‘Luck’ Director Peggy Holmes Interview -- Contenders Los Angeles

Luck was on director Peggy Holmes‘ side when the film Luck landed in her lap, a project about a young woman in the foster-care system looking for her happy ending.

Holmes spoke about all the layers that went into creating the world in which protagonist Sam Greenfield (Eva Noblezada) exists during a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event, and what attracted her to the animated film that found a home at Apple.

“I was asked to take a look at this project and there were two things that I was really drawn to, and one was the idea that Sam was growing up in the foster-care system. I thought it could be a great opportunity to create an emotional story about someone with no family finding a forever family,” Holmes said.

“And then also, there was a leprechaun. So I thought, maybe what we could do is sort of create a world, blow this leprechaun out by creating a world where the luck we experience every day as humans is created by a world we never knew existed. For me, it was this idea of having this grounded, heartfelt story, coupled with this magical world.”

For Luck, Holmes and screenwriter Kiel Murray met with young adults who had been part of the foster system, from which they aged out just as Sam did.

“Me and Kiel Murray sat down with these young adults to hear about their lives. So they have real-life bad luck that has led to the circumstances they are in now; they are literally alone in the world,” she said.

“We were so taken by how incredibly positive and hopeful these young adults were about the fact that someday they could find their forever family, or they were incredibly hardworking. They were putting themselves through school and learned to pivot because they had to do that so many times in their lives,” she continued. “We were just so inspired and taken by their generosity and their hopefulness that we decided that that’s the heart of our story. They’re kind of the heroes of their lives. And it’s not a story that’s told a lot and we were just really drawn to them.”

The film also counted on the voice talents of Simon Pegg, Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Flula Borg, Lil Rel Howery, Colin O’Donoghue, John Ratzenberger and Adelynn Spoon among others.

Luck is currently available to stream via Apple TV+.

Check out the panel video above.