Robbie Brenner has spent her career breaking barriers in Hollywood. From championing independent films like the Oscar-winning “Dallas Buyers Club,” to spearheading bold, culture-shifting projects as president at Mattel Films—including the billion-dollar phenomenon “Barbie” —she has built a reputation for pushing stories forward that others said could never be made.
Brenner, who was recognized as a 2024 honoree on Forbes and Know Your Value’s “50 Over 50” lifestyle list, recently chatted with Mika Brzezinski for a candid conversation about her early inspirations, the persistence it took to bring “Dallas Buyers Club” to the screen, what it meant to help reimagine “Barbie” for a new generation, and the lessons she’s carrying into her leadership at Mattel.
Below is the conversation, which has been edited for brevity and clarity:
Mika Brzezinski: When you were in your 20s, did you ever imagine your career after the age of 50? Could you see it?
Robbie Brenner: Growing up in New York City, I was born in 1971 and my mother was in medical school. Not many women were doing that at the time. They stayed at home, they raised the children, they shopped … And I think to grow up with a woman who was such an incredible role model, who really wanted to break barriers and change … was just so inspiring. She always just told me, there’s always a glass ceiling to break. You can be anything, you can do anything, you can say anything, you can dream. So yes, I feel like after 50, I didn’t know where it was going to go … but something for sure.
Mika Brzezinski: Was there a turning point that drew you into the film industry or was that something you always knew?
Robbie Brenner: My father was a lawyer for AT&T … but he loved photography. He would take me into the bathroom, make a darkroom, and we’d develop pictures together. From a very young age, I loved images.
I went to NYU Film School, started in acting, and after one year I said to myself, ‘Oh no, this is not for me.’ I want to have control of my destiny. I want to make art, and I want to be able to make decisions that I can actually control and guide my career and do the things that I want to do and not be told by somebody, ‘You’re too small, you’re too big, you’re too this, you’re too that.’ And I can really just kind of live in my own kind of creative spirit.
And so I went to film school at NYU for four years and moved out to LA right after that. So yeah, I think it was something that has always really been inside of me. Telling stories is something that I feel like I have to do. It’s just part of my DNA.
Mika Brzezinski: I want to ask you about the journey to get “Dallas Buyers Club” made. You have talked about the rejections, financing it on credit cards. Can you take us back to that time and what did you learn about pushing that project through?
Robbie Brenner: I had read the script in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s. A friend of mine, Craig Borten, wrote the script and he had had it with another producer and he couldn’t get it made. So the other producer reached out to me. I just fell in love with the script. It got under my skin, and it was just something that I thought, I have to help get this movie made… I had actually given it to my dear friend at the time, Marc Forster… He had just made a movie called “Monster’s Ball,” and nobody had seen it. And I showed it to the other producer. And so we got Marc on board, and then we showed the script to Brad Pitt and we screened Monster’s Ball for him, and he became attached. And we set the movie up at Universal in the late 1990s. And honestly, we didn’t make the movie. If you can imagine, I read this script, I think in 1995, and we made the movie in 2013.
Life has so much to do with timing. It also has to do with tenacity and really sticking with something… With this movie, every door truly closed. I mean, people would say to me, “You want to make a movie about a guy, a cowboy who contracts HIV? I mean, are you crazy?” And I’m like, “But it’s not about that… It is about an unlikely relationship between these two people… In the face of adversity and death and obstacles, they find love in each other and they teach each other these amazing lessons.”
I partnered with this wonderful filmmaker… Jean-Marc Vallée. He had made a couple of smaller movies, and when he read “Dallas Buyers Club” he was like, “Yeah, I want to make a movie about this cowboy.” And so we set out on this journey and I sent it to Matthew [McConaughey], and then Jared [Leto] came on board and Jennifer [Garner], and we just have a wonderful kind of little family…
But it was very challenging …One of the financiers pulled out of the movie… In the 11th hour, I was turned to this other cowboy from Texas … I pitched him the movie and he was like, “I like this movie. This is great. I’m going to invest in it.” And he made his money in fertilizer. And so he put a million dollars into the movie. I think he’s made like $15 million, and that’s the greatest investment ever. And so we were able to make the movie, and it went on to get nominated for seven Academy Awards, and it won three.
Mika Brzezinski: And then there’s “Barbie.” Did you have any resistance to making a female-led, female-themed movie?
Robbie Brenner: Honestly, I never thought Barbie would be the first movie we made at Mattel… She was polarizing, and people had a very stereotypical understanding of who she is. But Ruth Handler, who created Barbie, wanted her daughter to have a doll that could role play—be a doctor, go to the moon—before women were even doing those things. We heard a lot of pitches, but none spoke to us until Greta Gerwig raised her hand and said, ‘I love Barbie. I feel like the movie could somehow live between a Birkenstock and a high heel.’ The minute she said that, I was like, “wow.”
Mika Brzezinski: Is there a leadership lesson in your career that you wish you had learned earlier or one you learned the hard way or just advice to your younger self, a Know Your Value moment that you might’ve had?
Robbie Brenner: It’s the ability to use your voice to be able to say, ‘No, I don’t like that,’ or ‘That’s not OK.’ Or to create boundaries. I think as women we’re afraid to stand up for ourselves. We’re afraid to use our voice. We’re afraid to have opinions. We feel like imposters or whatever it is. We all go through those myriad of different feelings in our career, in our lives. Am I good enough? Do I deserve to sit here … I really try to instill this in my girls who are 21 and 17… just like, be who you are. That’s all you have is your inner truth and your voice. Your voice is the only thing that makes you different from anybody else in your life. That truly is what makes you authentic …
Mika Brzezinski: What excites you the most about the films and series Mattel is working on right now, and do any potentially have the ability to surprise people like “Barbie” did?
Robbie Brenner: “Barbie” was a unicorn… beyond everybody’s wildest dreams. But I just have to look at all of these brands individually and try not to put that kind of pressure on myself… I’m so excited about “Barney,” where we’re developing “Barney” at A24 with Daniel Kaluuya. I think it’s so beautiful and human and provocative and so unexpected… The secret sort of ingredient is: do something unexpected. Do something that nobody has seen before. Because there’s so much noise… you have to find something wholly unique and different. It’s surprising, so when people leave they go, wow, that is absolutely not what I expected… That would be my hope and dream.
So I would say these are all my babies. I love them all equally. They’re all going to be different. But “Polly Pocket” to “Eight Ball” to “Barney”… “Hot Wheels,” to find a way to do something in the car space that hasn’t been done before. Of course, we have John Chu and JJ Abrams… aligning yourself with the best in class talent. I mean, you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with.
Know Your Value staff