Greta Gerwig: The 60 Minutes Interview

for years Hollywood has relied on towering action heroes to get people to the movies but this summer it was an 11 and 1/2 in doll complete with plastic accessories and a permanently tanned sidekick that dominated the box office Barbie brought in more than a billion dollars worldwide the highest grossing movie of the year the brains behind the out-of-the-box Blockbuster is an equally unique filmmaker Greta Gerwig Gerwig is best known for her work as an actor director and screenwriter on smaller Independent films bankrolled by Warner Brothers and blessed by Toy Maker Mattel Greta Gerwig told us Barbie was a dream job and one she feared just might end her career the story will continue in a moment on a pastel colored sound stage just outside of London no one seemed to be having more fun on the set of Barbie than director Greta Gerwig Gerwig has a way of making things look like Child's Play but making Barbie was not the film's 100 million production budget was dwarfed only by the size of its marketing budget a reported $50 million there is like a moment where you're like wow I'm way out there like if this doesn't work it will be very public people are going to Noti it be an extremely public one you know you might as well take those big swings I mean literally the worst thing that can happen is it's terrible nobody likes it and it bankrupts a studio that would be bad no no of course of course but like how bad you know as bad as not making it you know maybe not definitely not Barbie smashed box office records to become Warner brother's highest grossing film of all time it wasn't a sure bet Greta Gerwig like Barbie's permanently arched feet pulled off an almost impossible Balancing Act I'm only your favorite woman of all time Barbie giving voice to the iconic doll and her fiercest critics you've been making women feel bad about themselves since you were invented you're writing a movie for people that love Barbie you're writing a movie for people who maybe don't love Barbie it feels like a hornet's nest yeah there were lots of questions about like should we be saying this or walking into this stuff or but my feeling was people already know it's a hornet's nest we cannot make something that pretends to be other than that can you control your hair it was Barbie herself actress Margot Robbie who brought Gerwig into the fold Bobby day one Robbie bought the rights to make a Barbie movie and asked Gerwig to write it she agreed and signed up her partner in work and life filmmaker Noah bomback but neglected to tell him he learned about it from a headline I think I said apparently we're writing a movie called Barbie yeah uh I said oh whoops yeah yeah I couldn't even fathom it well I mean his issue with it was there was no character and there was no story I mind that so much is that you did you told me there's no character and there's no story wait isn't Barbie a character no she doesn't have like a personality or like a and then when I found out we were doing it sort of actively trying to get us out of it did you actually try to get out of it I I made some calls uh and then didn't work no uh because Greta was persistent and Greta saw something I did Greta what was it you saw you know Barbie's been around since 1959 and everyone knows who she is and everyone has has an opinion and she's run the gamut of being ahead of time behind time she's a hero she's a villain Barbie together they created their version of Barbie land a feminist Utopia where every woman is Barbie hi Barbie hi barie hi Barbie hi Barbie hi Ken and every Ken is just an accessory it's Barbie's dreamhouse it's not Ken's Dreamhouse right right as always but an existential crisis in Barbie land you guys ever think of not dying Barbie sends Barbie and Ken into the real world I feel what can only be described as admired but not augle and there's no undertone of violence mine very much has an undertone of violence thanks man Ken wanders off not worried about it not now Margaret let's shake on this discovers patriarchy and likes it there were people who came out after the movie and said oh this movie is anti-man the movie is meant to be big-hearted thing even though it's poking fun at everyone but I had this but this is but I've planned this in my head I'll just say it okay but I thought well this is not man hating anymore then Aristophanes Lisa Strada was man hating which is does not sound like a sick burn when you say it out loud like that that'll teach him Gerwig invoked a Greek playright to defend Barbie we noticed her mind seems to percolate with literary references bomac's take on the barbie backlash was simpler I felt men could take it I mean come on I mean this sounds so silly to say out loud but I Love Ken we love Ken we also take Ken's position quite seriously I think that he has no identity outside of her Gerwig and bombach live in New York and wrote the screenplay at home during the pandemic were you entertaining each other yes yeah I mean it kind of kept us same see you on the Malibu Beach or the insanity went into the movie they told us the Final Cut which at times looks like a covid fever dream is very close to the script they submitted to Mattel the toy maker they say was surprisingly hands off but had notes one of the notes was on page 112 does a Mattel executive have to be shot I got shot and I felt like that was exciting we knew we were on to something we felt like we might as well go For Broke they're already not making movies you thought it might not ever get made yeah oh no we thought it might never get made and then and she says she never dreamed she'd be the one who ended up directing it Greta Gerwig grew up in Sacramento and fell in love with Community Theater in grade school she took up dancing then acting did you know you would end up in New York I I wanted to be in in New York but I just didn't know that I it was possible I mean it felt extremely far away and expensive she attended Barnard College performed in school productions then fell in with a group of lowbudget filmmakers before setting her sights on a wider audience I remember I walked into a casting director's office it was sort of the Heyday of like um just a certain look on network television which I was never very good at doing I don't know why but I was wearing overalls and I remember they a bold Choice she looked up and she goes you must be very talented she landed roles in more than a dozen movies some she helped write then Greta Gerwig made the biggest leap of her career from Indie darling to breakout director with ladybird cut great that was great let's party Gerwig wrote The Coming of Age story about the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter you should just go to City College you know with your work ethic just go to City College and then to jail and then back to City College and then maybe you'd learn to pull yourself up and not expect everybody to do everything the scene where she jumps out of the car what was your direction I want you to without even think about it Ju Just hurl yourself out of this car like I want it to be almost like you've acted before you've thought through completely what the result of this is going to be yeah gerwig's Fearless approach earned the then 34-year-old two Oscar nominations two years later she got a third nomination for her 2019 adaptation of Little Women I'm so sick of people saying that that love is just all a woman is fit for I'm so sick of it then came Barbie with a budget more than 10 times that of ladybird oh here you go you go last month that theater in New York Gerwig showed us some of the old musicals that inspired her including 1957's funny face look at the way they're standing that's not humans like those are dancers that's what I wanted all the Barbies and Kens to look like Barbie has that Technicolor soundstage look because Gerwig convinced the studio to build one complete with a Painted Sky and backdrop to give the movie a 2d effect basically the foreground is that's on a treadmill so that's going like this to create movement and then the lines on the road are being pulled by a person behind it and it's about showing the work I wanted to see that it was authentically artificial really fake it's about kids it's about playing with toys the language of play has to be part of it I'm just we shot this whole thing in one day no yeah we shot it one day we had one day to get it and they were like if you really want this dream ballet you're going to give one day to see behind the fight as you sit here in the theater today it's still amazing to you yeah I mean honestly the whole movie when I watch it I I still can't believe anybody let me do this I'm just having some bruski beers in my Mojo Dojo Casa house gerg says they wrote the role of Kent specifically for Ryan Gosling did you know him no no I never met him I mean you wrote his name Ryan in the script yes it said Ken Ryan Gosling it was his full name every other yeah we just put his full name in did he instantly say like yes I'm Ken I basically was like listen we've seen the future you're in it and you're Ken hang around with Greta GG long enough and a pattern emerges now you're going to see how I get people to do things she has a way of coaxing people out of their comfort zones at a dance studio in Midtown Manhattan why don't you just come try it though just come try it 1 2 3 4 Gerwig directed me to join her as she got back into the swing of one of her first loves tap dancing parad parad parad stamp this is actually a prian moment a prian moment during something called a paradiddle the only thing to do was step aside one more time one more time why does the timing my timing off you want to do it again we'll just do it again you're a bit of a perfectionist I guess so yes but you're like another take another take another take yeah yeah of course yeah I'm not good enough on the set of Barbie Gerwig directed nearly 50 takes of this scene with America fera who plays a Mattel assistant and mother it is literally impossible to be woman soul-bearing monologues penned by Gerwig are a staple of her films The Writer's version of a guitar solo you're supposed to be a part of The Sisterhood but always stand out and always be grateful but never forget that the system is rigged so find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful Greta will go into some monologue mode it's kind of almost physical like she goes in and she's just like and kind of like like doing a thing and like you know it's like Joe Cocker or something it's like and then she hands it over and and it's great next Gerwig is taking on a big franchise she's directing and writing two Chronicles of Narnia movies she confessed putting her stamp on the Beloved CS Lewis Classics is giving her nightmares yeah whenever I'm stuck I go for walks most of the time get stuck do you get stuck that's all I do I only get stuck that's all I that's why I'm always going on walks whatever she's doing it's paying off Greta Gerwig is the first woman to solo direct a billion dooll movie an idea that once seemed as farfetched as Barbie in birken stocks you got this will there be a Ken movie we had way too much material for Ken we would write and right and right yeah don't give it away cuz we might do yeah but at 60 minutes overtime.com

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 291,052

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Greta Gerwig, Barbie, Noah Baumbach, movies, 60 minutes, cbs news

Id: S8St_qH55_s

Length: 13min 30sec (810 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 04 2023