J.J. Abrams is a lifelong "Star Wars" fan, so the opportunity to direct "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is like a dream come true.
However, it still took a little convincing and questioning before he decided to get fully involved.
According to a lengthy interview with Abrams in Entertainment Weekly, LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy first approached the director while he was working on 2013's "Star Trek Into Darkness." At the time, Abrams, who had just successfully rebooted one sci-fi franchise, was looking to make something original again. However, that didn't stop Kennedy from pursuing him.
In order to persuade him, she decided to ask him an important question.
“In the context of talking about story and laying out what we were thinking, I said one thing to him,” Kathleen Kennedy told EW. “‘Who is Luke Skywalker?’”
This did the trick, as Abrams decided he really needed to know this answer for himself.
“He said, ‘Oh my God, I just got the chills. I’m in,’” Kennedy said. “I mean, it really was almost that quickly.”
Abrams' wife can also be credited for giving him a final nudge to get on board.
“You rarely get a chance to be involved in something that you would typically be an audience for. Katie, my wife, said, ‘If you want to do this and you don’t, you’re going to regret this.’ It was really about being willing to take that leap, and jump into the possibilities of what these characters are doing, and where they are.” Abrams told EW.
Plot details for "The Force Awakens" are still vague, and we've barely gotten a good glimpse at Skywalker yet. However, what is known is that this will be a different Luke than the one from the original trilogy. The Luke Skywalker at the end of "Return of the Jedi" was different than the one at the start of "A New Hope," and will likely be different from the one we see in "The Force Awakens."
"The Force Awakens" will be out in theaters on December 18.
You can read the full EW piece here.