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Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Victoria Mahoney's Groundbreaking ‘Star Wars' Directing Gig Guided Her Work on ‘The Old Guard 2'
Director Victoria Mahoney knows a little something about stepping into a beloved franchise and coming out the other side. In between her lauded 2011 feature film debut 'Yelling to the Sky' and a wide assortment of TV directing gigs ('Queen Sugar,' 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'Claws,' 'You,' and many more), Mahoney was hired as the second unit director on J.J. Abrams' 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.' A 'Star Wars' gig? That sounds great for any director, but when Mahoney was hired in 2018, it came with some added weight: The position meant that she'd be the first woman to direct on a 'Star Wars' film ever. More from IndieWire You Can Now Buy Tickets for Angel Studios' Founding Father Biopic 'Young Washington' Before It's Even Shot Brad Pitt Says His Generation of Actors Were 'More Uptight': 'You Didn't Sell Out' with Franchises So, yes, Mahoney knows a little something about stepping into a beloved franchise. For her second feature, Netflix's 'The Old Guard 2,' Mahoney is once again taking an established (and adored) series and making it her own. Following Gina Prince-Bythewood's smash hit 'The Old Guard,' Mahoney's film picks up where the superhero story ended, and follows the exploits of a talented group of immortal warriors, including 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 big question: What's her secret for putting her own stamp on everything from 'Star Wars' to 'The Old Guard'? 'Well, I think that I had a few bites at the apple on that,' the director said during a recent interview with IndieWire. 'Coming into 'Star Wars' and doing second unit on 'The Rise of Skywalker,' I had this wonderful experience of being on a franchise that I knew and loved since I was a kid. It wasn't just like, 'Oh, well, whatever, I guess I'll do this.' It was something I loved and I wanted to help protect. I wanted to be a part of it. It meant something. Characters meant something. Stepping onto the Millennium Falcon meant something.' Mahoney still speaks of her experience on 'Star Wars' with reverence. This was not just a job to her; even if it did help guide her next few years of professional choices, including boarding 'The Old Guard 2.' 'I held it with great duty and responsibility, and when you step into something of that magnitude, you get an immediate, immediate education in what it means to honor what audiences want and to betray what they want,' the director said. 'That's a crash course in how to navigate something that you want to do in a story that's so beloved. Between you and me and everyone who reads this article, nothing's going to compare to that. Nothing will ever compare to that level of reach.' And while 'The Old Guard' fandom isn't quite as large and devoted as that of 'Star Wars,' the films — based on Greg Rucka's comic book series of the same name — do have plenty of devoted watchers and readers. 'On this, the amount of people who love the first one and love the characters, they're very serious,' Mahoney said. 'How do you make sure that you are valuing and honoring each character and giving audiences their wishes? There's also something great about bringing people along with you to somewhere maybe they didn't know they wanted to go, and they arrive at that place realizing they were hungry for it the entire time. But it's all done with respect and care. I don't think you can thrust or demand. It's done with a very light, warm invitation.' Mahoney's fan-centric bent — and her desire to tweak expectations along the way — is borne from something very simple: She's a fan, too. She's a fan first. 'There are different jobs that I've done where I'm asking a question or there's something that we're trying to figure out, and I present something in a certain way, and it's like, 'Oh, no one will notice it,' but I will notice. I will notice,' she said. 'I actually love this character, or I love this circumstance, or this story or whatever it is, and that'll bug the hell out of me. That's going to drive me crazy. And then I'm going to know you didn't care about me, and now I feel like, 'Oh, all the love I've given you is nothing and it's small, so you don't value me, so why do I value you and I'm not watching anymore?'' And, yes, Mahoney is also a dedicated fan of Prince-Bythewood's first film, which hit Netflix in July 2020, during some of the earliest weeks of the pandemic, and proved to be balm for film fans itching for original action. Mahoney is the first person to tell you: She watched it a lot. 'I did watch it, many times!' she said. 'Some people think, 'Oh, you're exaggerating,' but I really did. I thought the world was ending, and if I was going to die, I was going to die watching movies and TV shows and just watching stories and reading books and listening to music. I found the movie to have some kind of hope. There was a care and regard the characters had for each other, and the length of their care and regard blew me away … I found there to be a beautiful sense of hope in how they sustain those relationships.' There was also something else that tickled Mahoney: taking those relatable, earthbound worries (how do you take care of the people you love?) and sticking them inside a wild framework (and, oh, you're also an immortal being who has lived for thousands of years?). 'Part of why I found it exciting was [the question of] how to play with something that could be in the superhero realm, held above us and far away from us, and how to bring that into a realistic purview,' she said. 'Where I and anyone else who watched the movie could wonder what I would or wouldn't do if I were immortal. I thought the first film successfully did that and kept me curious in a way that I kept watching it.' When Mahoney signed on to direct 'The Old Guard 2' in 2021, she said she made a point to speak to Prince-Bythewood, who remained a producer on the project (the filmmaker was, at the time that the sequel was greenlit, just gearing up to make her 'The Woman King'). 'I have her to thank greatly on this,' she said. 'We talked, and a lot of what I wanted to know was how to sustain and preserve these incredible nuggets of truth and importance that she put forward in the first film. You can think, 'Oh, we could change that. Oh, you could do that. Oh, that doesn't matter.' But stepping into a second installment and franchise that I enjoy, [I had] the honor and the collaboration of spitballing with the first director about why they did what they did and that this thing that might seem like nothing to someone was so important and valuable and how I can help protect that or grow it. I valued her guidance and input and clarity and insight.' Mahoney's deep-rooted fandom is clear in every moment she talks about the film. Even a question wondering if she felt a particular sense of favoritism toward Layne's character, Nile (who really comes into her own in the sequel), was greeted with an unexpected answer. 'I have no favorites and I'm not being polite or political, because they all mean so much,' she said. 'They function as a whole. They're not individual entities. As far as storytelling goes, each one services a different need, and if you pull one out, the house of cards comes down. There's not one of them that services a lesser need. Each aspect of creative value, story value, character value that one of the nine [stars] presents at any given moment is the most important thing in the story. Whoever we're shooting that day, that minute, whatever shot, whatever aspect of story we're chasing, is the most important, right? Then we go to the next one, and then that's the most important. Wherever that camera is between action and cut, that's the most important thing in the world.' Given how long Mahoney has been working on the film — after coming on board in late 2021, Mahoney shot the film in late 2022, gutted her way through some serious delays from Netflix, shot additional material in 2024, and finally sees it released this week — she completely understands the fan fervor. She feels it even more acutely. 'Well, for me, being in it in real time is different from anyone who's watching it and waiting and wondering,' Mahoney said. 'I have that with movies, I have that with TV shows that I love, I'm like, 'Where is the next one? What's the next season?' So I am right along beside fans in that aching and hunger for the thing that we love. … I was in it the whole time, from the moment I got hired to the moment that this film is released, it'll be three-and-a-half years. Other directors might have, at some point, moved toward another project because of the duration and just the hunger to get back on set. I did not want to abandon my post. I cared about the movie way too much. I wanted to see it through, and there was no other answer.' Mahoney's film leaves things wide open for a third feature, though one has not yet been announced. During production, Mahoney said, 'There were discussions just logistically, and rightfully so, about the what-ifs' that the second film might set up. As for a third film? 'Whatever discussions they're having, I don't know,' she said. 'And I will be a spectator along with everyone else, because I will be gone doing something else. Whatever happens on the third one, I will return to [it as] a viewer and a fan, and I will be waiting with bated breath for what comes next, and where they go, and how it plays out. I will be cheering everyone on.' With 'The Old Guard 2' under her belt and 'Star Wars' behind her, I asked how Mahoney reflects on the truly ground-breaking nature of her 'Rise of Skywalker' work, of being the first woman, let alone the first Black woman, to direct on a 'Star Wars' film. Despite her characteristically upbeat and thoughtful personality, even Mahoney got a bit morose in thinking back. 'It's interesting, because a lot of those factors that you just described are as poignant today on this movie as they were then,' she said. 'I don't know how many women have big-budget movies coming out this year. It's challenging. So, unfortunately, that particular part of the discussion is identical to the discussion that was in the 'Star Wars' press tour.' Still, Mahoney remains awestruck by the devotion of 'Star Wars' fans, and the born-and-bred New Yorker attempted to compare it to Knicks or Yankees fandom. 'I'll say 'Yankees' now, I'm going to lose people,' she said with a laugh. 'They're going to be like, 'Oh, she's a Yankee/Knicks fan. That sucks.' But when you went to the old Yankee Stadium, you sit down, and it's summer, it's warm weather, and the lights are going down and the sky is turning magenta, something magical happened. Even if you were jaded and you didn't like sports and you didn't believe in mystical moments and wonderment, you were taken over, and 'Star Wars' does that.' Even now, Mahoney said she's still struck when she sees little kids in airports sporting their 'Star Wars' PJs for a flight or adults playing lightsabers in a park with friends. 'There aren't words for what that does to your heart when you interact with people who have that kind of magic in them,' she said. 'And then on ['The Old Guard 2'], there's a feeling about immortality and living and loving the one you're with that has some version of magic to it. It kind of propels you into another space and mind.' 'And we're just talking about imagination here,' she added. 'But 'Star Wars' has a way of accessing one's imagination and putting you in this great what-if. What's fun for me about 'The Old Guard' and why I find it exciting is there are aspects of 'The Old Guard' that allow me, as a viewer and a storyteller, to access my imagination in a beautiful, welcomed what-if.' 'The Old Guard 2' is now streaming on Netflix. 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Business Insider
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Victoria Mahoney was the first female 'Star Wars' director. Now, she's directing one of the most anticipated movies of the summer.
Victoria Mahoney can't contain herself. She's finally going to talk about "The Old Guard 2." It's not just the long-awaited sequel to Netflix's hit 2020 action movie starring Charlize Theron as the leader of immortal mercenaries out to better the world, but it also marks Mahoney's first feature film directing effort since her debut, the gritty 2011 indie starring Zoë Kravitz, "Yelling to the Sky." What has she been doing this whole time? The real question is: What hasn't she done? Everything about Mahoney is big—big energy, big smile. On this day, while chatting over Zoom with Business Insider, she's sporting big pieces of jewelry along with big, stylish glasses. Essentially, Mahoney doesn't do anything small—well, anymore. There was a time when that's all she could get. Through the 1990s, she was an actor and only had blink-and-you'd-miss-them roles on TV ("Seinfeld") and movies ("Legally Blonde") to show for it. By the 2010s, she pivoted to directing and was able to scrounge enough money to pull off an 18-day shoot for the low-budget semi-autobiographical drama "Yelling to the Sky." "We would knock on the neighbors' doors to use the bathroom because we had no money for trailers," Mahoney recalled. "They would make us lemonade, and they were so sweet. What happened at that time was quite special. I loved every second." Sadly, the movie didn't get much attention after its festival run. Seeing the filmmaking market shift to directors helming indies right into big-budget movies, she set out to do the same. But no one was knocking down her door offering a Marvel movie or revamping an aging IP. So Mahoney got directing gigs on TV. Since 2016, she's directed episodes of "Queen Sugar," "Grey's Anatomy," "Claws," "Power," "You," and the pilot episode of "Suits LA." Then in 2018, she was hired as the second unit director on J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," making her the first woman ever to have a director credit on a " Star Wars" movie. Many in her situation would assume that being involved in one of Hollywood's biggest franchises would lead to the gates of Hollywood opening and offers coming in by the handful. But Mahoney knew better. "Some people may have the luxury of walking the Earth with that thought process, I have never been afforded that," she said. "I have a very practical and tactical approach to work," she continued. "I hunt jobs, I pursue, I advocate for myself, I'm strategic, I'm shrewd." Mahoney's take on 'The Old Guard' Mahoney kept grinding, and after a few false starts on directing big movies, she finally got the opportunity she'd patiently waited for. In 2021, Skydance CCO Dana Goldberg reached out about directing the sequel to "The Old Guard." "I was a fan of the first one, so when they called it wasn't like this is smart business, I actually really cared about the movie and the characters," Mahoney said of the franchise. "The Old Guard 2" picks up right where we left off. Andy (Theron) and her team of immortals have a fuller understanding of their importance in the world and use a former CIA operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as their guide to taking out those doing harm. Still, Andy gets a surprise when she learns that her old friend from centuries ago, Quynh (Ngô Thanh Vân), who has been trapped under the sea, has been brought back to the surface by Discord (Uma Thurman), and the two set out with some evil intentions. Mahoney said taking over from the first movie's director, Gina Prince-Bythewood (who stepped aside to make "The Woman King"), wasn't daunting because of her work on 2019's "Rise of Skywalker." "'Star Wars' was very much my school to this ZIP code," she said. "There are very specific lessons you get on 'Star Wars' that you can't get anywhere else. One of the things that I grabbed onto and received right away was the notion that we must respect the DNA, we must respect fans, we must respect new terrain and new thought." "I love a challenge, so I enjoyed the idea of preserving all the factors that made the first 'Old Guard' unique and wonderful, and what enticed me and what I understood enticed audiences," she continued. "So my loyalty to protect that is something that I went to work with every day." However, Mahoney is also proud of her own original touches, like the sequence she devised to capture Andy and Quynh's first meeting in centuries. Filmed at Italy's famed Cinecittà Studios, the scene shows Andy walking through the narrow streets of Rome to meet Quynh at a piazza. During her walk, her surroundings suddenly change, backtracking from the 19th Century to the Roman Empire. What was originally planned as a series of flashbacks to symbolize how long it's been since Andy last saw Quynh, Mahoney restructured it into one of the more eye-catching sequences of the movie with its use of changing scenery and different color lens filters. "Wherever I am in the world, when I walk down certain streets, I have a sense of memory," Mahoney said. "I don't think about it, it's inside of me. I felt Andy is a person who has an experience that none of us have, in that she can walk through a street and have a feeling from all these different times." What's next for Mahoney Though Mahoney has completed the biggest project of her career, she's not content and doesn't assume that another is right around the corner. As she's done her whole career, she's back on the grind, figuring out how to maneuver next. "I'm aware this kind of job gets me three moves on the chessboard," she said. "I'm aware unilateral moves are no good for me." She takes a breath, perhaps for an instant, absorbing where she's been and where she hopes to go. "Within this stretch, all the people that say, 'Oh, this is going to change things forever,' I'm like, 'We'll see.' I'm a realist."
