‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ writer and director J.J. Abrams sat down with Wired’s Editor in chief Scott Dadich to talk about the highly anticipated movie. 

Speaking about the interaction between the new actors with the original cast: “We knew we weren’t just casting one movie—we were casting at least three. That, to me, was the biggest challenge. When we met Daisy Ridley, when we found John Boyega, and then Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver came aboard, we got really excited. And yes, Daisy and John could work together, but what happens when Harrison’s in the mix? What will that feel like? If it doesn’t spark, it’s a [frick]ing disaster.

“Yes, BB-8 is a great character, amazingly puppeteered, but what will happen when he’s suddenly in a scene with C-3P0 or R2-D2? Will it feel bizarre? Will it feel wrong? Somehow it didn’t. When Anthony Daniels told me, “Oh my God, I love BB-8!” I said, “We’re going to be OK.” Because if he’s OK, it’s working.”

“On seeing the sweetness between Han and Rey or the tension and comedy between Han and Finn. It was really exciting to say, “These scenes are working!” We worked really hard to cast and to write and to put it all together, but you just don’t know until you start shooting. Then all of a sudden, you’re on-set watching it and you know. It’s a little bit like having a party and having friends from your new school meet friends from your old school, and you think, “What’s going to happen?” And all of a sudden they’re getting along famously and this party’s really fun! It was a lot of work, but it ended up being great.”

On collaborating with ‘Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’ screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, “The collaboration, for me, was an education in storytelling and doing so with clarity, with efficiency, brevity—wit. It was a little like taking an extended master class.”

Abrams reveals that he recognizes his past mistakes, and drew from his past work to help him avoid them in The Force Awakens, “More than anything, I drew on personal experiences as cautionary tales, things that I didn’t want to do again. For example, I didn’t want to enter into making a movie where we didn’t really own our story. I feel like I’ve done that a couple of times in my career. That’s not to say I’m not proud of my work, but the fact is I remember starting to shoot Super 8 and Star Trek Into Darkness and feeling like I hadn’t really solved some fundamental story problems.”

On keeping plot details under wrap during the marketing of the film, “I give credit to, and frankly surprisingly so, the incredible people at Disney, especially Alan Horn [chair of Walt Disney Studios] and Bob Iger [Disney CEO]. Bob’s been unbelievably collaborative and supportive of this entire process. When it came to marketing, I was expecting Disney to want to put out an overabundance of material. But they’ve been incredibly reluctant to do that. They want this thing to be an experience for people when they go to see the film. And I’m grateful for that.”

Abrams also spoke about working with Episode VIII director Rian Johnson to create a smooth transition between both films: “The script for VIII is written. I’m sure rewrites are going to be endless, like they always are. But what Larry and I did was set up certain key relationships, certain key questions, conflicts. And we knew where certain things were going. We had meetings with Rian and Ram Bergman, the producer of VIII. They were watching dailies when we were shooting our movie. We wanted them to be part of the process, to make the transition to their film as seamless as possible. I showed Rian an early cut of the movie, because I knew he was doing his rewrite and prepping. And as executive producer of VIII, I need that movie to be really good. Withholding serves no one and certainly not the fans. So we’ve been as transparent as possible.”

“Rian has asked for a couple of things here & there that he needs for his story. He’s an incredibly accomplished filmmaker & an incredibly strong writer. So the story he told took what we were doing and went in the direction that he felt was best but that is very much in line with what we were thinking as well. But that will be his movie; he’s going to do it in the way he sees fit. He’s neither asking for nor does he need me to oversee the process.”

Abrams also revealed the one requirement that Larry and him gave themselves,“How do we make this movie delightful?” That was really the only requirement Larry (Kasdan) and I imposed on each other: The movie needed to be delightful. It was not about explaining everything away, not about introducing a certain number of toys for a corporation, not about trying to appease anyone. This has only ever been about what gets us excited.”

On the time gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens: “It was important that Han Solo be Han Solo but not feel like he’s playing a 30-year-old dude. When you’re 70, you will have lived a different set of experiences. That has to be apparent in who he is. Harrison was required to bring a level of complexity that a 30-yearold Han wouldn’t be required to have. Then there were things like the radar dish.”

Check out the rest of the interview here.

Directed by J.J. Abrams. Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams. Produced by Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk. John Williams will also return as composer. Stars Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Andy Serkis, John Boyega, Domhnall Gleeson, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Max von Sydow, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Simon Pegg and Anthony Daniels.

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ opens worldwide on December 18, 2015.