Amy Pascal Talks Producing, Spider-Man, Bond and ‘The Studio’

“It’s easy to get lost,” says Amy Pascal of being a movie producer. “There are so many voices and so many people. But if you know why something matters, and you just stick with that, that’s the job.”

That job has now earned Pascal — the onetime head of Sony Pictures turned three-time Oscar nominee — the David O. Selznick Achievement Award from the Producers Guild of America, joining recent recipients like Tom Cruise and Martin Scorsese.

Pascal’s circuitous path to producing started by working under BBC producer Tony Garnett, after which she jumped into life as a studio executive, ascending to be co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Following the 2014 Sony cyberattack, she left the executive suite and turned to producing, working with Aaron Sorkin, Luca Guadagnino, Steven Spielberg and Greta Gerwig on titles like Little Women and Challengers, while shepherding Tom Holland’s Spider-Man franchise and the animated Spider-Verse films.

Up next, projects run the gamut from sci-fi epic Project Hail Mary to Gerwig’s take on Narnia, not to mention the relaunch of Hollywood favorite (and much speculated about) spy, James Bond.

What was your first reaction when you heard that you were getting this award?

I was like, “How do I get out of it?”

Okay (Laughs.)

I’m not even kidding! I am not a person who likes being in front of people or talking or any of that, but it is such an incredible honor. There was no way that I was going to say “no.” I’m really touched and kind of flabbergasted.

How do you think your time as a studio head was beneficial to your pivot to producing?

Being a producer is actually quite different than being a studio executive. Much more different than I suspected it would be. I did work for the world’s most wonderful producer for the first six years of my life [in Hollywood], a man named Tony Garnett. He taught me all the important things, and then I remembered them. It was basically: Work with great people and pay attention to writers.

You first met Greta Gerwig before she had even directed her first feature, Lady Bird. How do you Intuit when a director is someone you ultimately want to work with as a producer?

Greta is a pretty special case. She came in with an idea for Little Women that knocked me off my socks, and I knew that she had co-written a lot of the stuff with Noah [Baumbach]. I really didn’t know her at all, but when somebody walks into your office like that and says something jaw-dropping, what are you gonna do?

You alluded to this before, but when you were jumping into to being a producer again what were some of those lessons — whether from Tony Garnett or elsewhere — that came in handy?

I talked to a bunch of directors I respected and asked them, “What do you look for in a good producer?” One of them was really funny, and I won’t say who this was, but he said, “Well, the most important thing is that I’m the only person who gets to have feelings.” He goes, “The thing I need is a producer that actually knows how to make a movie, and then it’s all about me.” I thought that was sort of a spectacular thing to say. And, as you learn how to be a producer, it’s really true. The director is the whole ball game.

Has there been one movie in particular where, even you were sitting at the premiere watching it, you kept thinking, “I can’t believe we pulled this off.”

To be honest with you, I think about that every single time. Whether it was a movie that I loved when I was running Sony, or something now [as a producer], you can barely believe that it all came together. It’s such an arduous task and it takes so many people swimming in the same direction for anything to work. You also work really hard on the ones that aren’t what you wanted them to be. The thing is that it has to be about the process of doing it, because if it’s only about the outcome, you might be sorely disappointed.

If you’re doing your job, you’re there at the very beginning, and you’re there at the very end. You’re there every day. You’re there helping people find the movie in the first place. You’re there to remind the director why they wanted to do something in the first place. Sometimes a day can get very busy, and sometimes you forget the reason that you wanted to tell the story the way you wanted to tell it.

There’s more and more conversations now about how working producers, especially younger working producers, are facing increasing difficulties when it comes to making producing a sustainable job.

I don’t envy anyone who, at this point, is getting started. But, on the other hand, there are so many different companies that are making movies, all kinds of movies, not just theatrical movies. There are opportunities that are out there. It may not look the same way it looked to me when I was getting started 100,000 years ago. The most important thing is to figure out what you love and then work your ass off to make them happen.

You are a consistent creative force behind all things Spider-Man. As a producer, what is your responsibility in keeping IP like that fresh and something the audience wants to engage with over time and time again?

Well, there are a lot of people who work on Spider-Man movies, as you know. I wouldn’t call myself the only person. But what has been important to me from the time that we acquired the rights, when I was at Sony and until today when I’m lucky enough to be on the ground making these movies, is that it’s a story about Peter Parker, and that it never is a story about anything else. It begins and ends with a human story, and everything else comes from there. Sometimes people think of comic book movies as a genre in and of themselves that have different rules. I don’t think of them that way. I think of them as dramas and comedies and movies that have to touch your heart. A movie is just one character making a choice, and that has to be as true for Peter Parker as it is for Jo March [from Little Women] or Katharine Graham [from The Post] or anyone else.

How do you personally make sure you are staying true to that when you are contending with a million other voices?

You have to ask yourself all the time why you’re doing something, and you have to make sure that you’re always choosing your ambition and not your ego. You’re always doing something that is for the good of the movie, not for the good of how it’s gonna make you feel in the moment.

You are no stranger to big IP. But when it comes to taking on something like James Bond, what are you most looking forward to as a producer, and what are you most nervous about?

I’m most afraid of fucking it up, because it’s really easy to do. It’s been done pretty damn well for many, many, many decades. I think you work really hard. That’s how you do it. You really get into the weeds of something and study it to understand what makes it great, and what Ian Fleming meant it to be. And try to learn from Barbara [Broccoli], who I watched produce a lot of Bond movies, and was lucky enough to be there for some of them.

Where are you all in the process right now? Is there a script?

We are really early on.

As a producer, do you have a “one that got away”?

Oh, God, I’m not gonna tell you that.

For you, when is the moment you feel the greatest joy as a producer? Is it watching the finished film? Is it finding a great piece of material or a new creative partnership with a director?

All of those things, but I think it’s standing in the back of the movie theater, the day the movie opens. I remember on No Way Home going with all three Spider-Men [Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire] and standing in the back and watching people realize that they were all in the movie together. That was pretty joyful.

What is a type of film that you haven’t tackled yet as a producer that you want to?

I would love to do a big weepy love story, like a Brief Encounter. Something where they definitely don’t end up together.

Where they don’t end up together?

That’s the only kind of love story that works, really. Otherwise, it’s a romantic comedy.

After a career of helping bring characters to the screen, what was it like to help inspire a character in Seth Rogen’s The Studio?

I think that the character that the brilliant Catherine O’Hara played is probably an amalgamation of a lot of people, but it made me smile.

For our final question, I want to go back to the very beginning. I read that, growing up, you would often go to the theater with your father. What was the movie that made you want to make movies?

I could tell you it was All About Eve, but it was probably Mary Poppins. I think I saw Mary Poppins 14 times [in theaters]. I love that movie with all my heart.

What was it about the movie that got to you?

It was so magical, and she was so powerful. I read all the books, too. It took you to a whole other world. You know, she wasn’t that nice, but she was fantastic.

She knew exactly what needed to get done.

And she did it.

Which is kind of like being a producer, if I’m being romantic about it.

You said that, not me!

This interview has been edited and condensed.