This was not the George Lucas I was expecting. I walked into his Skywalker Ranch in the hills of Marin County, Ca. thinking our group of mom bloggers would be interviewing the calm, low-key and generally reserved Star Wars creator. Instead, this was George Lucas the enthusiastic filmmaker, parent and husband. The 70-year-old dad of four (ages 33, 26, 21 and 18 months) was there to talk about his new animated film Strange Magic opening Friday, a fairy-tale musical inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But he also spoke from the heart about love, family and even Elvis Presley.

Here’s George Lucas on …

… Why he wanted to make Strange Magic, a movie filled with popular songs from the past six decades that depicts the misadventures of a colorful cast of goblins, elves, fairies and imps, battling over a powerful potion.

“It started quite a while ago, about 15 years ago. The idea of an upbeat, fun, simple movie just appealed to me. I'd finished the Star Wars movies and I was producing films, but I wanted to do one where I could actually get my hands dirty. I loved doing it because I love the music, I love coming to work on it, I love watching it, which is the key in the end for me. It's something I did for the fun of it. With Strange Magic, one of the inspirations was: I wonder if I could tell a love story using love songs… If I could just take them and string them all together so they actually told the story.”

… Why he wanted to make a movie about love… for tween girls.

“I thought it would be fun to make a film that was more for tween girls than Star Wars, which was for tween boys, even though, in the end, everybody loved it. The original process was to make a movie that shows the difference between being infatuated and being truly in love, since being infatuated ultimately is about surface values, surface issues -- being really in love is about interior issues. Strange Magic was just to play with that and say -- especially for young girls who are prone to infatuations -- it's not always the cutest guy in class that you really want to be out with.”

… Why stories for tweens (from Star Wars to Strange Magic) are important to tell.

“To me, adolescence is a key period in a child's life, and to make movies that say, ‘look, these are the issues.’ They may seem obvious to us because we've been through it --  but you need to know the story of why you have friendships and what a friendship means, why there are things in the world that are bigger than you are, why your complicated feelings with your parents and all these kinds of things are not unusual. It’s not just you, this is something that everybody goes through.  This is kind of the same thing (in Star Wars and Strange Magic). I won't call it a myth because I beat that one to death with Star Wars -- but this is a fairy tale. Same thing only much sweeter.”

… How he unexpectedly found love with his second wife, Dreamworks Animation chairman and investment firm president Mellody Hobson (pictured, above), 45, after being a divorced single dad for 20 years with three adopted kids.

“I said, ‘Well, I'll never fall in love again it's just not going happen.’ Then I found somebody. You know, I'm a ’60s radical, government-unhappy, Wall Street-hating person from San Francisco, and I ended up meeting a woman who's head of a big investment management firm who's on Wall Street who doesn't look like me. As time went on it became more meaningful to me because I realized that in the end, we fell in love because we were exactly alike inside. You realize that you have so much in common that you would never have thought of on the surface. That story has been told over and over and over again but at the same time, it needs to be retold. You know, it’s like the movie (Strange Magic).”

… On how it felt to become a parent for the first time and why it’s hard to stop having kids.

“When I was walking through the hospital with her (his eldest daughter), she was a couple of hours old, it was like lightning struck me. I've never had an experience like that ever. The magic of it hit me. It (parenthood) gets better and better till they become teenagers and they're programmed to be obnoxious because that's the only way you can get rid of them. Otherwise you baby them for the rest of their lives. (But then) you forget what they were like as teenagers and you say ‘Oh, but they're so cute, I want another one.’ So, I ended up having another one.” (That’s his now 18-month-old daughter Everest, with Hobson, delivered via surrogate. Everest joined Lucas’ three adopted kids: Amanda, 33, from his first marriage to Marcia Griffin, and Katie, 25, and Jett, 21, who Lucas adopted on his own).

… On why “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” is his favorite song in Strange Magic

“I grew up under the tutelage of Elvis (Presley) and my wife says I still have that pompous pompadour. To me it was the inspiration -- this is what this movie's about. You know, ‘Wise men say only fools fall in love.’  Ultimately the only thing I can say is there's no accounting for love, it's just no matter how rational you think you're being, you say, ‘Well, I'll never do that,’ and you do it (anyway).”

Sunny Chanel is a regular contributor to Fandango Family, Babble.com, Mom.me, Disney Imagicademy and Mommy Nearest as well as her own whimsical site Wonder and Company. When she isn't writing, watching movies or doing crafts, she is playing dress up with her eight-year-old daughter.