Greta Gerwig is the director of the feature film Barbie - the first woman in cinematic history to have the sole director’s credit for a billion dollar blockbuster. Her previous films include Lady Bird, inspired in part by her own childhood, and Little Women, a widely acclaimed adaptation of the much-loved novel.
Greta was born and brought up in Sacramento in California. Her parents encouraged her love of the arts and she started trying to direct her friends in productions while she was still in kindergarten. She studied English and Philosophy at Barnard College in New York where she started acting and writing.
After she graduated she appeared in a series of low budget, improvised, so-called mumblecore films, noted for their often low-key naturalistic style. Her solo directorial debut came in 2017 with Lady Bird, starring Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. The film won two Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Her follow up film, Little Women, received six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Greta has been named president of the jury for next year's Cannes Film Festival. She lives with her partner, the writer and director Noah Baumbach, and two sons in Manhattan.
DISC ONE: Opening: I Hope I Get It - Don Pippin, A Chorus Line Orchestra, A Chorus Line Ensemble DISC TWO: Pinball Wizard - The Who DISC THREE: Sleigh Ride - Johnny Mathis, Percy Faith & His Orchestra DISC FOUR: And The Grass Won’t Pay No Mind - Elvis Presley DISC FIVE: Moonage Daydream - David Bowie DISC SIX: Top Hat, White Tie and Tails - Johnny Green & His Orchestra, Fred Astaire DISC SEVEN: Camelot: Finale Ultimo - Camelot Orchestra conducted by Franz Allers, Original Broadway Cast of Camelot DISC EIGHT: Ain't Got No / I Got Life - Nina Simone
BOOK CHOICE: The Complete Poems: Emily Dickinson LUXURY ITEM: A writing set CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Sleigh Ride - Johnny Mathis, Percy Faith & His Orchestra
Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Previously sounds music radio broadcasts, hello, I'm lorna then, and this is the desert island discs podcast. Every week I ask my guest to choose the eight tracks book and luxury they want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island and for rights reasons.
The music is shorter than the original broadcast out. You enjoy listening.
I
my castaway this week is the director and writer gretta go awake this year Bobby made her the first woman in cinematic history to have the sole directives credit for a billion dollar blockbuster. The film takes the titular dull on a fantastic or philosophical journey. That's a love letter to hollywood golden age and both the seller
Asian and critique of all it Bobby herself represents gretta was born in Sacramento, California, where she grew up with big passions, everything from fencing to bunny. She initially dreamed of study in musical theater, but first found a claim. Acting in india, films, cylinder stated, there is sometimes called mumble coal, and then she went behind the camera. First, there was ladybird inspired in part by her own noughties childhood about a teenage girl dreaming of moving to new york to make us with a capital. A the film was nominated for five oscars little women followed meticulously, faithful to its eighteen, sixty setting, but contemporary in its focus. It was another huge success, earning six oscar nominations and one when she says I think young gretta wouldn't believe it. I think should be proud that I found the voices of writer and filmmaker
I always wanted to, but I wasn't always sit in that I could that I was worthy of it, so I hope she'd be proud. Gretta go! Wake! Welcome to desert island discs. Thank you so much for having me, mrs, were big honor with real to have,
so gretta- you were in the eye of the storm this year. What many regard the cultural phenomenon of the bob and I met a similar thing unless the cinema of a bobby and christian orleans oppenheimer? What did it feel like to be caught up in a moment
Honestly I mean it was such an extraordinary moment of when it was released in came into the world, and then there is this welcoming sense of everyone's going to the movies again, either
for me. So much of what we know about back and I wrote the script and what was the dream of making? It was really this hope of way, everyone being in cinemas,
and, and that was because we wrote it during you know. We started really writing it in march of two thousand and twenty, and that was just there was no movies
you know we weren't gathering and we isaac kind of that will have we ever do this again. Let's, let's make the most
banana grams thing they'll. Let us get away with that. You would want to be together, for I know that as well Bobby was somewhat forbidden fruit for you, kids, when my mom wasn't so into barbie. For you know, certain moms would be like I I don't know if this is
it an example of womanhood- or you know, the body type and everything was as she was less excited about that. But I got hand me: downs from girls in the neighborhood rose growing up, and so I got a lot of pre loved dolls. Although my mom, I will give her credit she gave me she did give me a dollar.
proper doll for christmas in in a bar. She she relented yet, and then I did try to timekeepers disk aggressor. What have you chosen? Okay,
why it my my list is extremely musical heavy because that's the truth of who I am so the first one is
a chorus line. The original cast recording- and I like these original cast recordings that you can feel the room, it's less pristine,
recording, but it's more you can feel the sweat almost, which is lovely, and this is the kind of
burning of all of the dancers auditioning cb in this musical, but I loved it for my whole life and it had this sort of lake yearning to be part of something got. I hope I get it like eight.
I felt like I was born with that your name. It was just endless for me
I gave
Why
We really need god. I need a job, I got the. I hope I get it from the music
if the chorus line by Marvin, Hamlisch and edward cleburne, performed by down pippin on broadway cast with the chorus line, orchestra, greta gerwig, you were born and brought up in sacramento in California. You dad Gordon worked for a credit union. Your mom Christine was an obstetrics and gynaecology nurse. You've described them as culturally ravenous and as artists without being artists. How did they share that creativity with you? Why I mean there was a record collection and in my house, which is
we're out annesley a lot of things come from. It was lots of different stuff, but it was also it was esteemed Martin stand up album and have like you. Just connect
into other things like music and comedy in theater, and it was we had recordings of plays which they used to put on records, and then they would take me to everything that there. What I mean there was a symphony in sacramento, which we went all the time. It was a lot of lake. Let's go to every absolutely everything there is to offer and sacramentos, and then my dad had a couple of work trips to new york and I went to new york and I have very format of memories. There was almost a version of this. Was that had
I type forty second street m. It must be nineteen, ninety nineteen, eighty nine, ninety. Ninety I was about five, the rush tickets you're always in the front row, because you know nobody was his dearest dredd up, and I was small enough that I remember
was standing when they did we're in the money and they dance on those giant coins. I couldn't believe it so I felt like they gave me all this axe.
As and then they also just kept allowing for it like they were like she's interested and, let's keep going. I don't think they ever thought. I was actually going to do it. It was. It was a hobby. It was a a kind of a richness that you could add to your life, but it wasn't going to do for a living. Yes, well because it seems we just didn't know anyone who did it for a living. So at what point did you performance?
in kicking your opponent. Ninety three youngest of three- and you know we are the type of kid who would be putting on shows for the family for your parents, your siblings, yeah yeah. No, I was always proud of that. I would say that there's there's a look on your face Glasgow. There can only describe as rueful
now as a parent, you are like. Oh man, I really made my parents sit through just a yeah. I was constantly and I was also doing it all the time on the
playground or at school, I was trying to organize other kids into reenacting plays I'd. Seen I remember, I must have been in kindergarten explaining to all the kids what the story of starlight express was and that I would be playing rusty and I was like no, no we're all trains and we're being played with and we're the steam engines. But there are these electric trains that are coming. They were like what are you talking about and I was like and we're all on roller skates, but I know we're not so we're going to have to pretend to be, and I think I had
a sort of force of will that made people just sort of go with it in some way? I couldn't leave anything more that I wanted to do.
Then organise fantasy play with that. That was like what I did this. We gotta make room for the music rentier. Second, choice combat this disc, a agony
this is a pinball wizard by the who- and I will say even of my rock and roll choices- they're pretty musical theodoric. I guess said the kind of just me as a child. Like a part of me that was too much and too crazy. It was like that kind of rock and roll of that time period was that there is no too much you can go,
this never fails to just make me exactly like when you hear some of those cordially yeah
the
ever
pinball wizard by the who is a graphic over give described himself ass, a child of of big emotions. Intense, I think, is another word that you used. Tell me more about that. Tell me more about you when you were young had intense loves and
passions, and I mean when I was young, I what I wanted to be a dancer had studied ballet. I would have spent seven days a week there for as long as I could have done it. I had to be sort of kept from things my mom was worried. I think that I was too. I would get to obsessive about with him
it only thing yeah and I think I realize now that that kind of fixation is not, and not everyone feels that, but I had that sort of level of fixation. Sadly, Bally didn't work out for you, but your mom persuaded you to take up fencing and he became one of the best in the
date, I did I did our. I really I went for it and because I was intense and because I had all this kind of dr, I think sports were a very good place for me to put that, because I think there is a real structure in sports that allows for that and it was sort of
my competitiveness was fine, so that was that was always into as well yeah. I got that from my grandfather. He was he'd, say well I'll play around a cribbage for you to find out who
at the trash and that'd be like alright I'll do it, and I think I just kind of got that competitive, and you know I'm still that way from him. What about your relationship with your mum christine? She was very new to all of these activities. What was the relationship like between the two of you? How would you describe it batman? I was very stubborn. She was very stubborn she's really
and you know extroverted and funny and an outward- and so am I, and I think there was like fourteen to eighteen- was an extremely stressful time. You know you don't come to the breakfast table wearing your pajamas, you come fully dressed because if you came in your pajamas she said
well. That's your way of letting me know that you're not ready for anything life has to bring to you today like it was a expectation, was shot out of a cannon. It was like every day it was.
and in my dad, whose more
but more internal and leg sheets. Signing up for the bridge club
she's very good at getting everyone activated
I think, if you would have made a good directive, she would have made a good. She would make a lot a lot of good things she's. One of the truly great characters of I think I would say the twentieth century that she's she's, just
so she was scheduling all of the whole family, but many many activities for you. Why do you think you needed so much stimulation advocate? I mean I had made hd I've been diagnosed
an adult, but I didn't know There- wasn't I dunno. Maybe testing wasn't as prevalent. I think I needed a lot of a high level of engagement to diagnosis. Give you a new perspective and yes, it was a o. All of these behaviors volunteer pattern of like I almost felt silly that I hadn't recognized that before, but I was like. Oh that makes sense. I think
It's why I love directing so much and being on film set. So much is because it's long hours and it's all encompassing and it's sort of, however much you can ask of yourself to do, there's always more. That gives me a sense of calm, it's time for some new music greta. What's next sleigh ride by johnny mathis Johnny mathis, I love his voice. My dad loved the math is too and my dad and I have a tendency to break into song and the song as these sections that are the just keep.
Knowing you can't believe that the song keeps going, and it's like, there's a section that sake. These wonderful things are the things we'll remember all through our lives, these wonderful things other things I remember all through our lives, just as though the end you're, like oh, my god, it's still happening it's like we want to happen, then we're still going- and I feel like It- has this almost like joy mania like there's something about it, whereas, like I love this song so much, it makes me just thrilled
there is. I have the feeling that thing when they passed around and it will merely write them interpreted by ready.
And these wonderful things. We remember things other things we remember just hear those fighting about singling ring
it's lovely, rather mostly ragged sleigh ride, johnny my face with percy faith and these orchestra grey.
Go eg, you went to an all girls, roman catholic high school, and when you were about twelve in seventh grade, you had a formative moment. A teacher pinned a short story that you'd written up on the board in front of the whole class. It was based on a real life experience, utah doing a maths test. What exactly happened? Oh god, so embarrassing. It's still embarrassing. It was the first time and change classes and there was all these people
or isn't, and it just jump I felt intimidated and anyway why we are taking a math rejecting a math test
I had to go to the bathroom.
but I didn't know, and then I just like one of those awful moments where I peed my pants insolvent grave, and that was that during a math test for placement and the thing that happened, which was actually so lovely, is a girl across from me saw what was happening. I was
ass I was then I started crying, I mean even telling it now. It is who so sad, em
I was like ashamed and she had a sweatshirt and she took it up and she said she sort of gestured wrap it around your saw. So no one sees- and she gave me her sweatshirt and then I sort of ran out of the room, and it was this moment of just like just kindness,
and then I just I got taken. I was just it was so embarrassed. I was off testing like he chose to write about that. So, okay, because you want your emotional just talking about it. Now your eyes are glossy your like air and no embarrassed. It is quite brave yet well.
so I did it. I wrote about it in eighth grade. It was, I think it was one of the first personal essay assignments and as she pinned it on the board- and I I thought I was just turning it into her, and it would just be for her.
and then it was all of a sudden on the board, and then everybody knew that I didn't happen to me. If I'm remembering correctly
wrote about it as if it was funny, but I still was ache.
Justin, didn't so embarrassed by it in a way, I think at the time I tried to turn it into something funny very quickly and to take the sting yeah, probably yeah, but you know right what you know. Yes exactly at the beginning of that credit will find out what happened next to the minutes, but tentacles music. Your choice today were taken aback.
as this is, and the grass won't pay no mine by Elvis presley. I didn't really love, Elvis Elvis wasn't my person, but a friend of mine said way
You gotta listen to it and I remember this song was like when it clicked for me what people were hearing in it
I don't know that anything beats like a friend.
there's someone you respect thing like try it again, you ve missed it, try it again
listen,
you can, god walking back to your hair, saw on my fate has ended and the grass will pay no mind elvis presley gretta going after high school. You reply to a number of colleges to study musical theater and you didn't get in. How did you handle of rejection? I started comedy, not that I was the best at comedy was just comedy.
cause, even if we weren't good at comedy, they always need a straight man to have the other people be funny around. Have you responded to the rejection by diversifying yeah, that's right. That was like an hour ago, I'm to do this, and I think at that point I knew that there were lots of different ways to be part of the world of show people. I that's what I liked. I liked actors, I liked writers, I, like dancers, singers directors, production, designers, lighting designers, stage, managers, people who made
things. People who created these in a fictions- and I was a well there's- gotta- be a spot for me in all of this, because it is a job, and I think that was a big part of moving to new york is how
I saw just people who were
normal everyday people who worked at it and that felt made it more like something I could possibly do
so you moved to new york and you studied english and philosophy. There started acting in mumblecore films like Hannah takes the stairs. They were low budget. Mainly improvised. Do you think of yourself as an actor as well as a director? Today? Yes and yes,
they think it's part of who I am it all. Goes together for me like
one of the ways that I felt that I learned how to write was by acting nino. You realize why himself, unlike tenant,
Williams is a great writer when you try to memorize it and acted it's almost like some door or this my experience of it. Some door opens inside you
And then you are in a room where all the choices are right, there's a ton of possibilities and everything is alive. You will see one said about acting as sometimes can get rid of who I am yes, that's definitely true. I wish I could more. Sometimes it feels like I have, and then I see it. I'm like cool clary were like. I love the duration with reduced yeah god why? Why is that? So terrible? Oh ellie, I guess it's sort of
Someone else showed up, you know cause, then you know when you're acting. You know you feel you're in this imagined world, and maybe you have another picture in your head of someone who's other than you and then it's your face. I mean it's always going to be your face and you think, oh god, there I go. Greta gerwig it's time, for your next choice tends to make your fifth disc. What is it and why are you taking it to the islands, but this is moon age daydream by David Bowie. I think at this it sounds wild, but I truly think of David Bowie hadn't existed
wouldn't have made anything. I just. I think he is so. I remember when I heard him for the first time, because for some reason, David Bowie wasn't actually in the record collections. So I don't. I didn't hear David bowie until he was in college. It was like eighteen and I couldn't believe that it existed
It's a good, tripped, some wire and me that aid
always been there, and then I was I got there is bowie and that lyric
keep your electric eye on me
it didn't know what a man but I felt like what is this and I wrote it on everything all my note books, all my everything text. Benny thing I would write, keep your electric eye on me. It had. I await our common goal
yeah
brain
nature. Daydream David boy, gretta go and your partner is the screenwriter on direct a nor bound back and the two of you often collaborate. He call rope barbie, as you mentioned earlier. One of your first collaborations was francis ha in twenty twelve. Now at that point, Noah was the more established film maker in your country.
wasn't always acknowledged, but with that like it must have been annoying yeah. Well now, now it's the opposite is now
again I am on this street. No just in terms of france's in particular people stop and say you know, I love francis, and it means a mention. They'll totally ignore him now and then
no, actually he directed it. He is actually I didn't direct that one. He directed it and they kind of look at him, like oh good for you but like, but it's funny because I feel like now now and he's like it's okay, you don't ever have to do right. You don't have to tell you the two of you are both pretty competitive. I think you competitive with each other yeah, but not in the way. You'd think it's more that, like he
I mean he's so disciplined and just ease always on
the only way to describe it, as is always on the writing channel. I can be on other peoples
animals, and then it takes me a while to serve snap into it. He can sit down and just start working and it's so amazing
It's totally annoying to me, but it's not it's not really about outcome. It's like his ability to just focus instantly and- and he just he just sits down at the the the dining room table and there's
it's all around him and he's just working is doing and the aid that is no problem doing it
we really inspire each other, but I wonder how it went in twenty twenty, because his fill marriage story and you found little women were both processes in the same category. One that was actually will have that's that bow was grey, because there is a celebration of
of the things we are making, and that was amazing. That was not. Did you get to vote? No, oh yeah.
Yeah we voted. We we voted for ourselves. We did check with each other yeah and it felt so unique greta your breakthrough. The director came in twenty seventeen with the film lady bird. While you were on set you wore some talismanic footwear. It had been given to you by two other women directors who gave you the shoes. This was early. I'd worked with rebecca miller and she said she had a pair of shoes that were the wrong size and did I want them, and there were these- like lovely british, like my men, shoes like like a bro
We get broke yeah and they were beautiful and I was like these were my lucky shoes and they're great. I still wear them all the time, especially on days when I was like. I need luck on set, and then I had worked with the director mike mills and his wife miranda July, also which weirdly the same thing. She said I have these shoes, they don't quite fit. Do you want them as actresses to create like if you wrote this? No one would believe it. It's too poetic
these women giving me that directors giving me their shoes, I'm I'm pretty superstitious and pretty
mystical, lad or no mo. I'm always I'm long and look out for signs say that I two pretty gay ones there yeah. I think that was sort of lake. If you're, not if you know, if you don't do it now, don't say that there weren't signs. It know they
if you were told. So if you don't do it, the you're you're denying what's being put in front of you greta it's time for your next piece of music,
This number six, please. What have you got for us? This is a top hat white tie and tails sung by fred astaire from the nineteen thirty five musical top hat. I have for a long time had a fantasy that I would have oh I mean this was what from childhood, but like that, I have a wedding where a bunch of men
who were tapped it, and this is so strange- would topped up ring and wearing like full tuxedo gas. As I was
down the aisle and they'd be singing, and I have great
as for you I know, I know in my fantasy there's not really a grew, whom it's just be in this like mail,
instead of generalizing generalized talk chorus. Exactly this and trying to Sarah is like a reminder of that. I got an amputation through the mail requesting the top hat white tie. Nothing could take the wind out of my calls on the bottom step on the top at one time floating on top hat tie and I'm rushing off from the show
monday to put my tie and tails from the film to parts composed by irving, berlin and performed by fred astaire with johnny green and his orchestra greta gerwig. Your film sets are known by cast and crew alike, to be very supportive environments. I think you've referred to it as a bubble of safety. How does that help? You creatively? I think people make something better when they feel safe. So I try to give them that safety and then I do
what all of the ideas to be mine. I certainly have ideas, but I do want to clone myself a hundred times two hundred times. I want them to bring me
things that I never would have thought of, because that's the fun of making movies is their totally collaborative. I want to see what I don't know yet and I want every person once there on the said to feel that they are the keeper of the story, whether there
he or an actor, dolly grip? Em? I think people need to feel safe
or does it make suggestions or because I'm I'm not gonna, do every
Everybody suggests, but that's ok, I mean listen. If you ve got an idea of how to do this, like, let's, let's try it it's time, few penultimate disk gretta. What's he gonna be so this? Is
the reprieve or the finale of em camelot in the original cast recording with richard Burton. I chose the reprieve because its
and also you know, it's like at the end, his kingdom's falling apart, everything's a mess and he's recounting what it was, and I thought
well for me my feeling on a desert island recounting what it had been. Don't let it be forgot there. You know once was a spot that kind of ache of what's already gone was part of it, and richard Burton has my favorite voice of all time, where once it never rained by the morning, don't let it be forgot that once
for one brief: the finale from camelot by frederick Lou,
and Alan J learner performed by richard Burton with the original broadway cast and the camelot orchestra, gretta go wig art sometimes comes from dark and difficult places, but the tone of your work
generally hopeful believe the cinema feeling that actually people are goods was that
choice. He made earlier on. It's not really a choice so much as them. I think
I must believe it, but you know I obviously those very many things in the world that there is still a lot of obvious
and everything else, but I think I I believe in people I'm not negative about at all.
The way can have melancholy about it, but I hope we may find the best way
the forward annoying, don't always obviously, obviously, but am I do, love people you want.
Did you like living in new york, because I like seeing people running into people, I wouldn't do well alone in the woods now. This worries me because of the desert, island casino. That's why this was so hard. How will you cope on the desert island eating all alone? The thing that is great is, I can really distract him.
Memorize all shakespeare, which I you can you can do it so that could just be. You know that could take gear that keep you busy. That would keep you busy for awhile. Ok, well,
plan more track before you go. Your final choice today was to convey okay. Well, this is ain't got no. I got life Nina Simone. I can. I think, I'm attracted to voices. Obviously- and I know I said Richard Burton was the greatest, but if Nina's scripts are all the crits, the neatest monism, that the pain in the joint, her voices both- and I also saw it given that I'm on a desert island,
this sort of celebration of what you are. You have not what's missing, my god,
nina Simone and ain't got. No. I got life was so great.
Well, I'm to send you away to the island, I'm giving you the bible, the complete works of shakespeare and you can take one of the book of your choice of this was a torturers thing, but the thing I decided on was the complete works of Emily Dickinson. She gets sad
in a mortality and loneliness and but then the joy of finding things that you would only find in in silence or emptiness, which I think you probably need that voice on a desert island. You can also look luxury item, gregson fancy. I just know I would go absolutely bananas. If I didn't have some
to write with any anything. Any pennoned paper is fine. I will write on anything but there's a brand called national brand that has green paper which paralyse good for your eyes.
if that's true and it has really narrow rule pages, and then I love smith's and paper that thin blue paper, and that is a true luxury item and then pens I liked her. I, like them, micron pens. Those are good, zero point. One is the thickness I like I like
I wasn't expecting this level of delight know I love it. You can't go to granular from I'm, loving it, okay yeah, so that and then, if I could pick a typewriter, it would be an I b m selectric too, but I dunno
implementing the end but but or like. If I can get a solar panel on one of those, it's like the typewriter ugly offices in the eighties
and when you plug it in and then you turn it on, it sounds like the death star like woo and it's a it's a sound. That makes me feel like okay, good
I would simply right- and I feel like I like switching between, like writing by hand
And then riding on a typewriter because you can type I can type faster than I can write by hand. Okay, this is going some time to pull together, but I can tell you that I'm gonna get you selection of writing a writing. Accoutrements. Okay, great gray. I can't wait. I'm so excited credit going, finally, which one track of the eight that you ve shared with us today. Would you rush to say from the waves first, if you have to,
thats. What do you give me? Why that's why we do it and then you say I know, I know what I know. Oh god I mean this is the truth. Is it's sleigh ride by Johnny? Mathis is what I'd save it's the truth, yeah yeah! Well, in the
case. I want to say, gretta, go it. Thank you very much for letting us here. Your does ilo discs thing. You a merry christmas, mary groundswell ilo. I hope you enjoy Michael
position with gretta may every day be christmas day on her island. You ve got to a many film directors, including goringe, chowder bass, lemon steep mcqueen, an Steven Spielberg, the studio money.
Today's programme with sue mail, the assistant produce, it was tim battle and the producer was pull him again me. The series editor is John gouty. Next time my guest will be the food writer and broadcaster Delia Psmith. I do hope you'll join us,
You know what it means to be roman. You need to look beyond the switching gladiators there, a fresh stories to be told from scattered clues, a new discoveries and Mary Beth.
and I'll be on covering these stories for being roman, a new series for bbc radio full does a young bride
avenging the murder of her parents and an emperor flirting outrageously, with his nervous teacher, listen to being roman wherever you get your put class.
Transcript generated on 2024-01-16.