Director Bryce Dallas Howard on her Connection to Lucasfilm

Director and actor Bryce Dallas Howard practically grew up on film sets. The daughter of Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard, Bryce vividly remembers joining her father on the set of the 1988 Willow film when she was five years old. “My dad has been on movie sets since he was four years old,” Howard tells Lucasfilm.com. “And so he sort of felt like it was just a natural thing to have kids on set. He always brought me.

“I have a lot of memories from that time that certainly influenced me,” she adds. “Getting to be around all of that, getting to see George [Lucas] do his thing, it was very, very defining for me. [Filmmaking is] truly about being curious about another person’s instincts, creativity, imagination, and what they bring to the table and having that be something that is a very kind of communal experience.”

That early exposure to collaborative filmmaking helped lead Howard on the path to her own career in acting and directing. The star of The Village (2004) and the recent Jurassic World series has also spent time behind the camera, directing features including the documentary DADS (2019) and the forthcoming film All for Her, as well as episodes of The Mandalorian beginning in 2019, and most recently episode 6 of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. “I feel so lucky to get to work in the Star Wars television franchise world,” Howard says. “It’s extraordinarily exciting. What George Lucas created was an incredible myth that has been contained within so many genres, and he really leaned into genre as a device in order to enhance the storytelling,” Howard continues. “And so because of that, every single season we’ve kind of played with different genres, and I got to experience different flavors of storytelling. I’ve never known what to expect, and that’s part of the fun, honestly, opening that script up and being like, ‘Oh, now it’s a heist. Now it’s a love story. Now it’s an epic drama!’”

Throughout her time directing in the galaxy, Howard has found herself invested in the characters — often wanting to spend a lot of time in the characters’ heads to determine the emotional landscape of each one. “I get hooked into it,” she says. “And it’s important to me.”

Helming three episodes of The Mandalorian — “Sanctuary” in Season 1, “The Heiress” in Season 2 and “Guns for Hire” in Season 3 — plus the return of Din Djarin in The Book of Boba Fett “Chapter 5: Return of The Mandalorian” gave her plenty of time to get into the head of the Mandalorian and company. Howard’s episodes have tackled Din’s emotional journey to protect a village from raiders, the first appearance of Bo-Katan Kryze in live action, an unexpected detour to an idyllic planet with cameos from Lizzo and Jack Black, and a challenging duel for the Darksaber.

In Skeleton Crew, Howard’s episode “Zero Friends Again” takes on the challenge of the four young characters who are each feeling the intense strains of their predicament. “There’s kind of two elements that were very exciting to me about this episode,” Howard shares. “One was the notion of a breakup in female friendship, young female friendship in particular, between Kyriana Kratter’s KB and Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s Fern. That’s very specific and something I and most people have experienced.” Elsewhere, Jude Law’s character, Jod, finds himself at the center of a trial from his old pirate crew. “Jude Law gives an incredible speech in this episode, and it was such a joy to film that,” Howard says. “He is such a masterful, thoughtful, and dynamic actor. Jude was amazing at engaging with everyone who was listening and finding all these little moments and really allowing it to feel alive.”

Working with younger actors reminded Howard of her own time on set as a child and young adult, and allowed her to collaborate with the next generation of filmmakers. “I got to share the pre-vis with them, which was really, really helpful and eye opening because they were able to see how I was imagining the scene,” Howard says. “And I could learn from them….Everyone is invested in making sure that these kids feel as prepared, safe, and comfortable as possible. And so that’s something that was very, very helpful. Getting to have rehearsal time with the kids, getting to work with them closely. I like to truly partner with the actors I’m working with.”

Howard’s work on Skeleton Crew and her other Star Wars projects has been a whirlwind of excitement for the self-described “superfan,” full of both learning and gratitude. “I joke about being a superfan, but in all sincerity it does feel like that,” Howard says. “I feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world. I’m being brought in to have fun, throw a party, but then while I’m there, I learn and absorb as much as possible. It’s surreal getting to be in this position.”