00:00When I first read the script, I mean, first of all,
00:02we had no idea what was gonna wind up in our inbox.
00:04I mean, Brenna didn't write a treatment.
00:06She just said, I'm gonna write the Barbie movie
00:08and it lives somewhere between a Birkenstock and a high heel.
00:10But when it did wind up in my inbox and I read the script
00:14and I thought, oh my God,
00:16we are really, really like onto something.
00:18♪♪
00:26I'm Robbie Brenner, president of film at Mattel.
00:30♪♪
00:36I grew up in, I think, what was the greatest city
00:38in the world, New York City,
00:39and going to plays and having so much culture.
00:43From a very early age, I always knew
00:45that I wanted to be involved with storytelling.
00:47My father loved taking photographs
00:50and he used to have an enlarger.
00:51And so we would take photographs
00:53and then we would develop them in the bathroom
00:55and watch them sort of come to life.
00:57But I would say my earliest memory of feeling
01:00like I definitely want to be involved with movies
01:03and make movies was my father took me
01:05to buy a pair of sneakers.
01:07They had sort of a hand crank,
01:09almost like an animated kind of movie.
01:11If you cranked it, all the images would come together.
01:13And I remember that I was so uninterested in getting shoes,
01:16but I just wanted to watch all the movies.
01:20I was definitely sort of a social butterfly.
01:23I was always producing things.
01:24I was producing the dances and the social groups
01:27and where we were going to go after
01:30and what we were going to do and the dinners.
01:32And so I was constantly sort of bringing people together
01:35and creating magic at a young age.
01:39I went to Tisch School of the Arts and I studied producing.
01:43And in film school, I met so many people
01:46that I still have great relationships with.
01:48You meet so many people
01:49but you learn every single aspect of filmmaking.
01:51I spent four years kind of making movies in New York City
01:55until I moved to Los Angeles.
01:59So my first job when I moved to LA in 1994
02:02was working for Mickey Rourke.
02:04Mickey was amazing.
02:05At that time I was like, I was taking different classes
02:07and he's like, you don't need to take the class.
02:09Let's sit here and we're going to read a play tonight
02:11and we're going to talk about it.
02:12I mean, truly like we did, we read some David Mamet plays.
02:16You know, I traveled with him.
02:17I saw a lot and experienced a lot.
02:19A couple of years later,
02:21actually after he did The Wrestler,
02:22we put him in Immortals.
02:23I worked on that movie.
02:24And so it was a nice kind of full circle moment.
02:29For me, I just like to empower people and support people.
02:33It's the way I sort of go about like my business
02:35and my career, whether it's as a producer,
02:37whether it's as an executive or as a boss.
02:40I think it's just giving people like freedom and space
02:43to be able to create and to do what they do.
02:46I've watched people try to micromanage so much the process,
02:50either in development as a development executive,
02:53like, you know, the note on the note on the note.
02:55And it's like,
02:57I think you just have to allow things to be organic.
02:59Great movies start with singular authentic visions.
03:03I think it's about filmmakers and really writer directors
03:06that actually have that singular vision
03:07like Greta did on Barbie
03:09from like the very beginning to the end.
03:10They have a point of view.
03:12They have a story that's personal and intimate to themselves
03:15that only they can tell.
03:17When I first read the script, I mean, first of all,
03:19we had no idea what was going to wind up in our inbox.
03:21I mean, because she didn't write a treatment.
03:23She just said, you know,
03:24I am going to write the Barbie movie
03:26and it lives somewhere between a Birkenstock and a high heel.
03:29But when it did wind up in my inbox and I read the script
03:33and I thought, oh my God, like in that moment,
03:35I sort of knew that we are really, really like onto something.
03:39In general, the movie was so much bigger than all of us,
03:42you know, and when you're on kind of a journey like that,
03:45that sort of, you know, that becomes sort of like,
03:48it becomes a living, breathing kind of its own thing.
03:51You know, you have to sort of step away
03:53and just allow it to be what it is.
03:58I think you just have to stay true to yourself
04:02and truly what you believe in your convictions
04:05and never waver from that.
04:07When everybody else is saying, no, no, no,
04:09I'm going, yes, yes, yes.
04:10And it's those things that sort of scare me
04:13that I run at in my life.
04:14Like whether it was Dallas Buyers Club
04:16when everybody told me,
04:17you're never gonna get this movie made.
04:19And I was like, yes, I am.
04:20I'm gonna do this.
04:22And you know, and Barbie too,
04:23was really the last thing I thought
04:25that I would be making as the first movie I made at Mattel.
04:28But it is those things in life that give you that,
04:31like the hair stands up at the back of your neck
04:33and you go like, that's what I need to be doing.
04:35So I would say, it's good to be afraid.
04:38It's good to be scared.
04:39That's when you know you're, when you're doing something.
04:41It's good to be scared.
04:42That's when you know you're,
04:42when you're doing the right thing.
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