Director Victoria Mahoney is aware of a bit of one thing about stepping right into a beloved franchise and popping out the opposite facet. In between her lauded 2011 characteristic movie debut “Yelling to the Sky” and a large assortment of TV directing gigs (“Queen Sugar,” “Gray’s Anatomy,” “Claws,” “You,” and plenty of extra), Mahoney was employed because the second unit director on J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
A “Star Wars” gig? That sounds nice for any director, however when Mahoney was employed in 2018, it got here with some added weight: The place meant that she’d be the primary girl to direct on a “Star Wars” movie ever.
So, sure, Mahoney is aware of a bit of one thing about stepping right into a beloved franchise. For her second characteristic, Netflix’s “The Previous Guard 2,” Mahoney is as soon as once more taking a longtime (and adored) sequence and making it her personal. Following Gina Prince-Bythewood’s smash hit “The Previous Guard,” Mahoney’s movie picks up the place the superhero story ended, and follows the exploits of a proficient group of immortal warriors, together with Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, and Veronica Ngô, plus newbies Henry Golding and Uma Thurman, and returning (human) co-star Chiwetel Ejiofor.
The massive query: What’s her secret for placing her personal stamp on every thing from “Star Wars” to “The Previous Guard”?
“Effectively, I believe that I had a couple of bites on the apple on that,” the director mentioned throughout a current interview with IndieWire. “Coming into ‘Star Wars’ and doing second unit on ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ I had this excellent expertise of being on a franchise that I knew and beloved since I used to be a child. It wasn’t similar to, ‘Oh, effectively, no matter, I suppose I’ll do that.’ It was one thing I beloved and I wished to assist defend. I wished to be part of it. It meant one thing. Characters meant one thing. Stepping onto the Millennium Falcon meant one thing.”
Mahoney nonetheless speaks of her expertise on “Star Wars” with reverence. This was not only a job to her; even when it did assist information her subsequent few years {of professional} selections, together with boarding “The Previous Guard 2.”
“I held it with nice responsibility and duty, and once you step into one thing of that magnitude, you get a right away, fast training in what it means to honor what audiences need and to betray what they need,” the director mentioned. “That’s a crash course in the way to navigate one thing that you simply wish to do in a narrative that’s so beloved. Between you and me and everybody who reads this text, nothing’s going to match to that. Nothing will ever examine to that stage of attain.”
And whereas “The Previous Guard” fandom isn’t fairly as massive and devoted as that of “Star Wars,” the movies — primarily based on Greg Rucka’s comedian ebook sequence of the identical identify — do have loads of devoted watchers and readers.
“On this, the quantity of people that love the primary one and love the characters, they’re very critical,” Mahoney mentioned. “How do you just be sure you are valuing and honoring every character and giving audiences their needs? There’s additionally one thing nice about bringing individuals together with you to someplace perhaps they didn’t know they wished to go, they usually arrive at that place realizing they have been hungry for it your entire time. However it’s all finished with respect and care. I don’t suppose you’ll be able to thrust or demand. It’s finished with a really mild, heat invitation.”
Mahoney’s fan-centric bent — and her need to tweak expectations alongside the way in which — is borne from one thing quite simple: She’s a fan, too. She’s a fan first.
“There are completely different jobs that I’ve finished the place I’m asking a query or there’s one thing that we’re attempting to determine, and I current one thing in a sure method, and it’s like, ‘Oh, nobody will discover it,’ however I will discover. I’ll discover,” she mentioned. “I really love this character, or I really like this circumstance, or this story or no matter it’s, and that’ll bug the hell out of me. That’s going to drive me loopy. After which I’m going to know you didn’t care about me, and now I really feel like, ‘Oh, all of the love I’ve given you is nothing and it’s small, so that you don’t worth me, so why do I worth you and I’m not watching anymore?’”
And, sure, Mahoney can be a devoted fan of Prince-Bythewood’s first movie, which hit Netflix in July 2020, throughout a number of the earliest weeks of the pandemic, and proved to be balm for movie followers itching for unique motion. Mahoney is the primary individual to inform you: She watched it so much.
“I did watch it, many occasions!” she mentioned. “Some individuals suppose, ‘Oh, you’re exaggerating,’ however I actually did. I assumed the world was ending, and if I used to be going to die, I used to be going to die watching motion pictures and TV reveals and simply watching tales and studying books and listening to music. I discovered the film to have some sort of hope. There was a care and regard the characters had for one another, and the size of their care and regard blew me away … I discovered there to be an attractive sense of hope in how they maintain these relationships.”
There was additionally one thing else that tickled Mahoney: taking these relatable, earthbound worries (how do you maintain the individuals you’re keen on?) and sticking them inside a wild framework (and, oh, you’re additionally an immortal being who has lived for 1000’s of years?).
“A part of why I discovered it thrilling was [the question of] the way to play with one thing that may very well be within the superhero realm, held above us and much away from us, and the way to deliver that into a sensible purview,” she mentioned. “The place I and anybody else who watched the film may surprise what I’d or wouldn’t do if I have been immortal. I assumed the primary movie efficiently did that and stored me curious in a method that I stored watching it.”
When Mahoney signed on to direct “The Previous Guard 2” in 2021, she mentioned she made some extent to talk to Prince-Bythewood, who remained a producer on the undertaking (the filmmaker was, on the time that the sequel was greenlit, simply gearing as much as make her “The Girl King”).
“I’ve her to thank tremendously on this,” she mentioned. “We talked, and loads of what I wished to know was the way to maintain and protect these unbelievable nuggets of fact and significance that she put ahead within the first movie. You may suppose, ‘Oh, we may change that. Oh, you might try this. Oh, that doesn’t matter.’ However stepping right into a second installment and franchise that I take pleasure in, [I had] the dignity and the collaboration of spitballing with the primary director about why they did what they did and that this factor that may look like nothing to somebody was so vital and beneficial and the way I can assist defend that or develop it. I valued her steerage and enter and readability and perception.”
Mahoney’s deep-rooted fandom is obvious in each second she talks concerning the movie. Even a query questioning if she felt a selected sense of favoritism towards Layne’s character, Nile (who actually comes into her personal within the sequel), was greeted with an surprising reply.
“I’ve no favorites and I’m not being well mannered or political, as a result of all of them imply a lot,” she mentioned. “They operate as a complete. They’re not particular person entities. So far as storytelling goes, every one companies a unique want, and for those who pull one out, the home of playing cards comes down. There’s not one in all them that companies a lesser want. Every facet of artistic worth, story worth, character worth that one of many 9 [stars] presents at any given second is the most vital factor within the story. Whoever we’re taking pictures that day, that minute, no matter shot, no matter facet of story we’re chasing, is an important, proper? Then we go to the subsequent one, after which that’s an important. Wherever that digicam is between motion and reduce, that’s an important factor on the planet.”
Given how lengthy Mahoney has been engaged on the movie — after approaching board in late 2021, Mahoney shot the movie in late 2022, gutted her method by some critical delays from Netflix, shot extra materials in 2024, and eventually sees it launched this week — she utterly understands the fan fervor. She feels it much more acutely.
“Effectively, for me, being in it in actual time is completely different from anybody who’s watching it and ready and questioning,” Mahoney mentioned. “I’ve that with motion pictures, I’ve that with TV reveals that I really like, I’m like, ‘The place is the subsequent one? What’s the subsequent season?’ So I’m proper alongside beside followers in that aching and starvation for the factor that we love. … I used to be in it the entire time, from the second I acquired employed to the second that this movie is launched, it’ll be three-and-a-half years. Different administrators may need, sooner or later, moved towards one other undertaking due to the period and simply the starvation to get again on set. I didn’t wish to abandon my submit. I cared concerning the film method an excessive amount of. I wished to see it by, and there was no different reply.”
Mahoney’s movie leaves issues extensive open for a 3rd characteristic, although one has not but been introduced. Throughout manufacturing, Mahoney mentioned, “There have been discussions simply logistically, and rightfully so, concerning the what-ifs” that the second movie may arrange.
As for a 3rd movie? “No matter discussions they’re having, I don’t know,” she mentioned. “And I shall be a spectator together with everybody else, as a result of I shall be gone doing one thing else. No matter occurs on the third one, I’ll return to [it as] a viewer and a fan, and I shall be ready with bated breath for what comes subsequent, and the place they go, and the way it performs out. I shall be cheering everybody on.”
With “The Previous Guard 2” beneath her belt and “Star Wars” behind her, I requested how Mahoney displays on the really ground-breaking nature of her “Rise of Skywalker” work, of being the primary girl, not to mention the primary Black girl, to direct on a “Star Wars” movie. Regardless of her characteristically upbeat and considerate character, even Mahoney acquired a bit morose in considering again.
“It’s attention-grabbing, as a result of loads of these components that you simply simply described are as poignant at the moment on this film as they have been then,” she mentioned. “I don’t know what number of ladies have big-budget motion pictures popping out this yr. It’s difficult. So, sadly, that exact a part of the dialogue is an identical to the dialogue that was within the ‘Star Wars’ press tour.”
Nonetheless, Mahoney stays awestruck by the devotion of “Star Wars” followers, and the born-and-bred New Yorker tried to match it to Knicks or Yankees fandom. “I’ll say ‘Yankees’ now, I’m going to lose individuals,” she mentioned with fun. “They’re going to be like, ‘Oh, she’s a Yankee/Knicks fan. That sucks.’ However once you went to the outdated Yankee Stadium, you sit down, and it’s summer time, it’s heat climate, and the lights are taking place and the sky is popping magenta, one thing magical occurred. Even for those who have been jaded and also you didn’t like sports activities and also you didn’t imagine in mystical moments and wonderment, you have been taken over, and ‘Star Wars’ does that.”
Even now, Mahoney mentioned she’s nonetheless struck when she sees little children in airports sporting their “Star Wars” PJs for a flight or adults enjoying lightsabers in a park with associates. “There aren’t phrases for what that does to your coronary heart once you work together with individuals who have that sort of magic in them,” she mentioned. “After which on [‘The Old Guard 2’], there’s a sense about immortality and residing and loving the one you’re with that has some model of magic to it. It sort of propels you into one other house and thoughts.”
“And we’re simply speaking about creativeness right here,” she added. “However ‘Star Wars’ has a method of accessing one’s creativeness and placing you on this nice what-if. What’s enjoyable for me about ‘The Previous Guard’ and why I discover it thrilling is there are elements of ‘The Previous Guard’ that enable me, as a viewer and a storyteller, to entry my creativeness in an attractive, welcomed what-if.”
“The Previous Guard 2” is now streaming on Netflix.