'Barbie' Producer Robbie Brenner on Her Start in Film, The Script She Got From Greta & More | How To Make It In Hollywood - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

Robbie Brenner, President of Mattel Films, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for our segment "How To Make It In Hollywood" and dishes on working with Mickey Rourke, her earliest inspirations, working on 'Barbie' and more.

Transcript

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.

'Barbie' Producer Robbie Brenner on Her Start in Film, The Script She Got From Greta & More | How To Make It In Hollywood

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