of my life. And I was in an accident that, in theory, no one could survive. So it was
like, "Well I'm here, and every day now is an extra day. I've been given an extra day so I've got to
make the most of it." And then the next day I began with two extra days. And I've sort of -- you can't
help in that situation but get into a mind set like that, which is you've been given this gift and every
single day is a gift, and I wanted to make the most of it. Before, when I was in high school, I just sort
of wandered around. I wanted to be a car mechanic and I wanted to race cars and the idea of trying
to make something out of my life wasn't really a priority. But the accident allowed me to apply myself
at school. I got great grades. Eventually I got very excited about anthropology and about social
sciences and psychology, and I was able to push my photography even further and eventually
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/luc0int-1 1/20
discovered film and film schools.
Weren't you always interested in filmmaking?
George Lucas: Well, I grew up in a small town in Central California; it was a

farming community. We had a couple of movie theaters, and you'd go to the
movies once in a while. I didn't get a television until I was 10 or 11 years
old. I had lots of interests. I liked woodworking, I liked to build things. I
liked cars. I liked art. I really wanted to be an illustrator, and I liked
photography.
I didn't really discover any interest in film until I was a junior in college.
What changed for you then? Is there something you learned about
achievement later that you didn't understand when you were
younger?
George Lucas: Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic

goals. That was one of the hardest things for me to do. You don't always
know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't. For me just setting the
goals of getting decent grades in school and taking subjects I had some interest in was a big goal. I focused
on that.
I decided to go to film school because I loved the idea of making films. I loved photography and
everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days nobody made it into the film business.
I mean, unless you were related to somebody there was no way in. So everybody was thinking I was
silly. "You're never going to get a job." But I wasn't moved by that. I set the goal of getting through
film school, and just then focused on getting to that level because I didn't -- you know, I didn't know
where I was going to go after that. I wanted to make documentary films, and eventually I got into
the goal of -- once I got to school -- of making a film. One of the most telling things about film school
is you've got a lot of students in those days especially, it's not quite so much today, but - wandering
around saying, "Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish I could make a move." You know, "I can't
get in this class. I can't get any this or that." The first class I had was an animation class. It wasn't a
production class. I had a history class and an animation class. And, in the animation class they gave
us one minute of film to put onto the animation camera to operate it, to see how you could move left,
move right, make it go up and down. It was a test. You had certain requirements that you had to do.
You had to make it go up and had to make it go down, and then the teacher would look at it and say,
"Oh yes, you maneuvered this machine to do these things." I took that one minute of film and made
it into a movie, and it was a movie that won like, you know twenty or twenty-five awards in every
film festival in the world and kind of changed the whole animation department. Meanwhile all the
other guys were going around saying, "Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish I was in a production
class." So then I got into another class and it wasn't really a production class but I managed to get
some film and I made a movie. And, I made lots of movies while in school while everybody else was
running around saying, "Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish they'd give me some film."
(George Lucas produced and directed his first

film while a student at USC film school in 1965.
"Look At Life," shot on 16-mm film, won

awards for its innovative photo montage.)
Get the Flash Player to see this video.
You could actually go to school and learn how to make movies. Suddenly everything came
together in one place. All my likes, everything I actually seemed to have talent for was right
there. I said, "Hey, this is it. I can do this really well. I really love to do it." And from then
on I, you know, just took off, but before that I was kind of wandering as I think a lot of
students do.
When I look back on it now, if I'd gone to art school, or stayed in anthropology, I'm
almost positive I would have ended up eventually in film. Mostly I just followed my inner
feelings and passions, and said "I like this, and I like this," and I just kept going to where it
got warmer and warmer, until it finally got hot, and then that's where I was.
What is it about film that makes it so exciting?
George Lucas: I think that's just a personal thing for me. It's extremely hard work, and it's
not very glamorous. It ultimately is simply a way of expressing ideas. I am more of a visual
person than a verbal person. For me, I think, the excitement is the fact that I found a way
of telling the story as I want to tell it, in a medium that I could master. Although I write screenplays, I don't
think I'm a very good writer. I'm very interested in studying cultures and social issues, but as an academic I
don't think I would have been too successful.
Were there any experiences that inspired you as a kid?
George Lucas: There wasn't much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult.
I was always extremely curious about why people did the things they do. I was always very interested
in what motivates people and in telling stories and building things. I've always been very into
building things. Whether it was chess sets or houses or cars or whatever. I liked to put things
together. When I was young, from at least my teenage years they were completely devoted to cars.
That was the most important thing in my life from about the ages of 14 to 20.
When I first got to college, I was very interested in

the social sciences, anthropology, sociology,
psychology, those kinds of things. And I was still
interested in art and photography. I didn't know that I George Lucas Interview Photo
could actually put them all together in one occupation
and love it.
I wanted to transfer to an art school, and ended up

going to the University of Southern California. They
had a cinematography school, and I said "Well, that's
sort of like photography, maybe that will be
interesting." And once I started in that department, I
found what it was that I loved and was good at. And
I realized I could do it very well, and that I enjoyed
doing it. It really ignited a passion in me, and it took
off from there. After that, I didn't do anything but
films.
Were there any books or films that were important to you, that influenced or inspired you to do
the kind of work you wanted to do?
George Lucas Interview Photo George Lucas: When I was younger, I had a collection of history books
that I was addicted to, a whole series about famous people in history
from Ancient Greece and Alexander the Great, up to the Civil War -- the
Monitor and the Merrimac. I think they were called "Landmark" books,
and I collected a whole library of them. I used to love to read those
books. It started me on a lifelong love of history. Even in high school I
was very interested in history -- why people do the things they do. As a
kid I spent a lot of time trying to relate the past to the present.
I liked all the normal kinds of adventure books, Kidnapped, Treasure

Island, Huck Finn sorts of things. I loved Swiss Family Robinson and
that whole period of South Sea adventure movies. I liked westerns.
Westerns were very big when I was growing up. When we finally got a
television there was a whole run of westerns on television. John Wayne
films, directed by John Ford, before I knew who John Ford was. I think
those were very influential in my enjoyment of movies.
Do you think you had a natural talent for filmmaking? What drew you to that line of work?
George Lucas: Everybody has talent and it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered
what it is. A talent is a combination of something you love a great deal and something you can lose
yourself in -- something that you can start at 9 o'clock, look up from your work and it's 10 o'clock at
night -- and also something that you have a talent, not a talent for, but skills that you have a natural
ability to do very well. And usually those two things go together.
A lot of people like to do certain things, but they're not that good at it. Keep going through the things that
you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.
There's lots and lots of different things out there. It's a matter of moving around until you find the one for
you, the niche that you fit into.
Once you started making films, do you think it came easy for you?
George Lucas: Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.
What you've really got to do is focus on learning as much about life, and about various aspects of it
first. Then learn just the techniques of making a movie because that stuff you can pick up pretty
quickly. But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences -- are
very, very important to actually being able to make movies.
In your opinion, what personal characteristics are most important for success in any field?
George Lucas: If you want to be successful in a particular field of George Lucas Interview Photo
endeavor, I think perseverance is one of the key qualities. It's very
important that you find something that you care about, that you
have a deep passion for, because you're going to have to devote a
lot of your life to it. And you're going to have to really be focused
on it. And you're going to have to overcome a lot of hurdles, a lot
of people saying you can't do it. And you're going to have to take
a lot of risks.
Working hard is very important. You have to find something that

you love enough to be able to take those risks, to be able to jump
over the hurdles, to be able to break through the brick walls that
are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that
kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first
giant hurdle. So, I think you'll never make it unless you persevere.
Unless you overcome a lot of very difficult obstacles. I think that's
one of the most important characteristics in terms of an occupation.
Looking back on the bumps in your career, as well as your successes, what advice would you give
a young person?
George Lucas: Working hard is very important. You're not going to get anywhere without working
extremely hard.
No matter how easy it looks on the outside, it's a very, very difficult struggle. You don't see the
struggle part of a person's life. You only see the success they have. But I haven't met anybody here at
the Academy or anywhere else that hasn't been able to describe years and years and years of very,
very difficult struggle through the whole process of achieving anything whatsoever. And there's no
way to sort of get around that. The secret is just not to give up hope. It's very hard not to because if
you're really doing something worthwhile, I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness
before you come through the other side. You just have to hang in through that.
Did that happen to you?
George Lucas: Oh yeah, lots of times.
I've had much more down in my life than I've had up. And much more struggle. First of all, when I
went into the film school everybody said, "What are you doing? This is a complete dead-end for a
career." Because nobody had ever made it from a film school into the actual film industry. Maybe
you'd go to work for Lockheed, or some industrial company to do industrial films, but nobody
actually made it into the entertainment business. I had no interest in going into the entertainment
business, so I didn't really care. I was more interested in just doing films, going back to San
Francisco, doing experimental films and that sort of thing, maybe documentaries and that sort of
thing. So I didn't care. Then I finished school, I went to San Francisco, and everybody said, "Why are
you going to San Francisco?" I said, "That's where I live." They said, "You can't possibly work in the
film business living in San Francisco." And I said, "Well, I want to live where I want to live, and I
will make films because I love to make films."
My first six years in the business was hopeless. There's lot of times when you sit and you say, "Why
am I doing this? I'll never make it. It's just not going to happen. I should really go out and get a real
job, and try to survive," because I'd borrowed money from my parents. I'd borrowed money from my
friends. You know, it didn't look like I was ever going to actually be able to pay anybody back. This is
part of living. You do have to eat, pay rent and pay back your friends who are supporting you.
I mean, it took me years to get my first film off the ground. As I talk to film students now especially, I
say, "The easiest job you'll ever get is to try to make your first film." That's the easy one to get, is the
first film because nobody knows whether you can make a film or not. You've made a bunch of little
projects, you've shown off you have talent, and you talk real fast, and you convince somebody that
you should be doing a feature. And, they let you do a feature. After you've done that feature, then
you have heck of a difficult time getting your second film off the ground. They look at your first film
and they say, "Oh well, we don't want you anymore."
Was there anything about you as a filmmaker, or about your ideas, that made it so difficult to get
that second film made?
George Lucas: I came from a very avant-garde documentary kind of film making world. I like
cinema verité, documentaries. I liked non-story, non-character tone poems that were being done in
San Francisco at that time. And that's the film making that I was interested in. Francis Coppola,
who was my mentor, sort of -- he's a writer and works with actors -- stage director -- and he said,
"You've gotta learn how to do this." And so I took him up on the challenge and wrote my own
screenplays, learned to write and work with actors.
It took me three, four years, to get from my first film to my second film, banging on doors, trying to
get people to give me a chance. Writing, struggling, with no money in the bank, working as an editor
on the side. Working as a cameraman on the side. Getting little jobs, eking out a living. Trying to
stay alive, and pushing a script that nobody wanted.
When the going gets rough, how do you deal with feelings of desperation?
George Lucas: I've had this quite a bit in my career actually. You simply have to put one foot in front of the
other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.
When I was doing American Graffiti I was still struggling with my 'I don't want to be a writer'
syndrome. I had some good friends of mine that I wanted to write the screenplay, but it took me like
two years just to get the money to do a screenplay. And I got a little tiny amount of money and --
which I had to go actually to the Cannes Film Festival to get on my own. So finally I got this money.
I called back and I said, you know, "I got the money. We can start working on the screenplay." And
they said, "Oh, we don't want to do that now. We've got our own low-budget picture off the ground
and we can't write it." I said, "Oh no." I said, "What am I going to do? I am in Europe and I'm not
going to be back for like three months and I want to get this thing off the ground." So they
recommended another student from school that I knew pretty well. I had a story treatment that laid
out the entire story scene by scene, so I called him over the phone from London and I said, "Do you
want to do this?" And he said, "Okay." The person I was working with at that time as a producer
made a deal with him for the whole money because there wasn't very much. It was so tiny that he
could only get him to do it for the whole amount of money. When I came back from England, the
screenplay was a completely different screenplay from the story treatment. It was more like Hot Rods
to Hell. It was very fantasy-like, with playing chicken and things that kids didn't really do. I wanted
something that was more like the way I grew up. So I took that and I said, "Okay. Now here I am.
I've got a deal to turn in a screenplay. I've got a screenplay that is just not the kind of screenplay I
want at all and I have no money." And, I spent the very last money I had saved up to go to Europe to
make the deal, so I had nothing. That was a very dark period for me so I sat down myself and wrote
the screenplay.
George Lucas Interview Photo
I kept getting phone calls from producers saying, "I hear you're great." I had made a film called
THX, which had no story and no character really. It was kind of an avant-garde film. And so I had
all these producers calling me saying, "I hear you're really good at material that doesn't have a story.
I've got a record album I want you to make into a movie." Or, you know, things like that. And they
were offering me a lot of money and -- but they were terrible projects. And so I had to constantly
turn down vast sums of money while I was starving, writing a screenplay for free that I didn't like to
write because I hated writing. But, I did finish it. I did write the screenplay and eventually I got a
deal to make the movie. And then after I finally got that, then my friends came back in and did a
rewrite on it, but it was a very dark period, and I could have very easily just taken the money and
gone off and done one of these really terrible movies. I don't know what that would have done for my
career, but you know, when the times are hard like that you simply have to say, "This is what I want
to do. I want to make my movie. I don't want to take the money." And you just walk forward, step by
step and get through it somehow. And I got through. It actually only took me about three weeks to
write that script. I just every day would sit down at eight o'clock in the morning and I'd write until
about eight o'clock at night. And I just said, "I'm going to finish this, as painful as it is, and I'm going
to ignore these phone calls of lure of riches and get through this. And somehow I did it.
Film is not an easy occupation. There's a lot of occupations that are difficult. Film is one of them.
There's always adversity that you're faced with. I like to tell students that I talk to that, you know, it's
not a matter of how well can you make a movie. It's how well can you make it under the
circumstance, because there's always circumstances. You cannot use that as an excuse. You can't put
a title card at the head of the movie and say, "Well, we really had a bad problem. You know, the
actor got sick and it rained this day and we had a hurricane." And you know, you can't -- the
cameras broke down -- you can't do that. You simply have to show them the movie and it has got to
work and there are no excuses. And so, you really have to focus on what you're doing and just plow
ahead no matter what hurdles are thrown in front of you.
After I did American Graffiti, and it was successful, it was a big moment for me because I really did
sit down with myself and say, "Okay, now I am a director. Now I know I can get a job. I can work in
this industry, and apply my trade, and express my ideas on things and be creative in a way that I
enjoy. Even if I end up doing TV commercials or something, or I fall back into what I really love is
documentaries. I'll be able to do it. I know I can get a job somewhere. I know I can raise money
somewhere. I know I can do what I want to do." That was a very good feeling. At that point, I'd
made it. There wasn't anything in my life that was going to stop me from making movies.
Was the original Star Wars a tough sell? It seems obvious now, but what was it like to get that off
the ground back in the 1970s?
George Lucas: I had a very, very difficult time my first two pictures. And when I started working on
Star Wars, my second film, American Graffiti, had not come out yet. So, in the beginning it wasn't
something anybody was interested in and I had taken it to a couple of studios and they had turned it
down. And then one studio executive saw American Graffiti and loved it, and I took him the
proposal. He said, "You know, I don't understand this, but I think you're a great film maker and I'm
going to invest in you. I'm not going to invest in this project." And that's really how it got made.
Star Wars is so far removed from a film like American Graffiti.
George Lucas Interview Photo George Lucas: Yeah, it was. All of my films have
been very hard to understand at the script stage
because they're very different. At the time I did them
they were not conventional. The executives could only
think in terms of what they'd already seen. It's hard
for them to think in terms of what has never been
done before.
Would you say your career has been marked by

going against the conventional wisdom?
George Lucas: Yeah, and it's made it considerably more difficult. It's funny when you look back now,
because everybody's sort of copied those films. They're so ingrained in the culture now, it's almost
impossible to think there was a point where those things were completely odd and unique.
The funny thing is the two movies I directed that were George Lucas Interview Photo
my conventional movies, were slight twists on very, very
conventional movies, the kind that I loved when I was
younger. One genre was the teenage hot rod movies
made by American International Pictures, which were
sort of the lowest rung of the movie ladder. The other
was Republic Serials, Saturday morning serials from the
'30s, which were an ancient lowest rung on the ladder.
So I was taking the lowest genre that was available and

then twisting it and making it into something completely
different, something that was more mainstream in terms of the quality and acceptability of the modern movie-
going audience. I think the prejudice against those films was really that they were cheap B movies; not that
they were so out there.
American Graffiti was really my first attempt at doing something mainstream, so to speak, and even
it was so -- one, it was in a genre that was looked down upon but I loved when I was a kid. It was
about my life as I grew up, so I cared about it a lot. And then on top of it, it was in a style that was
different from what everybody was used to. It was intercutting four stories that didn't relate to each
other, which nobody had really done before. Now it's sort of the standard fare for television. And it
had music all the way through it; not just the score but actual songs from the period, and that is
something that nobody had done before. And they just sort of described it as a musical montage with
no characters and no story, and so it was very, very hard to get that off the ground, and on top of
that it was a B movie. I almost got it set up at American International Pictures, where they liked
doing those kinds of movies but it was too strange for them in terms of the style. And Star Wars was
kind of the same situation where it was a genre they weren't that interested in. Science fiction was
not something that did well at the box office. It dealt with robots and Wookies and things that --
generally most people -- they couldn't read it and say, "I understand what this is all about." They just
were completely confused by it. And really on top of that, it was aimed at being a film for young
people, and most of the studios said, "Look, that's Disney's. Disney does that. The rest of us can't do
that, so we don't want to get into that area." So I had so many strikes against me when I did that. I
was lucky that I found a studio executive that just believed in me as a film maker and just
disregarded the material itself.
In these groundbreaking circumstances, were you afflicted with any self-doubts, fear of failure?
George Lucas: Whenever you're making a movie, especially when you're writing, you always have self-
doubts. I did the first location shooting in Tunisia. I didn't get everything shot, but I had to get out of there in
ten days regardless. What I had shot was the very beginning of the movie, and I was very worried about the
creative quality of it. I just didn't know.
I was working with an editor I hadn't worked with before -- I started out as an editor -- I was
working with a British editor and the scenes would come back, and I'd go on the weekends and look
at the scenes with the editor, and they just weren't working. And I was very down about the whole
situation. So I went in myself on Sundays and started re-cutting the movie. The editing wasn't
obviously bad but it just wasn't working. I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. I mean it was
either I was doing a terrible job directing this thing, or something else. As I started to cut the film
together, I realized that I was making cuts that were, you know, a foot away from where the editor
had been making them. And I had been using the same takes that I'd given him, but I was just slightly
moving it ever so slightly in one direction, and it suddenly clicked and it started working, which was
a great relief to me because up to that point I was feeling very desperate about the whole situation.
Ever since Star Wars, we've seen all of these action figures and tie-ins and merchandising with
popular films. This was something new in the movie business, wasn't it? How did you figure out
that this could be part of the business?
George Lucas Interview Photo George Lucas: Well, those things kind of happen. When
you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to
survive. The most important thing in the end is survival
and being able to get to your next picture. I had written a
screenplay, but the screenplay was so big that I couldn't
possibly make it into one movie. So I said, "Okay. I'll
get rid of the last two thirds of it, and I'll just do the first
act. I can make that into one movie. That's big enough."
But I still had all this other work that I'd done. I'd spent
a whole year doing this and I said, "I'm not going to give
this up. I won't just put this on the shelf and forget it. I'll
make this into three movies and I will make all three movies. "
I made a pact with myself that I was going to make all three (Star Wars) movies, and in order to do
that, as I stated to make my deal with 20th Century Fox, I acquired the sequel rights, because I
didn't want them to bury the sequel. I wanted to make these movies and I was determined to make
these movies regardless of whether they wanted to, or the movie made any money or not. And then I
got the merchandising rights, which weren't anything at the time because there was no such thing as
merchandising on movies. Some TV stuff, but not movies. Their life span is just too short. But I
figured I could make posters. I could make t-shirts and, you know, I could publicize the movie and,
hopefully, people would go see it. And because the studio -- everything is sort of a struggle again to
survive, which is -- the studio won't put enough money into your movie to get it into the theaters, to
do the advertising. So I said, "Well, I can't. I don't have any money. I don't have any money, but I can
maybe make a t-shirt deal and I can maybe make a poster deal, and I can maybe get these out at
science fiction conventions and things before the movie comes out, and promote the movie." So I did
it as sort of self-preservation.
I'm an independent filmmaker from San Francisco. I don't have a lot of resources, so I have to think about
how I'm going to get through this movie, and not only that, but how I'm going get it promoted and make
enough money to do the next movie. As it turned out, the film was so successful we were able to make toy
deals and we began to start the whole idea of action figures, of tie-ins, of toys that go along with movies.
Over the years that's one of the things that's helped me stay independent and finance my own movies and
stay in business.
How important is it to you to be independent?
George Lucas: For me it's very important.
I think for most creative people they don't like others looking over their shoulder saying, "Why don't
you make that green? Why don't you make that blue? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing
that? I don't like that. Don't put that in there." It's sort of like Michelangelo and the Pope in terms of
doing the Sistine Chapel. It is a very irritating thing, and I'm sure Michelangelo was very irritated
with the Pope. So you try to get yourself into a situation where you only have to answer to yourself,
where you can ask advice of people and work with your peers and mentors and things to try to do
the best job that you can possibly do. There's nothing worse than the frustration of having somebody
who you feel doesn't get what you're doing, trying to turn it into something else. It's a very, very
annoying and sort of frustrating thing and I just never wanted to go through it. I was very fortunate
as I came up through the film business that I was able to insulate myself from that. Occasionally I get
a studio re-cutting my movie at the very end, but I'd would always fight and get it, eventually, even if
years later, get it cut back. But, it comes out of film school, I think, where the primacy of the creative
process in terms of making a film, is what you live for. It's not a business. It's trying to create
something interesting that you're proud of, and try out creative ideas that may seem really off the
wall, may work or may not work.
Sometimes people are surprised to learn that most of the films I've made don't work. They've been released
but nobody has ever seen them. Maybe 40 percent of them are very successful. That's a very high
percentage; most people have maybe 10 or 15 percent of their films work. When my films that don't work
it's usually because I tried some very experimental idea. I tried new ideas and they just didn't work, as
opposed to trying to do something conventional and having it be so conventional nobody wanted to see it.
I'm very proud of all the movies I made. I am very happy with everything I've done. I like to watch my
movies. Some of them work. Some of them don't. Some of them people like, most of them they don't.
And that's all right with you?
George Lucas: It is all right because I like making movies. I like the process. I like trying out new ideas, and
if they don't work, they don't work. That's the reason I generated the money in the first place, to be able to
try things. That's where I spend my money.
What do you see as the next challenge, the next frontier in the art of making movies?
George Lucas: I think crossing into the digital age is the George Lucas Interview Photo
big move for the industry. I think it will be the biggest
thing that's happened while I've been making movies. I
equate it to the invention of color or sound, and I don't
see any other major technical process coming along and
changing that.
I think there are going to be some social changes that

take place due to the Internet, and the availability of the
tools to more and more people. I think you are going to
find a lot of people re-cutting movies and changing them,

making them into their own movies, things that are hard to contemplate at this point. And there will be
delivery systems that are way, way different. But in terms of the primary process of making a movie, once
we get through this digital revolution, I think it should stay pretty much like that for at least the next 20 or 30
years.
It's hard to tell, but I think the biggest issue is going to be to be how the movies get into the marketplace and
what happens to them once they are there. I don't think it's going to be a "sit down, hands off" situation
anymore. I think it's going to be people sort of reinventing the movies once they're out there. How this
works for the artist, I don't know. And what it does to the marketplace, I don't know. We're living in very
exciting times and I look forward to seeing how this whole thing evolves.
You've testified talked about some of your failures, but you have had enormous success. How do
you handle success?
George Lucas: Success is a very difficult thing. It's much more difficult than one might think. And
when I first had a successful movie, which was American Graffiti, fortunately it was huge, but it
wasn't so huge in terms of monetary things. And it came so slowly that I was able to assimilate it a
little bit. Star Wars was much more difficult, and I had a lot of friends who had become very
successful and they said, "Boy! Watch out, boy. When that one hits you're really going to be thrown
for a loop." I said, "Oh no, no. I went through American Graffiti. I can handle this. I know, you
know--" But when Star Wars finally -- you know, the reality of it hit and all of the attendant things
that go on around it hit, psychologically it's a very, very difficult thing to cope with. And you really
need time after an event like that in your life, especially if it comes very fast, to assimilate what it is
that has happened to you and how everybody relates to you and how your life is.
It's hard to explain what happens psychologically, because a lot of the constraints that you've had are now
gone. Instead of scrambling to find one opportunity somewhere to do something, you suddenly have an
endless supply of opportunities to do anything. So instead of trying to coerce somebody into saying yes, you
are suddenly desperate to learn how to say no. I've seen it with a lot of people, the first thing you do is say
yes to everything because they're all wonderful, wonderful things that are offered to you
Here you've spent your whole life just begging, and using every means at your disposal to get one
person or two people to say 'yes' to your project or to say, "Yes, I'll do this. Yes," you know? And
then suddenly everybody says yes. Suddenly everybody wants you to do everything and anything you
want. Then you have to start learning how to say 'no' -- and tons of opportunities coming your way.
Wonderful opportunities, but you can't do them all. If you start doing them all, your life gets very
unfocused. You get overwhelmed and you collapse, basically. And your feelings of invincibility and
stuff sort of turn into a morass of depression and -- I've seen it happen to a lot of people and I went
through it myself. It's just unavoidable if you're successful. And no matter how much you think you
can deal with it, you can't.
You need to have a lot of close family around you, a lot

of friends to keep you honest. Take your time, take a
year and just slow everything down a little bit. Get away
from the success part, stay with yourself. Go off on a
beach somewhere or do something to keep yourself
George Lucas Interview Photo aligned right.
I've made it a habit. When a movie comes out, I always

go off on a beach so I miss all the craziness that goes on,
all the hoopla, and the hype and the success, and how
much it's making, or whether it's doing good or whether
it's doing bad. I just miss it all. I don't talk to anybody,
and a couple weeks later I come back and it's all over
with. So I hear the results but I didn't have to live
through them. I think it's a healthy way to handle
success. Don't wallow in it. Keep it at arm's length.
In a public art form like yours, how do you handle

criticism?
George Lucas: When I started out, like everyone else I read the critics. You read not only the criticism of
your own movies but everyone else's movies, and as you start to make movies you also meet the critics.
Over time I began to realize that the level of cinema criticism in the last part of this century in the United
States was pretty low. The institution itself is not what it's supposed to be, and I realized that I didn't need to
take that seriously.
There are a few critics overseas, and occasionally a critic will write an astute
analysis of the movie. There is value in reading critics that actually have
something intelligent to say, but the journalistic community lives in a world of
sound bites and literary commerce: selling newspapers, selling books, and they
do that simply by trashing things. They don't criticize or analyze them. They
simply trash them for the sake of a headline, or to shock people to get them to
buy whatever it is they're selling. The older you get, the less seriously you take
it. I've gotten to a point now where I ignore it completely. It's just not relevant
to me anymore.
You have to have a thick enough skin to cope with the criticism. I'm very self-
critical and I have a lot of friends that I trust who are film directors and writers
and people in my profession. I trust them to be extremely critical but I trust
their opinion; their opinion is thoughtful, knowledgeable. I also know them
personally so I know the psychological slant they are putting on it. I know
what their tastes are and I can say, "Well that's great for them but that's not
great for me." Technical criticism is extremely helpful but you are only going to get that from your peers.
I've discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don't really know much
about movies. They don't know the history. They don't know the technology. They don't know
anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they're lost. But your friends usually know what they're
doing and they can critique the technical side of things to say, "This doesn't work. You know, you're
putting the cart before the horse." This kind of stuff. And then the rest of it is what you like, you
know. It's personal, you know. It's in the eye of the beholder. You know, "I like this movie. I don't like
this movie." There are a lot of movies that are badly made that I love, and there are a lot of movies
that are just beautifully made but I don't like them. And critics have a tendency - that's all they focus
on, which is, "I like it. I don't like it. It's good. It's bad." And it doesn't work that way, and so you
really have to not deal with that part of what happens. It's the same thing with the audience. You
know, I've made some movies that have -- ten people have gone to see. Nobody wanted to go see the
movie. And some films that the people went and saw them didn't like it. Probably, you know, maybe
a half a dozen of us actually liked the movies, but that's fine. If I like it, then I'm happy with it. And
you have to sort of accept that no matter what. If nobody else likes it. You're not going to stay in
business, the business of making movies very long because you need the resources in order to keep
going. So you have to try and find a niche audience or some kind of audience that has the same likes,
dislikes and aesthetic sensibilities that you have.
I think one of the reasons that Steven (Spielberg) and I have been as successful as we have is because
we like the movies. We like to go to the movies. We enjoy movies and we want to make movies like
the ones we enjoy. We want to be able to entertain the audience. We want to be able to startle the
audience. We want to be able to blow the audience away and say -- have them walk out of the
theater saying, "Whoa, that was fantastic, I was really moved by that." That's where part of the fun
of it is. And, you know, you want people to think. You want people to be emotionally moved. And
there's a theory behind that in terms of storytelling. It has been around for thousands of years. And
that's where something like live theater or a live performance is something that is very valuable
because you get instant feedback from your audience and you kind of know the things that work and
the things that don't work. That's the advantage that the Greek storytellers had and Shakespeare
had, that us in the film industry are -- that's harder to come by. Which is to be able to see an
audience reaction and then adjust to what works. So you have to use your experience of sitting
through a lot of movies.
I don't ever see movies by myself. I always see them with other people because I want to know what
works. I want to know where they laugh. I want to know where they don't laugh. I want to know
what they think about it afterwards because in the end that's what the art that I'm working with is.
You know? Trying to communicate in a way that is effective and people react to. So I can't ignore the
people I'm telling the story to.
You've enabled other directors to exploit new technology and have more control over sound and
the moving image. What drives you to keep pushing the envelope of technology?
George Lucas: People look at technology as sometimes an end to things, and it isn't an end in certain
cases. In the movie business, the act of creating in the art form of movies, the craft of movies is
completely technical, and that's all it is. It's a big technical thing, as opposed to writing a book or
something, which is partially technical. I mean, the writing part, using the different pens, the
different papers, that was all a big deal. As you went back, the first printing press, binding books,
paperback books, cheap books for a lot of people, that's all technology that allows the writer to
reach a better audience. And sometimes, in the case of painters as opposed to writers, express
themselves more clearly. A lot of painters, Michelangelo, a lot of painters in the past were very adept
at mixing colors, and coming up with new colors, so that they could express things in new ways. The
technology of brushes and all those things were very important to how they applied their craft. Same
thing in movies, only it's a hundredfold. The first movies, they just put up a camera and had a train
come into a train station, and everybody was amazed. That was sort of all technology. "Look at the
technology!" But as it grew, it grew into more of an art form, much more sophisticated than that.
What we've been doing ever since then, whether we add sound, or whether we add color, or whether
we use digital technology, is simply a way of broadening the canvas, so that we have more colors to
work with. As it started out, it was cave paintings, and they were very beautiful and very significant.
But as you get along, the technology of using canvas, or of sculpting in different kinds of material,
and suddenly it all advances to a point where it gets very sophisticated. You can tell much more
interesting stories and you can express yourself more clearly. That's what's happening today, and
that's why all artists are constantly pushing the technology in their medium -- to be able to widen the
range that they can use their imagination.
The area that has the most range at this point is probably literature, and it always has, because it's a
key to the mind and it's very direct. And there, it's just the pen and paper, and how you manage to
use your words. But, theatre, Shakespeare, most of Shakespeare was written around the technology
of the day. Things are staged in a certain way, and written in a certain way in order to deal with the
limitations of the stage, of the flickering candlelight, and of the rowdy audiences, and how do you get
people off the stage, and get new people on the stage if you don't have a curtain, and those kinds of
things. So in a lot of ways, the artist is restricted a great deal by the technology of the medium that
he's working in. And in film, because the nature of it is so technological, the artist has been the most
restricted in what he can do. Digital technology allows and the new kinds of things we're working
with today that we're pushing forward allows you to tell a bigger story and use more imagination
than you were able to do in the past.
What are your dreams right now for the next ten or 20 years?
George Lucas: My life is making movies. I like storytelling, and I've got a lot of stories that are
stored up in my head that I hope to get out before my time is up. So for me looking at it, it's just a
matter of "How can I get through all the stories in the amount of time I have left?" My dream is that
I get to do it.
That was my dream when I was younger, too. "Will I get George Lucas Interview Photo
to make the movies? Will I get to do what I want?" I've
spent a fair amount of time doing what I want, and I
"serendipitied" into starting companies, and building
technology, and doing a lot of other things that are
related to me getting to make the movies that I want to
make. I've always just followed my own course,
whatever I found the most interesting to me at the
moment. I've never had a real plan of, "I want to get
from here to there, and I've got to do this." The
underlying plan to everything is, "I've got a bunch of
movies to tell, and this is the one I'm going to do now, and this is the one I'm going to do next." And then I
focus on the one at hand.
What does the American Dream mean to you?
George Lucas: I don't know what to say about that. It's a very, very complex question.
I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less
emotion-based. I'd like to see education play a larger role in our daily lives, have people come to a
larger understanding -- a "bigger picture" understanding -- of how we fit into the world, and how we
fit into the universe. Not necessarily thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others.
George Lucas Interview Photo Whether we're going to accomplish this, I'm not sure. Obviously,
people have a lot of different dreams of where America should be,
and where it should fit into things. Obviously, very few of them are
compatible, and very few of them are very compatible with the laws
of nature. Human nature means battling constantly between being
completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature.
Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-
minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're
not made up of cancer cells.
If you put that notion on a larger scale, you have to understand that
it's a very cooperative world, not only with the environment, with
but our fellow human beings. If you do not cooperate, if you do not
work together to keep the entire organism going, the whole thing
dies, and everybody dies with it. That's a law of nature, and it's
existed forever. We're one of the very few creatures that has a
choice, and can intellectualize the process.
Most organisms either adapt and become part of the system, or get wiped out. The only thing we have to
adapt to the system with is our brain. If we don't use it, and we don't adapt fast enough, we won't survive.
You mentioned the words "communal" and "connecting." Your generation of the top film makers
all seem to be friends. How did you band together in a field that is so competitive?
George Lucas: I think that's the advantage that my generation has. When we were in film school and
we were starting in the film business, the door was absolutely locked. It was a very, very high wall,
and nobody got in. Therefore, all of us beggars and scroungers down at the front gate decided that if
we didn't band together, we wouldn't survive. If one could make it, that one would help all the others
make it. And we would continue to help each other. So we banded together. That's how cavemen
figured it out. Any society starts that way. Any society begins by realizing that together, by helping
each other, you can survive better than if you fight each other and compete with each other.
Farming cultures started this way, and the first hunting cultures started this way. Everything started in city-
states. We have a tendency to lose it when we forget that, as a group, we are stronger than we are as
individuals. We start to think we want everything for ourselves and we don't want to help anybody else. We
want to succeed, but we don't want anybody else to succeed, because we want to be the winner. Once you
get that mentality -- which is unfortunately the way a lot of the society operates -- you lose. You can't
possibly win that way. Part of the reason my friends and I became successful is that we were always helping
each other.
If I got a job, I would help somebody else get a job. If somebody got more successful than me, it was
partly my success. My success wasn't based on how I could push down everybody that was around
me. My success was based on how much I could push everybody up. And eventually their success was
the same way. And in the process they pushed me up, and I pushed them up, and we kept doing that,
and we still do that. Even though we all have, in essence, competing companies, we see it as, if
everybody succeeds, if my friend succeeds then everybody succeeds. So that's the key to it, to have
everybody succeed, not to gloat over somebody else's failure.
We continue to do that, and we do it with younger filmmakers. There's no way of getting through any kind of
endeavor without help from friends. And trying to be the number one person, ultimately, is a losing
proposition. You need peers; you need people who are at the same level you are. You never know in life
when you're going to need help, and you never know who you're going to need it from.
One of the basic motifs in fairy tales is that you find the poor and unfortunate along the side of the
road, and when they beg for help, if you give it to them, you end up succeeding. If you don't give it to
them, you end up being turned into a frog or something. It's something that's been around for
thousands of years, a concept that's been around for thousands of years. It is even more necessary
today, when people are much more into their own aggrandizement than they are in helping other
people. One thing you hear at the Academy here is constantly about public service, about helping
others. I don't think there's anybody who's become successful who doesn't understand how important
it is to be part of a larger community, to help other people in a larger community, to give back to the
community. And it's not something you start doing when you've made it. Now I'm on the top. I can
enhance my joy and self-esteem by helping the poor underlings. It's when you're at the very lowest
level and you're struggling. When we were in film school, we were all very, very poor. We were all
very, very struggling. We all needed jobs very desperately. And if one of us couldn't get a particular
job, we'd send another friend in on the interview because we were hoping that one of us would get
the job. So you do it right from the very beginning. You can start every single day. Whether it's
helping your brother or sister, or helping your peers at school, or helping in the community. But it's
not just a kind of public service thing. It's a way of life.
Then you realize how great it is, and that, by helping others, you'll achieve more. It's much more logical and
intelligent to help others get to the level where everyone else is, rather than criticizing, or making fun, so that
everybody can move on. And if you do that all the time, it helps you personally. But it's a good business
decision -- let's put it that way. The ultimate thing is that you feel better about yourself, and you're a happier
person.
If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people.
Because there's nothing else that will make you happy. You can be as rich, and famous, and powerful
as you want to be, and it will not bring you happiness. That's said over and over and over, again. It's
such a cliché that it hardly needs to be said, but people don't understand that it's actually true. You
can find people rich, powerful and famous, and they aren't happy. And you can find people who have
discovered the fact that it's really helping people, it's really being compassionate toward other
human beings that makes you happy, that gives you a spiritual fulfillment -- a kind of fulfillment that
goes way beyond anything you can buy. This is a 5,000 year old idea, and every prophet, every
intelligent, rational, successful person has said it. It's a very, very simple idea and the most important
part of it is, true.
You've won three Oscars. Do you ever feel like you've made it and now you just want to relax and
enjoy your success?
George Lucas: I look at it a little bit differently. I have George Lucas Interview Photo
a lot of ideas and I want to be able to work. To me,
it's like one of these contests where you get five
minutes in a supermarket to take anything off the
shelves you want and try to fill your cart up as much
as you can. That's the way I look at my work. I have
a supermarket full of ideas and the challenge is how
many ideas can I get in my cart before I'm gone.
When you're doing it, you're not focused on success.
It's not a matter of modesty. You're simply trying to
get all the things done that you want to get done in
your life.
Are there obligations that go along with the kind of success you've had?
George Lucas: I think as you grow up, you realize you have obligations just in your life -- being a citizen,
being part of humanity -- to help other people, to help your country, to help the world. When I started out
and I wasn't successful, I taught and I did other things, and got into several programs, charities and that sort
of thing.
When I got very, very successful, I didn't have the time for that level of participation anymore. I got into a
loop where I said, "When I get old, I'll give all this money to all these institutions." I was still in my 20s. And
as things came along, people in trouble, schools and institutions in trouble, I said, "Oh, I can't. Wait until I'm
50. I can't do this when I'm 20."
After a lot of struggling and sort of reflection I realized that the time you have to give is now,
regardless of how old you are. It's kind of a realization because one is kind of -- "You mean I'm in
that position already?" It's sort of a way of saying, "Oh my gosh, I'm one of them! I'm one of those
old guys that gives libraries to schools and things, and here I am, only 20 or 27." And I think I've
seen again a lot of people go through this, who are working so hard, they wake up one day and
realize that those things that they said, "I'll do that someday, I'll do that someday." Well, that
someday is today. And if you have the means to do it, then this is the time to do it. And it's a little
hard to do when you're building up your nest egg so to speak, your security blanket, to give it away.
You know, my feeling is if you can't give the time away, you should give part of your resources away.
I think that's an obligation you have, to give back no matter what happens. It actually ends up being easier
when you're young than when you become successful. Suddenly you realize you've gone into a whole other
realm of philanthropy, from just being a volunteer to being this person that dedicates buildings and saves lots
of children in some faraway place.
What do you see as your contributions to your profession and to film?
George Lucas: In the end the most important thing to me is that I've raised three kids. I know that'll be the
most important accomplishment of my life and it is the most easily obtainable, because all you have to do is
pay attention. It is hard work and most people don't realize that's the real gift they are getting in terms of
goals and success and accomplishments.
On the professional side, I've helped move cinema from a chemical-

based medium to a digital-based medium. That'll be one of the
landmarks. And I've left these stories, these little tales that have been
imprinted on the media, which will or will not be of interest to people in
the future. I've done the best I can. They've obviously made a big mark
while I'm here, but if you study history, you know you can make a huge
mark during your lifetime, and a lifetime later it's forgotten.
You may make something you don't think is very important during your
lifetime and it'll last for a thousand years. You can't really focus too much
on that part of it, because you don't know what history is going to throw
at you in terms of what's important and what's not important.
George Lucas Interview Photo You simply have to do the best you can with what you're actually doing.
I'm hoping I can make some change in the way the educational system
works. I think I've made some changes in the way the film industry
works, and I think there will be more dramatic changes to come. I'm
enthusiastic about that and I have a feeling that will be part of my legacy.
Terrific. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you want

to talk about?
George Lucas: I can't think of anything. We've certainly talked about a

lot.
That's great. Thank you very much.
This page last revised on Oct 14, 2010 15:05 EDT

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Interview: George Lucas

June 19, 1999

Back to George Lucas Interview

George Lucas: I'm not sure. I think about that sometimes.

discovered film and film schools.

Weren't you always interested in filmmaking?

George Lucas: Well, I grew up in a small town in Central California; it was a

George Lucas: Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic

(George Lucas produced and directed his first

"Look At Life," shot on 16-mm film, won

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

What is it about film that makes it so exciting?

Were there any experiences that inspired you as a kid?

When I first got to college, I was very interested in

I wanted to transfer to an art school, and ended up

I liked all the normal kinds of adventure books, Kidnapped, Treasure

Working hard is very important. You have to find something that

Did that happen to you?

George Lucas: Oh yeah, lots of times.

George Lucas Interview Photo

Star Wars is so far removed from a film like American Graffiti.

Would you say your career has been marked by

So I was taking the lowest genre that was available and

How important is it to you to be independent?

George Lucas: For me it's very important.

And that's all right with you?

I think there are going to be some social changes that

find a lot of people re-cutting movies and changing them,

You need to have a lot of close family around you, a lot

George Lucas Interview Photo aligned right.

I've made it a habit. When a movie comes out, I always

In a public art form like yours, how do you handle

What does the American Dream mean to you?

George Lucas Interview Photo

George Lucas Interview Photo

What do you see as your contributions to your profession and to film?

On the professional side, I've helped move cinema from a chemical-

Terrific. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you want

George Lucas: I can't think of anything. We've certainly talked about a

That's great. Thank you very much.

This page last revised on Oct 14, 2010 15:05 EDT

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