Category: Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig covers Time Magazine as one of their “women of the year”…in February?? Don’t get me wrong, the past twelve months have been great for Greta and given her success with Barbie, she can write her own ticket and that’s exactly what she’s doing. I just don’t get why this is happening in February! In any case, this is the first big interview Gerwig has given since she was snubbed for a Best Director Oscar nomination for Barbie. This is not a debate – she was snubbed. But she’s dealing with it well and she’s not making a big thing about it (even though she would be well within her rights to do just that). It looks like she’s already onto her next project, an adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia. Some highlights from Time:

On Barbie’s success: “I remember thinking, If this works, everyone is going to think later that it was inevitable. They’ll say, ‘Well, but it was Barbie.’ But this was not guaranteed.”

She was working on Narnia before Barbie: “Knowing that I’d laid the groundwork for Narnia and wanted to return to it—that’s probably something I set up for myself psychologically. Because I know the right thing, for me anyway, is to keep making movies. Whatever happens, good or bad, you’ve got to keep going….It’s never not astonishing to me that somebody gives you money to make a movie.”

Her movies aren’t just “for women”: “I always think about the intuitive way you love a song or a movie. You love something, and you just love it. You don’t think to yourself, ‘I have to love this because it’s by a woman, for a woman.’ That’s part of it. But it’s not why you love it. You love it because it’s great.”

The uneasy relationship between women and their ambition in a patriarchal society. “I don’t know if it’s gendered.But I know I want to be able to make a body of work that feels like it’s undeniable in terms of the work itself. I don’t want there to be an asterisk next to my name. Do I have more of that than male filmmakers? I don’t know! I know plenty of deeply insecure male filmmakers who are plagued in their own ways.”

On the Oscar snubs: “Of course I wanted it for Margot. But I’m just happy we all get to be there together.” There’s also, she points out, ample accolades for the film at the Oscars. “A friend’s mom said to me, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t get nominated,’” she says, laughing. “I said, ‘But I did. I got an Oscar nomination.’ She was like, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful for you!’ I was like, ‘I know!’”

Movies are for everyone: “You don’t need specialized knowledge to watch a movie. All you need is your human experience. Everybody knows what it is to love people, and everybody knows what it is to lose people.”

[From Time]

“You don’t need specialized knowledge to watch a movie.” This is why I hope she’ll never sign on to direct a superhero movie, because you have to watch everything in a particular order to know this or that backstory. As for what she says about the Oscar snubs… she’s a positive person, an optimist, and that’s reflected here. But make no mistake, she got the message. The Hollywood power brokers have told her in no uncertain terms that while they appreciate that her “doll movie” was so successful, they don’t consider it important or real “art.” Gerwig sees the glass as half full – regardless of the snubs, she still gets to make whatever she wants now.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid. Cover courtesy of Time.