It’s the Friday before Halloween which means it’s a day before the Saturday before Halloween and when Halloween doesn’t occur on a weekend it means that Saturday is party central in Los Angeles. I’ve spent most of the day multitasking to extremes as I alternate a slew of time-sensitive interviews while running around town trying to get my costume together. That means when I spoke to Greta Gerwig about her indie hit “Lady Bird“ it was a phoner that took place in, of all places, a car with my laptop propped open on my lap to record it somewhere in the depths of the San Fernando Valley. Gerwig, on the other hand, was calling me from a press day in the swank Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Yes, this business is just weird sometimes, but sometimes it just works without a hitch.
“Lady Bird” has transformed Gerwig from respected indie actress and screenwriter into a must-see auteur in less than three months. Our interview focused on the layers of meaning shes built into the coming of age story that centers on the title character (Saoirse Ronan) sort of finding herself over the course of her senior year in High School. But to Gerwig the story was always about the adults (or parents) played by Laurie Metcalf and Tracy Letts just as much as Lady Bird and her friends.
And that seems like as good a place as any to jump into our conversation.
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The Playlist: When you were writing were you always thinking of Laurie and Terry’s characters as much as you were of Saoirse’s and all the teenagers?
Greta Gerwig: Yeah, definitely. But not just Laurie and Tracy’s character, but also Steven McKinley Henderson’s or Lois Smith‘s character. The feeling that the adults are not just the “adults” but everyone is in the middle of their own opera. And I think teenagers sometimes see the world inevitably and necessarily narcissistically because they’re trying to define themselves. I wanted the movie to treat each person as an individual and not just a placeholder in this teenager’s life, but that they were funny, depressed, hurting or joyful or whatever it was that they were going through. They weren’t just a function in the teenager’s life.
In that context, when you were writing the script you must have thought, “Hey, my main protagonists is a high school senior. People are going to think this is a coming-of-age story.” Were you trying to be cognizant of not including some people people would think of as cliches of the genre? Was that always sort of in the back of your mind?
So, that was something I definitely started with. Even on a very basic level of not wanting to make the nuns and priests in a Catholic school the butt of a joke. I wanted to treat them like real people. And the same with the parents. I didn’t want them to just be kooky parents. I wanted them to be really, really full people. And so there weren’t very clear things I was trying to not fall into and I think in a way I love this movie so I want to honor those movies, but I wanted to make something that represented what felt closer to life to me.
I actually haven’t seen you quoted saying this, but I have heard people say that you had said that this wasn’t your story, that this doesn’t remind you of your own growing up. If that is the case here did you get the inspiration to tell this particular story and with such detail?
Well, I think it’s obviously very close to me in my heart. I’m from Sacramento and I’ve always wanted to make a movie about home and how home is something you only understand when you’re moving away from it. And that is one of just the inevitable tragedies of life that you only know what you’ve got when it’s gone as Joni Mitchell says, but I think that I wanted to set it in Sacramento because Sacramento is my hometown and I love it so much. I wanted to make a love letter to the place of Sacramento. I did go to Catholic girls school and certainly the heart of the story, the emotions of the story are very close to me and they’re not literally the events of my life, but they are deeply personal.
I think with the character of Lady Bird that in a way I was the opposite of Lady Bird. I never made anybody call me by a different name. I never dyed my hair bright red. I never did some of the things that she does, the wilder things, the more rule-breaking things. I was kind of a rule follower, a people-pleaser and a gold star-getter, but I think by writing this character in this film for me it was really an exploration of some of the things that I didn’t have access to when I was that age. aI created a heroine, and then Saoirse Ronan brought her to life. And she’s not perfect, she’s filled with flaws and she’s complicated, but I love her and I admire her. And the core relationship with her and her mother, even though I was not Lady Bird, my mother is not like Marian [either]. But I know that love [and] also that conflict that comes from the fact that you are so similar to your mother.
When your parents saw the movie did they feel the same way? Did they see you in it or see themselves at all?
Well they, I mean, I showed my mother, my Dad, brother and sister and their spouses and my best friend from growing up. They all loved it and cried and of course, recognized certain things. But they also know better than anyone how much of it is fiction, which is 90% of it. But, of course they see what’s “real and not real.” But I think that they were responding to the same thing, which is this heart of it that feels resonant, and feels honest, even though it’s not true
This is your feature directorial debut, solo directorial debut. What do you love about directing? What about making this movie made you say, “Oh my God, I can’t wait to direct the next one?”
I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a writer-director and I didn’t go to film school. So, I felt like I used the ten years of being in front of the camera and behind the camera, and any job that anyone would let me do both acting but also co-writing and producing and co-directing and holding the boom and operating the camera. I used all that time to prepare to be a director, because I have so much respect for cinema and I wanted to be able to bring a certain level of craft to it. And then, while I was preparing to make the film and on set and then editing and everything that went in to making a movie. My favorite part about cinema is that it is both a singular vision of a writer-director and also [that] it is the most deeply collaborative art form. That you are asking these actors and this team and your cinematographer, your production designer, costume designer and everyone to be a storyteller of the section of the movie that they’re responsible for.
You’re asking them to bring their creativity and their life to it. And it is that moment of collaboration that is so exciting to me because it is both 100% mine and 100% theirs. That’s what I love about it and I don’t think I’ve ever known a feeling more intensely pleasurable than sitting on set next to the camera looking at actors, great actors, bringing my words to life. Because it is both complete control, because this is my vision and my words and what I want it to look like and sound like and it’s also completely out of my control because they own it and they own the characters and the moment. They are bringing their whole selves to it. And that sort of paradox of being in control and out of control is just something I feel like I’ll never get enough of.
My last question for you, I can probably think if like four other people on one hand who are sort of as un-entertainment industry, un-Hollywood and who are so good at what they do as Laurie Metcalf. How would you describe her and what did she bring to the film?
People used to infer all the time that that Laurie is an absolute genius. I’ve seen her on stage, and I’ve always been just blown away doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt watching her on stage. You can’t believe it. It’s like watching a great athlete. And she’s also incredibly humble, in that she doesn’t care at all for any of the bulllshit. It’s all about the art and the work. And, I know that’s a thing that often people say, “Oh, they only care about the work.” Well, Laurie only really cares about the work, and it’s extraordinary. I want her to get every prize that anybody has, because she’s so deserving of it and because that’s never what she’s gone for. Because she’s always gone for just artistic integrity. And when she’s on set, I always call her a heavyweight. She’s like a great boxer or something, and she has this deep well of empathy and this extreme power as an actor.
I think, there was never a day or a take that she didn’t completely inspire me and blow me away. And she’s the very best kind of actor in that every time she did a take, it gave me another idea. It felt like, instead of shutting down a creative impulse, every time she works, it just opens it up. She had such a fine-tuned instrument that she is able to make these tiny adjustments and incorporate something that’s very detailed and make it whole, make it fresh, and bring even another thing on top of that. That’s just a gift.
“Lady Bird” is playing in limited release now.