The Big Picture - Greta Gerwig on ‘Lady Bird,’ One of the Year’s Best Movies | The Big Picture (Ep. 34)

Episode Date: November 13, 2017

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey sits down with actor, writer, and director Greta Gerwig to discuss her critically acclaimed film ‘Lady Bird.’ Gerwig shares her years-long writing process, how she casts actors, and a defense of Dave Matthews Band. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So when I had this draft ready, I thought, it's time. You're not going to learn any more by not doing it. There's no more lessons over there. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture. Have you seen Lady Bird yet? No? It's probably going to be on your Oscar ballot and definitely one of the year's best movies about one of our most enduring subjects, those final days of adolescence, before we graduate from high school and decide who we're really going to be. Lady Bird is the actress

Greta Gerwig's debut as sole writer-director, and it's a funny, heartbreaking, and authentic movie, the kind they say Hollywood doesn't make anymore. Today, Greta joins me to talk about how she got her story about a teenage girl living in Sacramento, California, financed and in theaters, and what responsibility she bears for the Dave Matthews Band revival. So without further ado, here's Greta Gerwig. Today is a great day, and that is because I am joined by the great Greta Gerwig, who has a new film called Lady Bird that she wrote and directed. Greta, thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me.

Greta, everybody in my office that I work with loves this movie, and it's all because I think those people are 35 and under. Oh, wow. And there's something specific about when you timed this movie, 2002, that I think is connecting with a lot of people. I think that's true. Although, interestingly, I think the very first time I showed the movie to an audience, really,

was at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. And that audience skews... A little older? Older than 60. Okay. And they related to it from the point of view of the parents. And they had a very deep relationship with it from the point of view of what it means to let go. Interesting.

At that time. So that was actually my first taking the movie out. I remember having a phone call and I was like, it's really connecting with mothers and fathers. So you're four-quadranting your personal story. I'm four-quadranting it. That's right. No, I mean, but it's just funny how those things kind of transform as the movie reaches a broader audience, how that works. But when you first show a film at a film festival, it's like that film festival becomes the entire world for you.

How many people had seen it before you took it to Telluride total? I would say a hundred. Okay. And are you eliciting opinions and like, tell me what you think I want to know, give me notes. Will you do that? Yeah. Well, when I had a cut that I thought was pretty well on its way, I started bringing in people I really know and trust in groups of like two to watch the movie and then talk about it. And I wouldn't take notes willy-nilly. It wasn't just every note I'd take it. What I would look for is, did I hear a note more than once?

Especially for sense. That's the biggest thing for me is, is it making sense? Is it tracking? Is there something you're confused about in terms of the what the movie actually was doing or how it was connecting that it was working pretty early and then is it like laugh in the right places cry in the right places yeah that that sort of thing okay and also it just forces you to when you have new people come in and watch it something that you've seen you know hundreds if not thousands of times it forces you to watch it through their eyes and I think that's actually something I'm pretty good at is is being with the new group of people and

seeing how they're seeing it I'm able to feel it with them and so even more than actual notes, that experience is informative. You'll feel like something's hitting wrong. And because the truth is, they won't be able to provide the note that says, here's what it should be. And this is what I wasn't missing. You can just feel it when they're kind of drifting. You'd go in there and tweak them though? You'd say, I've noticed that people are responding to this and you change something? It be like more like i just know that this moment isn't landing the way we need it to land and usually it's something that had been bothering you in your unconscious but you hadn't really wanted to acknowledge that it was a problem that happens a lot where you you kind of are like that's not totally working but you sort of let it slide because it's not the most pressing problem.

And then finally you're sitting there watching it with someone and then you realize with just utter certainty, no, it's not working. You've got to get back in and make it work. But it's a bit of wishful thinking probably during the editing process. Yeah, it reminds me of when you wake up in the morning and you're like, I feel a little sick. I'm not sure. And then by the end of the day you're like, oh, I little sick. I'm not sure. And then by the end of the day, you're like, I'm sick. God damn it. Yeah, exactly. It's exactly like that. There's also something to sometimes you'll hear a note that somebody says, and it's something that you'd been thinking, but didn't want to allow yourself to think. And those are always the best. Those are the notes, you know, you need to hear

because you're like, yes, I know. I know that they are right. And I didn't want to know it, but we have to go back in and open that up and make it, fix it. Was there anything particularly in the movie that stands out as like a note that you were hearing? In the film, the two girls, Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein, who play Lady Bird and Julie, early in the movie, they walk through the very fancy neighborhood in town, which is called in Sacramento, the

Fabulous Forties. And everyone in Sacramento knows what that is. And I had written it into the script and I didn't think anything about it. And then we heard from several different people that they thought that they were talking about the time period of the 1940s, which it was one of those things that I could not have anticipated being a confusing issue. But then we found a workaround, and it's fine. But it was something where you think, oh, yeah, I would never have guessed that that's what anyone would have thought.

They would always say by the end of the movie I had figured out that it was a neighborhood. But you don't want anybody to be in that position. That raises an interesting question, though, about working on something that even if it isn't fully autobiographical is personal. And so you're dealing with a lot of location and time period that is personal to you. I was going to ask you why you chose 2002 as the time for the story to be happening. Well, I do like detail and I like detail that's mysterious. I've always liked detail that's mysterious,

even in fiction or short stories, not just movies. Something that feels right and feels real, but that you don't exactly know what it is, but you sense that it's real and that it's right. And so I left a lot of stuff in, just specifics. There's a line about a neighborhood called Granite Bay, which no one outside of Sacramento knows what Granite Bay is, but it sounds like a place, doesn't it?

I think that when you allow yourself to have specific details, it gives it a truth that people can feel. It was just that that particular neighborhood, the Fabulous Forties, played such a big role in the movie that I couldn't have that moment of confusion. But I'm fine with some mystery of what they're actually talking about in general, and I like to include as much of that as I can. I mean, I've never really made anything that's about my life,

but I've always had details that felt right. But, for example, I wrote I wrote Francis Howe with Noah Baumbach and I've never been a modern dancer professionally in New York. And I've never gone through what she goes through. But the details are all right. It felt like that was something that you wanted when I was watching the movie and thinking about like applying personal interest into a movie to build a character. Like maybe that once upon a time in a different life, you could have pursued that or had considered pursuing that. Yeah. It's such a strange concoction between fiction and reality. Lady Bird and Noah and I took so long writing the scripts for Frances Hahn, Mistress America,

because we don't do any improvisation and I don't do any improvisation once I'm on my set. And it needs to work as a piece of writing. And I think that is the standard. So regardless of where things came from, it has to resonate on the page and then ultimately on the screen. And I think I spend so long on the script because that's the first test of is it working. I remember having people read the script and gauging their response. And they were having the response to the script that I wanted them to have the response to the movie. So I was like, OK, so the movie has a fighting chance of working because people told me they laughed a lot and they got really weepy at the end, which is what I want that movie to do.

So for me, the script needs to do it. It's also the way you get great actors. You give them a nice piece of writing and tell them, now bring your talents over to the this playing field no was here last week and i asked him about something similar and he said something similar and so you guys are both maybe open-mindedly militant about the script open-minded in the the interpretation is is is up for grabs and exactly how it works is up for grabs but the words aren't for me in a way, that comes from my theater background.

Theater was my first love, and I first understood dramatic writing by reading plays. And plays are not flexible. You don't make it your own when you're doing Shakespeare. You figure out how it's going to work by using that language. So I think I always instinctually had that as the idea of how it should be done. Not that you would never do any rewrites, but largely that the text is not flexible. Do you remember the first day you started writing Lady Bird? No, I don't remember the first day. But I do know there's a draft on my computer at the end of 2013. So I think I was writing the big messy version in 2013.

I think I was editing it and pounding it into shape in 2014. Because then by 2015, I was raising money and looking for my producers and my financiers. It's not like it was the only thing I was doing, but I do find that giving myself a certain amount of time is valuable because it lets everything settle. It lets all your anxieties settle. It allows you to have the story kind of come out at you rather than imposing your to have the story kind of come out at you rather than imposing

your will on the story. Out of curiosity, how many things did you start writing before you started filming Ladybird? Did you start like a bunch of other things to see if there were other things you would do or was this always going to be the first thing no matter what that you were in charge of writer director? I think once I had a draft that was good, then I knew I was going to direct it because I'd always wanted to be a writer-director,

and I just knew that if I didn't do it now, I wasn't going to do it. Why do you say that? Because I felt that I had been preparing for it for a long time. I had been working as a co know, co-writer and a producer and an actor. And I'd done a lot of different kinds of films. Some of them were very low budget. So everyone was doing everything. And that was part of my film school. And then I'd been hanging out with anyone who would let me get close to the process of making films. So every film set for me became an opportunity to talk to directors and

DPs and production designers and costume designers about what they were doing and how they were doing it. So when I had this draft ready, I thought, it's time. You're not going to learn any more by not doing it. There's no more lessons over there. I don't know what I'm going to write before I write it. So I didn't set out and say, this shall be my first film and I will tackle this and this is what it is. I just started writing some junk and saw where it took me.

I knew I wanted to make something about home and my home is Sacramento. So I knew I wanted to set it in Sacramento. Did you have to go home to get some details right? Did you have to retour your life? I go home a bit. So I'm sort of revisiting all the time. My brother lives there with his family and my sister, well, she lives in Berkeley with her family, but she's close by. And my parents still live in Sacramento and a lot of my best friends live in Sacramento. So I'm home a bit. And so you have to rediscover.

I didn't have to like 16 years old Proustian myself. I didn't have to eat the Madeline. I'm very much in contact with what that city is and with that world and the people and the community that I grew up around. And then I had a sense of I wanted to make something about mothers and daughters, a motherhood. And that was a thread that I kept wanting to explore. But the truth is, I write to figure out what I'm writing. I can't pitch it to you before I do it.

I have no idea what it will be. If I could pitch it to you, it means it will be terrible. That's a good segue to the concept of getting people to give you money to make a movie. Yes. So you were not going to even start doing that until you felt like you had a finished script.

Yes. And you were going to say, this is the movie I want to make. Yeah, because then I have a thing I can defend that I know because I've imagined it all the way through. By the time a script is done for me, I know what I want to be making.

And I know how it all want to be making. And I know how it all is supposed to work. And I do my level best to put that all on the page so that it will communicate that to other people. But I know it. And I don't know how I would ask for anyone to give me money to make anything before I knew what it was that I was going to make. And it's a big ask. And it's a big ask, not just financially, it's a big ask to ask artists to bring themselves to it. And I think my DP, Sam Levy, I asked him really early,

over a year before we started shooting. And we started working on it. And I just think with any creative person, whether it's an actor, production designer, anyone, the more detail you can give them, the more detail you can give them, the clearer parameters you can give them, the better. There's nothing more terrifying than someone saying, I don't know what it is, but let's, I don't know at all.

There's something great about like, here are the words, here's the structure, here's what we're doing, but bring me all of your goodies. Yeah. What is the experience like to actually try to raise that money? Can you explain to people what you have to do in a room and say, help me make this? Sure.

My first step was I brought on my manager, Evelyn O'Neill, to be a producer on the film. I thought she would do a really good job and I'm very close to her and I'm very comfortable with her and I also trust her. She's a person who's just good at all the things she tries and I thought well I would like you on with with me on

this journey so I brought her on and then I went to a lovely woman named Marina Ronson at UTA and she helped me put together financiers to meet because there are people who put in money for movies and some of these people have companies and some of them are individuals and some of them are people who find other people to put in money and they kind of cobble together financing from different sources so I was in the process with meeting meeting those people The script was sent out. We got some passes. We got some, it's not for us, but it's very nice. It's not for us this year. That whole process.

Did you get any weird requests? Like, you have to be in it, and also someone has to wear a Coke t-shirt? No, I never got that. I did get some, you know, star it up. I did get some suggestions of try to attach stars and then get it financed, which I didn't do. And then in the middle of that process, Scott Rudin heard that I had a script and he asked to read it. And he and his producing partner, Eli Bush, came on and said, yes, we want to make this.

And they said yes on the script. And they didn't ask me to change the script at all. Hallelujah. Which is pretty extraordinary. And they were totally supportive of what I wanted to do creatively. And, you know, it's sort of the dream of what a producer does. They say, great, how can I best help you figure out how to do this? I think that was the other benefit of all the time I'd spent on movies is that I didn't see challenges as deviations from the past. I knew that's what it is. That is what making movies is. It's just hard and stuff goes wrong and you just have to figure out how to get through it how did you choose the people who are in the movie the cast is like very special and has obviously gotten a lot

of acclaim so yeah how'd you choose you know Saoirse how'd you choose you know the parents Laurie and Tracy Saoirse was um I was trying to cast the part and I hadn't found it and I heard that Sir had read it and I'd never met her and that she really liked it and um so we set up a Skype call and we got very giddy with each other on the Skype call it was like very overwhelming to see each other's faces um is that not something you were doing with anybody else I don't know know. No, it was just we instantly, we had an instant feeling for each other. And then we were both at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015. And we met up and we read the whole script out loud. And she read all of Lady Bird's lines and I read everybody else's lines.

And she was just instantly great. And I also felt like I understood it in a way that I never understood it before. What did she reinterpret for you? There was something about Sersh and how she was approaching it that I suddenly, I felt her utter sincerity and the intensity of her emotions and how even when she's a jerk, she's playing to the back of the house every day. You know, she's really way out there. There was a certain sincerity in how she was doing it

that made me just understand her. And it made me in a way that I couldn't articulate, but it suddenly dropped in and I felt like I started getting ideas for how I wanted to shoot it. And it became very funny and very heartbreaking. So that's how I wanted to shoot it. And it became very funny and very heartbreaking. So that's how I found Saoirse. And then I pushed the movie for her because she was about to be on Broadway in The Crucible. And so I was like, well, but I know you're the person. So I moved the movie. I was going to shoot it earlier and it moved it six months. And then

I built the other cast around her. So Laurie Metcalf, as soon as her name came up, she's one of my favorite actresses of all time and I've seen her on stage more than anything else and I've seen her

do things on stage I just can't believe, I can't believe it. And then, you know, with the younger cast, Timothy Chalamet, I saw him in a play

in New York. I go to the theater a lot. Yeah, I'm getting that sense. Yeah. So, he's going to be a famous guy now, Timothee Chalamet. He's a total dreamboat. He's going to call me by her name.

They're going to revive Tiger Beat just for him. Was that your aspiration for the Kyle character was to find the dreamy, pretentious high school boy? You know what's so funny is he didn't think he was right for it because he didn't think he was handsome enough. Oh, well, that's his problem he said he was like don't you want someone like hunkier than me i was like hunky guys don't read howard zinn in high school yeah right well because he's not really like a he's not he's not a football kid right he's a thoughtful guy ish thoughtful ish i was gonna, he's a thoughtful jerk. Yeah, right. But no, he's not a jerk.

He's just 17. Lucas Hedges I'd seen in Manchester, and I just gave him the script and said, do you want to do this? And he was so delightful and said yes. And Beanie Feldstein auditioned for me. She just walked in and auditioned, and just, just perfection. And I just know right away when I know right away when I hear someone or see someone and you just get kind of clear about everything. You're like, that's a person, that's them. And it's sort of an act of faith

that they'll walk through the door, but they all did. And then that with Lois Smith and Stephen McKinley Henderson, those have been people on theater theater people that i'd known since i turned yeah it's a trend it's well i think theater gives you the opportunity to see an actor unadorned in a way because there's no cut so they are the cut and you get to see them maybe they know how to hit their lines? You just get to see them free. Because once a play starts, it's them. And there's no...

There's no changing the performance in the edit or something. So I feel like I get to really spend time with an actor when I've seen them on stage. And they do all know their lines. There's one more cast member I have to ask you about,

and that person's name is Dave Matthews. Dave Matthews, yes. Do you feel comfortable with your responsibility for reviving Dave Matthews in the hearts and minds of a lot of people? I feel very comfortable with that. You want to talk about your relationship to him and his music pre-Lady Bird? Yeah. I loved Dave Matthews in high school. I made my dad take me to a Dave Matthews concert. I may or may not have been to one myself.

Yes. It was when he was doing a collaboration with Ben and Jerry's because I remember that there was a stand that had one sweet world. And I remember thinking, oh, that's, I don't think of Ben and Jerry's with any other band. Anyway, but like, I don't know, it was like a moment of realizing sort of how companies

and collaborate with artists. Anyway, I saw it, and it was very nice of my dad to bring me and i i really liked dave matthews and uh that song in particular i always thought was incredibly romantic i think in a way as does happen in college i was informed that i should not like it yeah you have a great the great moment with the boy flipping through the CD book and saying your taste is bad. That's pretty... There's always that terrible moment in college,

because CDs were still a thing when I was in college, that a guy would reach for your case logic and you'd think, oh no, what's in there? What's in my case logic? Don't unzip it. I think I, because I was a people pleaser and a rule follower and the rule seemed to be, we don't do that. I, I sort of was like, yes, I will put those aside and I will like other things. And I, I mean, I discovered a lot of music that I love, but then I think,

you know, sometime in my twenties, I was like, hang on a second. I still really like Dave Madden. I still really like this guy. So much so, you made his song the centerpiece of your film. Well, I just felt like I, you know. It's very honest. You gotta love what you love. Yeah, I feel you. Yeah.

Makes sense. Were you trying for like pavement or something in college? What did somebody force upon you? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I really learned to really love Wowie Zowie. It takes a few tries. No, I definitely got into it. I mean, I discovered a lot of great things.

What's interesting, I think, is because of whatever was going on with the use of irony in the generation I'm part of, I guess like old millennials, people born after 1982, but not before 1988. There was kind of a use of a certain kind of irony that was pretty extreme, I felt, in that generation. So there was this love of music and movies from the 70s and 80s, which people from that time had rejected as terrible, like Yacht Rock or stuff. Do you know what I mean? And then it would be like, no, I'm really into this. But it was kind of sincere and also kind of not sincere.

And it was just odd to me that they couldn't extend it to their own childhoods. They could only do it for the childhood that they didn't have. Came before them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean? I do. So this is you taking it but claiming it.

Yeah. Like they could only love it if it didn't happen to them. Okay. But if it was the bad thing that came before them. Does that make sense? This is kind of a nuanced point I'm making. Only I can understand because we're generationally compatible. But otherwise, everybody else listening is going to be confused by what you're saying.

I felt like a certain kind of sort of hyper cultured person, too, is this difficulty in loving things. Certainly loving things that we decided we should be embarrassed about. But then even loving things that were just great. Like you had to have found the most obscure thing. But you couldn't just say, you know what's great? Moby Dick, y'all. It's a really good book. Because we were all supposed to have just known that and passed on

and then decided that the one we really liked was, I don't know, Billy Bud, which is also good. But Moby Dick. It's not the most famous one. But Moby Dick, Moby Dick. It's not the most famous one. But do you know what I mean? It's like that kind of like distancing from greatness and needing to find the, which I appreciate because it allows you to find all these sort of highways and byways. And I just want to lay out, I don't think Moby Dick and Crash Into Me are

the same, but I do think let's embrace things that we actually love and let's embrace things that are actually great. Yeah, watching it, my reflection was like, if I have children, I can show this to them and feel like this is an accurate representation of what it was like to consume culture and be a teenager in a certain time. And when you have children, they'll be watching it like on their shoe. Yeah, it'll be in a lovely shoe made of glass. Yeah. Okay, a couple more things. Okay. Very complicated time in Hollywood for you right now.

Yes. For all people. Yes, for all. You're an actress. You've been working in Hollywood for 10 plus years. Obviously, there's a lot of bad news going on right now. I'm wondering how you receive that news. And, you know, is it shock and surprise?

Is it this is the same old song and now it's coming to light? I mean, I think it's heartbreaking all of it my heart breaks for all the the people who've told their stories i think are just tremendously brave and i think it's starting some really important conversations that need to happen i think for me something that i i've i've loved about having a movie out this year and being able to talk to people is what an increased focus there's been, particularly on female filmmakers and Valerie Ferris and Angelina Jolie and Patty Jenkins and Sofia Coppola and Catherine Bigelow. And I'm probably missing a ton of other people. But I feel like there's I don't know if it's connected or but there feels like there's this other thing, which is this spotlight on these women who are creators. And I'm just glad I'm getting to be part of that discussion. And I'm getting to talk to these women at the different festivals I've been at.

And I'm just focused on that. Because to me, that's the thing that we need to keep keep putting our attention on you're going to direct another film definitely definitely is that is that in motion uh it's in motion insofar as i'm i'm writing and one of the lovely things about this film being taken so warmly is it will be easier for me not that it was extraordinarily hard this time but it just you know that thing of feeling like i probably can make the next one. Yeah. More doors open. You've got the old people at Lincoln center seeing your movie, the young people at Arclight Hollywood seeing your movie. I've got more doors have opened, but it is, um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, definitely I love doing it. I love doing it so much. It was

my favorite thing I've ever done. Last question. Oh, what is the last great thing that you saw? The last great film. I really loved Shape of Water. Oh, I haven't seen that yet. What did you like about it? Well, I adore Sally Hawkins. She's just such a great actress. And I've loved her since, I think the first thing I saw her in was Vera Drake, the Mike Lee film. And then she was so amazing and happy-go-lucky.

And she's just great every time it's a silent performance and but when you think about the film you can't believe it was silent because you felt like it was so you were sure you heard her talk if that makes sense it does I hope to have Guillermo in here to ask him about oh yeah yes yeah and it's just it's romantic and it's it's it's it's totally wild and creative and beautiful and i think it's it's great um but i what when i say that's the last great thing i watch i watched it like yesterday so that's just i've gotten to see a lot of great things recently that's good it's that time yesterday is is yeah it's recent so that's the last great thing i'm not that's not to say you know there are lots of great that's the last great thing i'm not that's not to say

you know there are lots of great things you're not sliding anything i'm not sliding another thing we're not sliding ladybird it's one of the best movies of the year greta thank you so much thank you thanks for having me this flew by thank you for listening to this week's show and thanks to greta gerwig later this week we'll be back with a bonus episode of the show with Ringer staffers Jason Concepcion and David Shoemaker, and we'll be talking about the future of superhero movies. See you later this week.