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

The Hollywood Reporter

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,

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.

'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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