George Lucas and sculptor Darren Marshall finesse the final design of the Bog King (voiced by Alan Cumming) for the animated motion picture “Strange Magic.”(Photo: Lucasfilm)

For a guy who’s “happily retired,” George Lucas is sure keeping himself busy.

The iconic filmmaker isn’t regularly tinkering around in the Star Wars universe anymore — that’s now director J.J. Abrams’ gig — but he has created a new fantasy landscape with the animated musical Strange Magic (out Jan. 23), in which fairies, elves and romance are more plentiful than Jedi, Wookiees and the Force.

“My motivation has always been just doing what I want to do and making a movie that I think will be interesting, and that’s just been the way I’ve done it my whole life,” says Lucas, 70, who has been working on the “personal-ish” movie on the side for 15 years.

“I never expected to be successful — it’s just one of those things that happened. It happened that the stuff I like everybody else liked.”

There’s more than just filmmaking: Lucas continues to develop a museum of narrative art that he hopes to open in Chicago by the end of the decade.

Read the full Brian Truitt article on USA Today