Producer Kathleen Kennedy Interview For ‘War Horse’

Kathleen Kennedy is a six-time Academy Award nominee and one of the most successful and respected producers and executives in the film industry today. As a testament to her standing in the film community, she previously held the position of governor and officer of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and currently serves as a member of the board of trustees. Among her credits are three of the highest grossing films in motion picture history: ‘E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,’ ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Sixth Sense.’

Kennedy launched her producing career via a successful association with Steven Spielberg, which began when she served as his production assistant on the film ‘1941.’ She went to become his associate on ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ associate producer of ‘Poltergeist,’ and producer of ‘E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.’ While ‘E.T.’ was becoming an international phenomenon, Spielberg, Kennedy and Frank Marshall were already in production on ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,’ which she and Marshall produced with George Lucas.

In 1982, Kennedy co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg and Marshall. While at Amblin, she produced and guided two of the most successful franchises in film history: the ‘Jurassic Park’ series and the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy. In addition, Kennedy produced or executive produced a slew of critical and box office hits, including ‘Twister,’ ‘Balto,’ ‘The Bridges of Madison County,‘ ‘The Flintstones,‘ ‘Schindler’s List,‘ ‘We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story,‘ ‘Noises Off,‘ ‘Hook,‘ ‘An American Tail: Fievel Goes West,‘ ‘Cape Fear,‘ ‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch,‘ ‘Joe Versus the Volcano,‘ ‘Always,‘ ‘Gremlins,‘ ‘The Land Before Time,’ ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?‘ ‘Batteries Not Included,‘ ‘Empire of the Sun,‘ ‘Innerspace,‘ ‘The Money Pit,’ ‘The Color Purple,‘ ‘Young Sherlock Holmes,‘ ‘The Goonies’ and Frank Marshall’s directing debut, ‘Arachnophobia.’ Other collaborations with Spielberg include ‘Munich,’ ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence.’ ‘War Horse’ is out in cinemas now.

How did you discover ‘War Horse‘?

Kathleen Kennedy: We were going over to Europe and taking our girls, so I was looking for various things that we could do with them. My intention of going to see ‘War Horse’ was literally to take them to something that I thought they might enjoy, but halfway through the play, Lilly, our now fifteen-year-old, leans over and says, “Mom, I don’t think I can make it. I think I have to go.” She was so emotionally caught up in the play. And I looked around and saw how incredibly moved everybody else was in the theatre.

I felt that emotion too, but you don’t necessarily think that that’s how everybody else is feeling. Also I don’t think that you necessarily think that’s an experience you’re going to have in the theatre. And I was so taken by that. But soon after seeing the play I thought, “Well, it’s extraordinary because of these puppets.” The play has these full-size, beautiful puppets. So I thought, “Well, maybe that’s really what’s evoking this emotion.” But I couldn’t get the story out of my head. When I came back to L.A. after our vacation, I was on the scoring stage with Steven, [Spielberg] doing the score for ‘Tintin.’ We were just sitting chatting in between cues and I said, “I just saw this amazing play in London and I think it might be a movie.” I went on to describe the World War One setting and said, “It’s about this boy who goes into the war to find his horse.” And Steven said, “That’s sounds like a movie.”

I got my computer and pulled up a little sequence that was on YouTube and showed him what the play was. He was very interested and literally within three or four weeks Stacey Snider, who runs DreamWorks, flew over to London to see the play. Stacey felt the same way I did. We were in the middle of negotiations within a week and the deal closed very quickly. We started to work with a writer and had a screenplay within three months. We were in pre-production about six months after deciding that this is what we wanted to do. It was quite extraordinary.

Were you surprised that Steven Spielberg was immediately attracted to this and wanted to embrace it?

Kathleen Kennedy: No, I really wasn’t surprised that Steven [Spielberg] was immediately attracted to this. One of the first things he said was, “I’ve made ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and I’ve done ‘Band of Brothers.’ I’m not interested in making another war movie.” But he was interested in ‘War Horse’ because he loved the relationship between the boy and the horse and he loved the journey that the horse went on. He wasn’t necessarily interested in making a World War One film.

At some point you realized that this is actually a book that’s been around for a few years? What did you do then?

Kathleen Kennedy: After I saw the play I went and met with Michael Morpurgo, the author of ‘War Horse.’ Michael had had a few people that had expressed interest in possibly adapting his book and then, with the success of the play, wanting to make a movie. But he was very reluctant initially. I think Michael was surprised that he had written a book so many years ago that had now become such a successful play and had been interpreted in such a unique way. The play is very different from the point of view of the book. The book is specifically from the point of view of the horse and the play makes the transition of stepping outside of that and actually being a witness. The idea of doing a film was something that Michael was extremely excited about with the notion that Steven [Spielberg] might direct it. And once Steven committed, then I think Michael was swept up in the idea that yes, this could be interpreted yet a third way, which is exactly what happened because we’re using real horses. And it’s not from the point of view of the horse; it’s probably closer to the play where it’s more of a witnessing of what happens to the horse through the story.

Over the good course of time that Michael’s been writing books, he’s been able to see the amazing arc of this one simple story taken through these three unique iterations. It’s pretty amazing.

How does the story inform the audience about World War I?

Kathleen Kennedy: What’s interesting about this story is that you’re watching the horse go through the war but you’re not necessarily watching a war film. It’s not a story that’s designed to take you to the front lines to watch what happens to these animals in war. It’s really a story about how the horse comes into contact with all the aspects of the war and the people who represent all the different sides of the war. You see the goodness in people who are the innocent victims of the war. No one goes into battle with the intention of wanting to fight about anything. I think, in many respects, that’s what was so devastating about World War One. There were over six million soldiers lost.

And over eight million horses were lost in World War One too. The devastation was so extreme that I don’t think that there’s any way to capture what that loss was in one movie. But I think what this story so effectively does is that it shows that there were so many innocent victims.
Having an animal that represents this journey is a way to access and understand what the horrors of that war must have been like.

What was it like making ‘War Horse’ from a location point of view?

Kathleen Kennedy: It’s interesting because it sounds funny, but it’s rare for large studio pictures to go shoot a movie with essentially all exteriors. You’re outside every single day. It’s kind of an old-fashioned way of movie making. We had very few effects because we weren’t trying to do a big effects movie. We were trying to simply tell a story, and we were trying to tell it within the environments that the author had written the story, which was Devon, England, other parts of England, like Dartmoor, and parts of the French countryside. We literally went to those locations, and I think we were all quite surprised at the extraordinary beauty in many of these places. Devon England is amazing and the Dartmoor area too; it’s all protected now by the National Trust and much like a national park.

To be able to capture that on film was really quite amazing and I think that’s also what contributes to the devastation in the movie and that feeling of what war does, not only to the people, but to the landscape as well. These extraordinarily beautiful places were literally denuded of all vegetation. The imagery that we have of No Man’s Land, with the burned-out trees and just the silhouettes of trunks and leaves gone and nothing green, shows the devastation. Literally the movie goes from the beauty of Devon and the green, lush landscape to this brown wasteland. And that’s certainly what the soldiers experienced too.

You’ve had experience working with horses on ‘Seabiscuit.’ What was different about this experience?

Kathleen Kennedy: Working on ‘Seabiscuit’ was fantastic as a precursor to what was required with this movie. Obviously, the stories are very different and we were dealing with horses that were not being used for racing primarily. But at the same time we had to put together another equestrian department with everybody that’s going be needed for this movie, from groomers to riders to trainers and, in this case, to artists, who had to do markings on the horses.

It’s a huge undertaking and very time consuming in the process of shooting, too, because you have to take into consideration that these are animals that have to be taken care of and they get tired just like other actors. We usually had to have backup horses that could step in, just the way you do for actors with stand-ins. We had cavalry charges that needed in excess of one hundred horses. And we knew that those were shots that we really had only two or three takes to get right because the horses would get tired. They were running over long distances. So it’s a challenge. But I think there’s something really nice about having animals on a set.

Most people love animals and the nobility of horses and having many different kinds of horses on the set was really fantastic. I think everybody loved the feeling of that. It’s also about going to the locations where you find horses. For instance, in Dartmoor there are just all these wild horses everywhere. It’s so beautiful that often you equate horses with the beautiful areas they come from. I think Steven [Spielberg] in particular was attracted to this story in part because his entire family is very invested in horses. He has horses living right near his house. He has barns very nearby. His youngest daughter rides. His wife rides. So I think that association was very important to him and I think he also had a really nice comfort level on the set being surrounded by horses.

In terms of finding someone to play Albert, how difficult was the search for him and what led you to him?

Kathleen Kennedy: Albert in the story has to play sixteen, seventeen years old. There was a possibly that we would find somebody that was known, but I think Steven [Spielberg] has a nice track record of making some really wonderful discoveries and I think he was looking forward to doing that. So, we spent a great deal of time interviewing a vast number of English actors and we went out into the countryside and looked for actors, hopefully, who had some experience either on a farm or with horses. Then we found Jeremy Irvine, who lived outside of London and had some limited experience with horses, but had been on a farm. He really turned out to be fantastic for the role.

How did you go about creating sets on the different landscapes you used?

Kathleen Kennedy: Our production designer Rick Carter had the ability to take essentially a piece of property and turn it into what was evoked in the little picture postcards that we were looking at for reference. We’d look up and see exactly what we were seeing from these historical photos. It was pretty amazing. I think every step of the way, he did an extraordinary job of really allowing the cast and crew to have a real sense of what this must have been like.

We got very lucky in that the Duke of Wellington’s family allowed us to go into Stratfield Saye, which gave us a wide variety of landscapes that we were able to shoot. I think Rick ended up putting about ten different sets on that location and each one looks very distinct.

It was one of those experiences where each time we would move into a different set, you would get a feeling of how the whole cast and crew got caught up in it and began to get an understanding of what it must have been like. By the time we got to No Man’s Land, and ironically it was just pouring rain, which I’m sure many of the soldiers had to experience as well, we got a hint of what that environment must have been like for those soldiers, let alone the combat that they were experiencing.

What challenges did you have to embrace making ‘War Horse‘?

Kathleen Kennedy: I would say that this was a difficult movie to make. I think in some respects the liberal use of effects and the ability to say, “Oh, we’ll just do that on the computer,” or “We’ll take care of that in post,” has made it too easy. Making ‘War Horse’ forced us to do things in reality and made us accept the challenge that we’ll do the best we can with what we have and, if we can’t do it, then it’s not meant to be. It doesn’t hurt to have the likes of Steven Spielberg, who is extraordinary at taking what is a relatively small set or a limited number of resources and making it look huge. I think in several moments of this movie he did an amazing job of really capturing the epic scope of the storytelling.

But I think at the same time, it was a real lesson in recognizing that it’s important in the process of making a movie like this, especially when you have historical reference, to try to capture the reality and not try to rely on creating it artificially.

For me, Steven Spielberg’s approach to ‘War Horse’ conveys the sense of classic filmmaking with a very specific idea of story at the center of the film. Could you talk about that?

Kathleen Kennedy: Steven [Spielberg] always understands the emotional center of the narrative. He deeply understands that there’s a purpose behind everything he’s doing that’s moving you forward in the story. It’s the understanding that it’s the emotion, it’s the character, it’s what somebody’s thinking, it’s what somebody’s feeling, it’s what this animal is experiencing and it’s projecting what that emotional experience is. That’s what he understands. And whether or not a shot is cool or whether or not you captured a perfect sunset, it’s really not ultimately what’s going to make it a good movie.