Interview with George Lucas (1999 - ETonline.com)

Leonard Maltin: Where do you stand right now on 'Episode II?'

George Lucas: I'm still writing the script. I was supposed to be finished by Thanksgiving but I'm not, so I'm a little behind. As long as I get it finished by February or March, I'll be okay. We start shooting in June. It's always a struggle -- it's a lot of hard work. I'm not into doing hard work. Even if it's something I like and enjoy, I still put it off as long as I can. Mostly, I've been doing research -- which means reading books and watching movies. (both laugh)

Leonard: Where do you start shooting?

George: We're shooting in Australia this time.

Leonard: At the new Fox studio?

George: At the new Fox studio in Sydney. They made us an offer we couldn't refuse. It's a great studio and they have lots of very talented craftsman. We'll shoot there and probably shoot in North Africa again. Same old thing -- it's like doing a very big TV series. (both laugh)

Leonard: I have to confront some casting speculation -- the casting of Anakin?

George: I have not even started casting yet. As a matter of fact, the casting director starts work on the first of January. Hopefully, I'll have some form of a script for her to work with. She has ideas and has been collecting resumes. The chances are extremely good that whoever gets cast as Anakin is somebody that nobody has ever heard of before.

Leonard: Part of what I want to do is review your career and put it in some perspective. Starting towards the beginning, tell me what influence HASKELL WEXLER had on getting you started?

George: When I started I was an anthropology student from Modesto (California), who had gone to junior college and got my AA degree. I was about to go to the big city to film school, which I didn't know anything about. I knew I liked photography a lot and I had met Haskell -- I was very much into racecars and racing ---- through racing. He was the only person i knew when I went down to film school that was in the business. He was very influential actually. He helped get me settled in at USC, because he knew a couple of the professors there. He got me on some sets, so I could see how films were made. He was a big influence because at that point I wanted to be a cinematographer. I really started there.

Leonard: And you hired him later?

George: Well, I didn't actually hire him on 'American Graffiti.' On that film he kind of bailed me out. I was trying to shoot the picture myself, I had two operators, and after about the second night of shooting, they said that the depth of field was so shallow, like two to three inches, that we couldn't keep anything in focus. I was lighting it with very low light levels which I like to do. I talked to Haskell about it while he was doing commercials in LA. He would fly up every single night, because we were shooting at night. He'd work all day shooting commercials and then fly to San Francisco, shoot all night, fly back home and work all day. It was amazing -- I wasn't really paying him or anything -- he was just doing it to help me out. I did manage to get him a piece of the picture so he came out all right financially. In a way I guess I hired him, but he really did it out of friendship more than anything else.

Leonard: We were talking about movie length -- 'Gone With The Wind' was four hours long but it doesn't seem four hours long. Why do you think that is?

George: Cinema is an illusion -- if it works, then the film is not too long. Everyone said that 'Titanic' was too long and it would never work, but it actually does work and there is no getting around that part of it. The critics may not like it, but most of the audience will sit through it and enjoy it and maybe even see it again. You have to admit that James Cameron sustained the magic for a longer period of time. It's just like juggling -- the more balls you have to juggle, the harder it is. If you have to do it for four hours instead of two hours, it's even harder because the chances of you failing are that much greater. But, if it works, it works. I don't think there are on limits on how long a movie should be. Once you get beyond two hours, especially after three hours, people's bottoms begin to tell the story instead of the screen.

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