Greta Gerwig
Greta Gerwig
Greta Celeste Gerwigis an American actress and filmmaker. Gerwig first came to prominence through her association with the mumblecore film movement. She has collaborated with directors Joe Swanberg and Noah Baumbach on several projects, including the film Nights and Weekends, which she and Swanberg co-wrote, co-directed and in which they co-starred. Notable work with Baumbach includes Greenberg in 2010, Frances Ha in 2012, and Mistress America in 2015. Gerwig made her mainstream debut in 2011, in No Strings Attached. She...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth4 August 1983
CitySacramento, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Movies are now more often watched on the small screen anyway. But at least for me, what got lost in that is the difference in the medium.
I think in theater the playwright is king. Those words are unchangeable. They are the reason that everything else flows from.
I don't do well when I don't work.
When I felt like I was looking down the barrel of nothing on the horizon it was hard for me.
I'm not someone who's an immigrant who's struggling in that way, but between New York and L.A., I had someone tell me very early on, "If you're going to be broke anywhere, it's better to be broke in L.A. At least the weather is nice." I was like, "You're right." I didn't take them up on that.
I love New York, but it's a rough city. It's not dangerous now the way it was in the 70's or the 80's, but it's still a rough city. It's hard to hack it there. Life is harder than it is on the West Coast. To be able to deal with that, you have to have a lot of aspirational feelings pinned on being there.
I love just seeing shots of New York inside of a fictional movie that are not controlled. I do not like shots with extras, I have to say. I don't mind extras in other scenes, but I love New York City streets just as they look. I don't even care if someone looks at the camera. It doesn't bother me.
Using the energy in a scene can really cut the fat off of something and streamline it. It can make it work for you and activate it for you in a way.
There's an economy in sports that I always think is a useful metaphor for acting. You have an objective. You're trying to win, and of course, you want to do well. You want to use good techniques so you enforce it, but also you don't do things you don't have to do. It's very economical, and I think that in acting the most economical way through a scene is always the best. It's active. There is the sense of the fight and you want to win.
Sometime female characters, especially in the genre of something that people consider rom-com, make mistakes in a cute way or they're a mess in a way that's palatable. I like that.
It's so hard for people to give up their cell phones or their ideas of being connected to everything all the time in order to get an immersive experience. That's the best way to make art. It's almost like you have to treat it like you're going into a submarine, and Noah Baumbach totally agrees with that. There's not a real other life that happens outside of the movie while it's being shot, which I like.
Noah Baumbach does more takes than any director I've ever worked with. He runs a very quiet set and he runs a very hard working set. He has such an intense level of dedication to what's happening that he cultivates a group of people around him who have an equal level of dedication. Nobody asks, "When is lunch?" That's just not part of our sets. It's complete immersion. He has a 'no cell phone' rule. Nobody checks their cell phone. Nobody reads on set. It's like, "If you're there, you're there. If you're not on board with that, don't work on this movie."
I like people who love books and movies and art and want to talk about it all the time, because that's basically what I want to talk about. Intellectuals that are funny.
Getting bad reviews or doing something thats not great is also really good for you as an actor. It also makes me feel as an actor that Ive earned my stripes a bit.