Rory Kennedy: ‘In our family there was no tolerance for being a victim’

Filmmaker Rory Kennedy was born six months after the assassination of her father Robert Kennedy. Here, she talks about living with her family's tragic legacy and her new film about the space race

Children in the Kennedy household had to follow the rules. The horses, seals and coatimundis in the grounds of Hickory Hill - the imposing family home John F Kennedy sold to his brother Robert - might have made it feel a long way from Capitol Hill, but for a family inextricably connected to the formalities of high office there were certain expectations. Dinner was served at 7pm sharp every evening, no exceptions; each of the siblings would have their nails scrubbed and hair brushed when they took their seats at the table. Sunday mornings were spent in church, Sunday nights were for poetry recitation. That said, Rory, now 49, and the youngest of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy's kids, understands it to have been a household of welcome contradictions: "There was a healthy encouragement of rebellion, too."

On a December evening in 1984, Rory, then 13, and her brother Douglas were watching the news. Anti-apartheid activists were being handcuffed at protests outside the South African embassy in DC, just 10 miles from where they lived with their nine siblings. It was decided: if other people were putting their bodies on the line, these two would as well. At breakfast the next morning, they made their case for getting arrested to their mother. "Without missing a beat, mummy looked at us and said, 'Fantastic, get in the car, I'll get you down there'," says Rory, smiling as she remembers. "They arrested me and I was thrown in a police car and handcuffed. I looked up at my mother and I tell you, I don't think she has ever been prouder."