00:00When I first read the script, I mean, first of all, we had no idea what was going to wind
00:03up in our inbox.
00:04I mean, Bretta didn't write a treatment.
00:06She just said, I'm going to write the Barbie movie and it lives somewhere between a Birkenstock
00:09and a high heel.
00:10But when it did wind up in my inbox and I read the script and I thought, oh my God, we are
00:16really, really like onto something.
00:26Robbie Brenner, president of film at Mattel.
00:36I grew up in, I think, what was the greatest city in the world, New York City, and going
00:40to plays and having so much culture.
00:43From a very early age, I always knew that I wanted to be involved with storytelling.
00:47My father loved taking photographs and he used to have an enlarger.
00:52And so we would take photographs and then we would develop them in the bathroom and watch
00:56them sort of come to life.
00:57But I would say my earliest memory of feeling like I definitely want to be involved with
01:02movies and make movies was my father took me to buy a pair of sneakers.
01:07They had sort of a hand crank, almost 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, but I just wanted to watch all
01:17the movies.
01:19I was definitely sort of a social butterfly.
01:22I was always producing things.
01:24I was producing the dances and the social groups and 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 and 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 that I still have great relationships with.
01:48You know, you meet so many people, but you learn every single aspect of filmmaking.
01:51I spent four years kind of making movies in New York City until I moved to Los Angeles.
01:59So my first job when I moved to L.A. in 1994 was working for Mickey Rourke.
02:04Mickey was amazing.
02:05At that time, I was like, I was taking different classes and he's like, you don't need to take
02:08the class.
02:09Let's sit here and I'm going to we're going to read a play tonight and we're going to talk
02:12about it.
02:12I mean, truly, like we did.
02:14We read some David Mamet plays, you know, I traveled with him.
02:17I saw a lot and experienced a lot.
02:19A couple of years later, actually, after he did The Wrestler, we put him in Immortals.
02:23I worked on that movie.
02:24And so it was 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 and 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 to be able to create and to do what
02:45they do.
02:45I watched people try to micromanage so much the process, micromanage, you know, in either
02:51in development as a development executive, like, you know, the note on the note on the
02:55note.
02:55And it's like, I think you just have to allow things to be organic.
02:59Great movies start with singular, authentic visions.
03:02I think it's about filmmakers and really writer directors that actually have that singular
03:07vision like Greta did on Barbie from 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 that only they can tell.
03:17When I first read the script, I mean, first of all, we had no idea what was going to wind
03:22up in our inbox.
03:23I mean, because she didn't write a treatment.
03:25She just said, you know, I'm going to write the Barbie movie and it lives somewhere between
03:29a Birkenstock and a high heel.
03:30But when it did wind up in my inbox and I read the script and I thought, oh my God, like
03:36in that moment, I sort of knew that we are really, really like onto something.
03:40In general, the movie was so much bigger than all of us, you know, and when you're on kind
03:46of a journey like that, that sort of, you know, that becomes sort of like, it becomes
03:50a living, breathing kind of its own thing, you know, you have to sort of step away and
03:55just allow it to be what it is.
04:00I think you just have to stay true to yourself and truly what you believe and your convictions
04:06and never waver from that.
04:09When everybody else is saying no, no, no, I'm going yes, yes, yes.
04:12And it's those things that sort of scare me that, that I, that I run out in my life.
04:16Like whether it was Dallas Buyers Club when everybody told me, you're never going to get
04:20this movie made.
04:21And I was like, yes, I am.
04:22I'm going to, I'm going to do this.
04:24And, you know, and Barbie too is really the last thing I thought that I would be making
04:28is the first movie I made at Mattel.
04:30But it is those things in life that give you that, like the hair stands up at the back
04:34of your neck and you go like, that's what I need to be doing.
04:38So I would say it's good to be afraid.
04:40It's good to be scared.
04:41That's when you know you're, when you're doing the right thing.
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