Interview (Written): Gloria Katz

Co-writer of American Graffiti and dialogue polish on Star Wars: Episode IV.

It is perhaps the worst kept secret in Hollywood that George Lucas asked for some ‘anonymous’ help in writing the screenplay for the original Star Wars movie. That assistance came in the form of husband-and-wife screenwriting team Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck.

Here is an excerpt from a fascinating The Mary Sue interview with Gloria Katz who provides some choice background on that special saga in film history as well as her favorite line of dialogue in Star Wars: A New Hope.

TMS: You and Willard were Oscar-nominated for your American Graffiti screenplay. How did you get involved with writing dialogue for Star Wars?

Katz: George was writing the script and he had a lot of reservations about it, but he knew filming had to start. He said, “Polish it–write anything you want and then I’ll go over it and see what I need.” George didn’t want anyone to know we worked on the script, so we were in a cone of silence.

TMS: It seems the best kind of banter in the script — the rapid fire, witty interchanges — came from you and Willard rather than George.

Katz: We just tried to help with the characterization, to add as much humor as possible (they wrote about 30 percent of the film’s dialogue). We didn’t want to take the credit away from him — he had been working on Star Wars for a very long time. It was his vision. We did go visit the set once (in London) and George was very depressed. The whole production was very wrought with drama. Nobody had ever done any of this stuff before, the special effects weren’t working, the English crew were very unsympathetic towards George. He wasn’t getting what he wanted on screen — the technology wasn’t there for him. We kept telling him “it’s going to be wonderful George!” (laughs) no matter what it looked like, to try and cheer him up.

TMS: Did you meet Carrie Fisher on set?

Katz: Just randomly — she was very young and very funny. I was thinking about the relationship between American Graffiti and Princess Leia. Graffiti originally started out with the Laurie Henderson character as the perfect blonde high school princess. And that thought radically changed in the casting of (brunette) Cindy Williams. The casting director Fred Roos was a very big influence on that. Once you create Laurie like Cindy, then that leaves you to rethink. For Star Wars, George had originally seen (blonde actress) Yvette Mimieux in her heydey as Princess Leia.

When we talked to him about the character, we said Leia should be a more ‘Hawksian woman,’ with all the traits that that woman had: she can take command; she doesn’t take any shit, but at the same time she’s vulnerable and to write her as really focused, instead of just a beautiful woman that schlepped along to be saved. For her to be the one that initiated the action. And because Carrie Fisher was so young, the contrast between this young girl and her goals became more poignant.

So that brash, smart-mouthed, take no prisoners version of Princess Leia emerged through the writing of Katz and Huyck.

As to Katz’s favorite line of dialogue in SW:IV: “Let the Wookie win.”

For the rest of the interview, go here.