Greta Gerwig Discusses Little Women, Rejection and the Power of Big Sur on “Five Things” Podcast
On this week’s episode of “Five Things,” the director, writer and actress sits down with Lynn Hirschberg to talk about the filmmaking process.
On Five Things with Lynn Hirschberg—the brand new podcast from W—Hollywood’s brightest sit down with the magazine’s Editor-at-Large to talk about “Five Things” that have made them who they are: a person, a place, an object, one positive event, and one negative event that ultimately turned into something positive.
The result: candid, insightful, intimate conversations guided by Hirschberg’s singular skill as an interviewer. Topics range from the deeply personal to the nitty-gritty professional—Hirschberg covers the craft of filmmaking and the ins and outs of public life with equal parts curiosity, sensitivity and humor.
To listen to the full podcast, click on the link below:
On this episode of “Five Things,” writer, director and actress Greta Gerwig sits down with Hirschberg to talk all things Little Women, from the time she went to Big Sur to rework the script to the character she identifies with the most (as well as the complicated dynamics between the March sisters).
She also gets into her relationship with her partner, Noah Baumbach, with whom she has collaborated closely since they co-wrote Francis Ha together.
“He’s my first reader, he’s my first watcher. He’s brilliant, he’s a brilliant writer, he’s a brilliant director, he believed in me,” Gerwig says of Baumbauch.
Although her hometown of Sacramento has played an important part in her work, Gerwig tells Hirschberg about her love for Big Sur. “Big Sur is a place that, to me, is like Brigadoon,” she says. “The last time I went back was actually right after all of the hoopla and the excitement and the Academy Awards I went to for Lady Bird. The next day I packed up the car with all my Little Women research and I went to a cabin in the woods in Big Sur and got real with myself.”
Of the filmmaking process, Gerwig says one of the hardest parts is getting everyone’s imaginations to sync up: “Making movies is so strange because you have to imagine and believe in a thing that doesn’t exist yet, and you have to know what it is,” she says. “And then you have to get everyone who you’re working with to dream the same dream you are, so that you’re all in this imagined reality together.”
She also talks about how she handled the experience of being rejected, and how it ultimately helped her as a filmmaker. “I didn’t get into any BFA programs for acting, I wanted to go be an actor. And then when I was 22, I didn’t get into any MFA progress for playwriting. I’ve gotten completely rejected by the world of academic art making,” Gerwig says. “It made me seek a broader education and it made me try to suck whatever education I could get out of any opportunity I came across.”
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