THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.64 - GRETA GERWIG

Episode Date: February 16, 2018

Adam talks with American actor, writer and director Greta Gerwig about her directorial debut ‘Lady Bird’ and some of her film influences.CONTAINS MILD 'LADY BIRD' SPOILERS ( I don't think they would spoil the film for you, but if you're sensitive about that kind of thing...)Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and Matt Lamont for additional editing. Music & jingles by Adam Buxton Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing listeners? Adam Buxton here. Out for a walk once again in the fields of East Anglia, UK.

And once again, it's the night time on this occasion. Rosie the dog is up ahead, invisible to me because of her black fur, making her entirely camouflaged in the gloom. But it's a beautiful night. The stars are shining very brightly above me. But listen, let me tell you about episode number 64 of the podcast, which features a conversation with Californian actor, writer and director Greta Gerwig. Greta, currently aged 34, began acting in a series of low-budget, semi-improvised films in the mid-2000s, while still at New York's Barnard College, where she was studying theatre. Her involvement as actor, co-writer and co-director of some of those films,

part of the so-called mumblecore genre, brought Greta to the attention of New York-based director Noah Baumbach, who cast her in his 2010 misanthropic rom-com Greenberg, starring Ben Stiller. And that film marked the beginning of a relationship between Greta and Noah that was both professional and romantic and has continued to this day. After Greenberg, they did another couple of films together with Greta acting and co-writing. Frances Ha in 2012

and 2015's Mistress America. Not too quirky, dramatic, funny, lots to like. In 2016, Greta was one of the stars of director Mike Mills' Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated film 20th Century Women. And the following year, 2017, Greta made her debut as sole writer and director on the film Lady Bird. Hey, come on. I loved it. It stars Saoirse Ronan as an outspoken teen who must navigate a loving but turbulent relationship with her strong-willed mother over the course of an eventful and poignant senior year at high school. I found it to be a very funny film

that also manages to be extremely moving thanks to Oscar-nominated performances from Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as Lady Bird's mother. The whole cast is very good though. Greta has also been nominated for her screenplay for the film and she is only the fifth woman in the 89 years since the academy awards began to be nominated as best director the other nominees you may be interested to know were lena vertmuller for seven beauties in 1977 jane campion for the piano 1994 sophia coppola for lost in translation 2004 and catherine bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010. And the only woman so far to have won Best Director

at the Academy Awards has been Catherine Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. So who knows? Maybe Greta will be the second. She's hotly tipped, although so is Jordan Peele for Get Out. My conversation with Greta took place when she was in London at the end of last year, 2017, and we spent most of our time talking about films, including films to show children, films not to show children, films where people die, and films that make you cry.

I should say at this point that some elements of the Lady Bird plot are mentioned, especially at around 19 minutes into the interview. Personally, I don't think it'll spoil the film for you, but if you're worried that it might, perhaps you should leave this podcast until you've seen it. But our conversation began, to my great satisfaction, with Greta complimenting my pink Brompton Foldy bike on which I had arrived. You will hear that in just a second. More waffling from me at the end of the podcast, but right now, here we go! We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat

Yes, yes, yes La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la That is my pink bike, yes. You're my hero. Is it scary to bike in London? Yes. Yeah, it seems scary. It takes a lot of getting used to. And I still wouldn't do it at rush hour.

I now live outside London. Are there good bike lanes at all? Better and better. Yeah. It's the same in New York. They made a big concerted effort to put more bike lanes in. But there's like whole sections where you're just literally in traffic. Yeah.

And that's, I hate that. Weird intersections and stuff where it's very hard. You end up waiting for five minutes sometimes before you can cross over, unless you're one of the cyclists who doesn't care and just goes across. Do you get them in New York? Yeah. Well, there's a lot of sort of couriers on bikes. Right.

And they are like athletes. They're like weaving in and out of traffic, and they're daredevils. Athletes of death. Athletes. They're so, I i mean it's terrifying if you got hit by a bike that's actually yeah man definitely you can get killed yeah yeah the countries where there's a lot of biking or when i've been in cities where it's a big part of life i was in denmark not that long ago in copenhagen everybody gets around on bikes amsterdam have you been there recently not recently

but i mean it's always been it's always been a big cycle place and uh the deal there is that everyone agrees to have a shit bike so there's no fancy bikes you know yeah it's like bike socialism bike socialism and so you can just leave your bike wherever and no one's really going to nick it that's great yeah yeah i also think if there's a lot of bikers bikes are really treated as vehicles in those places so that they follow all the rules and that the pedestrians also very much respect the bikes and i think a little bit when you're in a city that doesn't quite have a bike culture but it's trying to get there sometimes you'll have bikes going down the wrong way on a street and then people get mad

and it's unclear is this a vehicle that allows you to break the rules or not I don't know, I think, I wish we could all just work out the bike situation Can't we all just get along? Can't we all just get along? Can I get you anything else?

Have we got water? No. Fizzy water or water? This is good Evian. Hey, look, I got you a thing. What is it? It's not exciting. Oh, no.

Don't get excited. It's just a token of thanks. What is this? It's Terry's Chocolate Orange Sections. Oh, wow. Have you ever had Terry's Chocolate Oranges? You know what? I don't think I've ever had Terry's chocolate oranges,

but I have had in the shape of an orange that are chocolate. They have at Christmas where you break it. Terry's. Is that Terry's? That's Terry's. That's great. No one else is allowed to do those oranges. This is like a classic holiday thing, right?

Holiday thing? Like a Christmas thing. Well, that's pretty much every day for me. All the days. It's a classic holiday thing, right? Holiday thing? Like a Christmas thing. Well. No? That's pretty much every day for me. All the days. I have a gift for you. Have you?

Which I was going to do at the end. Oh. And I'm not sure if this is true of you or not, but you can have a pin. Thank you so much. I love Lady Bird. Yes. Which I do. Yes. I'm going to wear it.

Yes, you can wear it. Obligingly. It makes me feel like I'm running for small town mayor because I carry around these buttons in my purse. Well, you're on the campaign trail. I am. And I also, I love a button. And I like that button. It's a nice button.

But it does seem like I'm a small town politician. That's all right. Yeah. Were you a badge wearer? We call them badges. I know. I like that. Badges. Were you a badge wearer when you were young? Young right. Yeah. Were you a badge wearer? We call them badges. I know. I like that. Badges.

Were you a badge wearer when you were young? Younger. Yeah. I had a pin collection, like smaller pins. The ones where you have to put the back on it. Back on it. Right. I had a jeans jacket that I had a bunch of pins on.

What was your favorite pin? I had a pin from the Olympicslympics in 1992 that was in barcelona i didn't go to the olympics i was in barcelona the year before the olympics i was really young like five six i'm a big fan of opening ceremonies of the olympics i love the olympics and but i definitely watched the english opening ceremony that was was just the greatest, wasn't it? It was amazing. And it just completely sideswiped everyone because as Brits, we just expected it to be shite. Really?

Yes, because we were all getting ready like, oh, this is going to be a shame. Yeah. And it's going to be badly. And it was incredible. And it was just brilliant it was sort of like this kind of amazing history and it was like fantasy in a way it became kind of like Lord of the Rings-ish the whole thing was amazing

it was and that was just 2012 and look where we are now everyone hates each other I know it just happened it felt like it felt like it felt like we were all proud to be British.

Like the whole concept of being proud to be British was something that was alien to not one but several generations. And then suddenly it was like, wow, I feel proud. This is great. And now it's all like, ugh. Well, we're all living in a time. Yeah, it's a weird time. Speaking of being a politician and being on the campaign trail, though, do you feel like a politician when you're going out and doing these interviews

and talking about the film? And obviously you're used to it. You've done it many times on other films you've worked on. Right. But is it a process of you constantly having to be on your guard and measured and don't want to say the wrong thing? I mean, first of all, this is my first film I've written and directed, so it feels like my baby in a way.

And for me, I think the craziest part is being in different countries. Like being here is crazy to me because it is a film that takes place in america and it's about you know high school in america and it's a very specific thing and then to be in england and talking about it and i was at the london film festival and that was the first time the film had been shown outside of north america and that was i got nervous all over again, because I was like, I don't know that this is going to make sense to anyone outside of this specific thing. And it was, yeah, it was like really emotional and really heartening. But it does have a, I suppose,

I mean, nowhere near the stakes of an actual politician, but it does have a quality of what it must feel like. Because people last night, the moderator, you did a Q&A after the film. And one of the questions the moderator asked, which I imagine pretty much everyone is asking at the moment to people involved with film, is what's life like post-Weinstein? Do you think the landscape is changing? Is it changing for the better? There are so many things that have changed and so many strange things that are going on that you must get asked about that stuff a great deal. I do. And I think it's all happening in real time as well. And it's also still unfolding. And it's not just, it feels like it started with Hollywood and now it's moving outwards. There's, you know, politicians and

publishing and radio. I mean, it's like it kind of is moving in all these different places because obviously this is not just a problem that we experience in our industry. It's a problem that women everywhere experience. And so it's kind of, I don't feel like we're at the bottom of it yet. I think it's just sort of starting to coalesce. But because I'm in this film industry, I think the thing that I keep wanting to talk about, and the thing that I want to shine a light on in relation to this, but also I would outside of this is the female filmmakers this year, and how many of them have contributed

great work. You know, Sofia Coppola was the first woman, not the first woman to win the Palme d'Or, but the first woman in a very long time at Cannes, best director at Cannes for her work on The Beguiled. And, you know, Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman is one of the highest grossing films of the year. And D. Reese's beautiful movie Mudbound. And Maggie Betts made Novitiate.

And Valerie Ferris made Battle of the Sexes and Angelina Jolie made First They Killed My Father and Catherine Bigelow made Detroit. And I just think the volume of good, worthy work is, I feel like there's this opportunity to really talk about that and put that front and center because I think, to me, what needs to change moving forward is giving a platform for a diversity of voices and positions of power because if there's no one who's in a position of power who is a woman, these situations are exponentially worse. So I think it's about getting the next generation to set the stage for them

so that they're coming into a world of wanting to be filmmakers that's different I live close to New York University NYU in New York and I see young filmmakers all the time and I can identify them because they're carrying cameras and boom mics and they're

directing scenes in Washington Square Park and it just is my favorite thing to come across because they're so sincere and they're so excited and they're making their films and they're yelling cut with a lot of enthusiasm. And there's a lot of young women in that group. And it makes me so excited. And I feel like they're 18 right now and I'm 34. And I feel like right now the responsibility is on us to make sure that by the time those 18 year olds are 34 and directing movies that it's just a different landscape for them and it's not so much about people talking about women in film right I know as if that's a charity I mean I think I don't think it will change without deliberate action but then eventually I

mean hopefully in the next decade or so, yeah, the idea of women in film won't be something that's a cause. It'll just be half of the people who make film are women. And Asersha, your lead actor, was saying yesterday on stage, it'll be nice if certain peculiar things shift, like the way women are still, it's not even questioned that they'll go on the red carpet, they'll dress up like a glamour model.

I know. They'll look over their right shoulder. Yeah. They'll do all these sort of weird things. Either we should all stop doing that or the men should start. I would like to see Gary Oldman in a gown. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I've been an actor for a long time.

And, you know, the phrase, you know, Ginger Rogers has to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels. That's literally what women have to do when they do all of this stuff. So in the process of what releasing a movie is and how that works, like, they're doing all the press that the men are doing.

They're doing everything. And they're in heels heels and they're all gussied up and they are, you know, then scrutinized for how they look or don't look. And it feels like this crazy gauntlet to have to walk. But not that there's anything wrong with dressing up and looking nice. I mean, it's super fun to dress up and look nice. It just feels like when there's an overtone that your self-worth is being evaluated on the basis of how you look, that seems like the wrong direction to go in. If it's a celebration and it's fun and you feel great, then great. But if it's something where you're anxious that a bunch of people will say, she looks like trash.

She's on the worst dressed list. She's gained weight. Yeah. You're like, oh, God. Yeah. Worst dressed. Worst dressed. Those things will seem very odd in the future, I think.

I do. I think they will seem odd. I think a lot of this will seem odd. I hope it starts seeming odd pretty quickly. There was a screening of Lady Bird at the Curzon Mayfair, a beautiful arthouse venue. Mayfair sounds so British to me. I don't know if I've ever been to the Curzon Mayfair. That shows you the kind of films that, I mean, I don't go to the cinema that often.

I've got three young children. You've got three young children? Yeah, it's hard when you've got kids. All my friends who have kids, they're i it just is difficult to get out it's low on the i mean it's not low on the priority list but it is very it becomes more tempting to cancel plans than it is to make them yeah you know what i mean i agree do you have children no but uh i have a stepson i mean not officially a stepson but my partner has a son who is, I guess, occasionally my ward. How old is he? He's seven.

Oh, okay. Yeah, he's great. He's really fun and funny. But, you know, I'm a step-parent. I'm not a parent. And I have, you know, less time than obviously full-time parents do. But it's a full-time situation. It is. You get used to it.

You do. And it used to it. You do. And it is worth it. Yeah. And I say all this as if I'm the guy that does most of the work. I'm really not. You're really not. Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's also fun for me.

I mean, I don't know how old your children are, but it's also fun for me to go to movies with him. Yeah, yeah. Because, well, in New York, there's a lot of movie theaters that do. They'll show prints of older movies and like kids movies. They do it often on Sunday mornings, like at 11 a.m. They'll show like old Charlie Chaplin movies or they'll do like Princess Bride and kids will come and watch. And then, you know, their parents are with them. And that's such a great idea. It's so fun.

I'm sure it must happen because there are lots of cinephiles in this country. But it's not something that's common in the way that it is in the States, I don't think. It's really fun, too, because, I mean, obviously, there's a lot of amazing films being made for children now, especially animated movies. But what's interesting is we went to a Chaplin movie that was being shown, Gold Rush. Oh, yeah. And the kids were screaming. They loved it. They were losing their minds.

They thought it was so funny. And it was all physical humor. It was all pratfalls and also the anticipation of physical humor. Like, oh, he thinks he tied the thing thing but we know he didn't and oh no this is gonna happen and they would just shriek and it was so satisfying because it was like as much as we continue to make stuff for children and it's you know so getting more and more ornate that like on a very basic level nobody had figured it out more than Charlie Chaplin, that, like, this is just a riot. I mean, I found it very difficult to try and curate

the movie tastes of my children. I've sort of given up now. My son, my eldest, who's 15, someone got him, like, a thousand movies to see before you die years ago. And actually, it really caught his imagination. So he's worked his way through quite a lot of them. He's quite a snob now good

is he the kind of kid who will come home and be like dad I don't know if you've heard of this thing and then like try to turn you on to something and you're like yes I've been alive for longer I know what it is because he's like that with music as well so he'll come back and he's like you know

have you heard of a band called Yola Tango? I know I know you know the newspaper, The Onion. There was a headline that said, yes, mom has heard of Gil Scott Heron. I was like one of the more amazing headlines. And then there was a whole article of like a kid coming home trying to educate their parents about Gil Scott Heron. Yes, we're getting to that stage. Definitely. I mean, he's not're getting to that stage, definitely.

I mean, he's not super obscure with his tastes, though. He's quite Catholic. But I tried to sit them down to see Paper Moon because it's a film that made such an impression on me when I was little that I watched with my mum one rainy afternoon. Oh, wow. And I was sure that my daughter, at least, would be open-minded enough to go for it.

Right, because she's so great. Yeah, and she did. She went along with it for a while, but she's a little younger than the others. So it was a big ask, I think. Yeah, when I was in pre-production for Lady Bird, there was a screening of it in Los Angeles and Tatum O'Neill watched it

and then did a Q&A afterwards, and I watched it again. And my DP and I had actually looked at Paper Moon, because there's that great one-take car fight scene between Ryan O'Neill and Tatum O'Neill about like, you know, we're just going to keep veering. And like, they're fighting, it's like looking at the map, like, why didn't you get more Bibles? And like, that whole thing. And i knew i had written this fight scene in the car and i wanted to see how it was shot but then it was it's a thing of like cars that didn't have tops like old-timey cars are so much easier to shoot because you're you can see the landscape and still see the people and cars with tops are just way harder to shoot in a way. Right, you just got a big boring bit at the top. I know, I know.

But anyway, I watched that. That movie is so close to perfect. I mean, it's astonishing. I think nothing makes you appreciate other movies more than working on one yourself. And, you know, you're always doing your level best, but it's so hard. And when you see something great and that is just through and through like you got it it's just you can't believe it it's it's it's a really difficult task

and also madeline khan's so great in it who does she play she plays the kind of floozy girl oh yes and she says let trixie with the big tits sit up front yeah um she's so good yeah because you see i forgot how sort of adult it was yeah and so it's quite strange for young children as well because they there's really a quite a antiseptic sort of moral tone to most children's entertainment these days you know so uh going back to the screening of ladybird last night, first time I saw it, really enjoyed it. Thank you. What was the there seemed to be quite an unusually vocal faction in the audience

like for a British screening normally you wouldn't get whoops and cheers especially not in a sort of less blockbuster film. Right. Wait, wait, wait you mean during the screening or during the screening? Oh, it wasn't during the Q&A I guess it wasn't during the screening. I wasn't there.

They were really I mean, it was like because I remember going to see Die Hard in New York when it came out. And that was the first time I'd been with an audience that that was so vocal. And everyone was like, you go, go, you know, screaming. And I have to say, one of my favorite things is being with a really loud audience. I love it. Well, it was fun. Friday night, you know. And it was like, wow, this is like a pantomime or something.

But then you don't expect it with other kinds of films. Right. And I certainly didn't expect it for Lady Bird. Lady Bird, I know. The Curse of Mayfair. Like the scene where they got most invested and most vocal was when she lady bird loses her virginity oh yeah and it turns out that the boy she's slept with she thought that he was a virgin and he's not and he's not and he sort of quite casually reveals to her like oh sorry i thought

that but i'm not yeah and they were just like oh no really oh yeah that's but I'm not. Yeah. And they were just like, oh, no! Really? Oh! Yeah. That's amazing. I'm so glad that there was a vocal contingent. Everyone enjoyed it. It was a great audience, but they were particularly... They were whooping it up.

Particularly engaged. I think of probably the British audiences are more reserved than American audiences, and I think French audiences are more reserved than American audiences. And I think French audiences are more reserved than British audiences. Oh, okay. I'm not sure. Except in Cannes, right? Well, yes, of course.

But at the same time, it's kind of... They're probably not all French, though, are they? No, and it's also codified. Like, meaning a standing ovation that lasts a long time. I think it feels more like this is how we show our appreciation for what you've made. But I mean, I guess they boo too, which I've never seen. Somebody told me once that it can at the big theater. I've never had a film play there.

But at the big theater, when people don't like a film, obviously they boo. But also the other thing they do is get up and leave and that the chairs when you get up flip back and make a noise and a filmmaker was telling me you can hear everyone in the theater starting to get up and it's just like and i was like that must be the most unpleasant experience if you're a filmmaker because you know you put everything into it and then you're like oh people hate it that's bad did you see there was a documentary um recently on hulu about the dana carvey show no did you see that it was great it was about how it was called too funny to fail and it was just about how it did fail oh i'd like to see that? It was great. It was about how it was called Too Funny to Fail, and it was just about how it did fail.

Oh, I'd like to see that. I love failure. Yeah, it's really great. But they were saying that as they were watching, they had minute-by-minute feedback of the ratings, of, like, who's watching the show. And they just said it was like a map of America, and they just watched America just go dark.

Everybody changed the channel. What year was that then? I think it was like 95. God. Yeah. And everybody was like, nope, we hate this. It was like bombing at a comedy club. And was that his first big sort of solo show after SNL?

Yeah. And it was just a disaster. of solo show after SNL? Yeah. And it was just a disaster. But it's great. It's fun. I like listening to people talk about their massive misfires in a way. Because I think it's really... I think you learn a lot more from failure than you do from success. Oh, easily.

I'm not going to learn anything from this. No, that's not true. But it is, I feel like those things really shape you. I mean, if you keep plugging away at it and if you kind of keep going. And also I think it's just, you know, it's such a scary experience to put yourself out there. Even if you don't make your living doing it, even if you're doing like community theater, you're just trying stand up and it's, you know, whatever it is. I think it's so vulnerable.

That's why I think I like artists so much or people who are artistic it's they're in this state of just ultimate vulnerability and that is so compelling to me and that that's why i think i like listening to people talk about when it didn't work out because it allows you to know that you can survive you can survive it and it's okay and you can make something that people think is bad and still you know be able to keep going yeah and people forget and people forget they forget and they will definitely forget when you do when you next do something worthwhile yeah um chantal ackerman the filmmaker that i heard you talk about first i didn't know about her before yeah she's great she directed a film called

jean dealman 23 commerce k 1080 brussels is brussels that sounds better than how i would say it's the whole name of the film yeah 1975 and so it's it's a film that is told more or less entirely in locked off shots like yeah like Yeah. Static. Like paintings. Yes, that's right. Long, long shots. Long shots. And they describe the daily routine, the minutiae of a woman's life and her cleaning, her washing herself. Her cooking.

Cooking. Eating dinner. Yeah. And it's a very solitary routine. Mm-hmm. And it's an art film, right? It's an art film, yeah. I mean, it's three very solitary routine and it's an art film right it's an art film yeah i mean it's three and a half hours i thought it was gonna be a slog then i found when i was watching it i was mesmerized i was i didn't fall asleep i almost felt like i didn't blink i was riveted

by it and i would encourage everyone to see it i think I would encourage... See it with the family. See it with the family. Take the kids. No, don't take your kids. It's not appropriate. But I do think it's better to see it in a movie theater because you're forced to be immersed. And I think sometimes watching things at home can...

It's a different negotiation with film at home. It just is. What you're watching can't compete with all the other fun things in your home exactly and also there was um there's an editor a very famous editor walter merch and he has this book called in the blink of an eye when he writes about editing and it's a great editing book and anyone your listeners is interested in film or editing it's worth reading it's not the bible you know it's his way of doing it and it's not like i believe everything he says in it is something you need to follow but he's incredibly smart and incredibly thoughtful about

how movies are made but in the most recent edition of the book he has this addendum. He says, when you are at home, with your television, you are the king, and your television is the jester. And if he does not amuse you, you can cut off his head, and you can, you know, stop it. And the thing about being in a movie theater is it is vulnerable. It is that you're putting yourself in someone else's hands. It's a new circumstance. And he said something like, every movie watching experience in a movie theater comes from someone saying to someone else, let's go out tonight. And that just wanting to put yourself in another circumstance, that impulse, and then being there, you're just in another psychological state and so you receive it differently and i i have found that to be true i also find i remember movies and movie theaters better than i remember them at home yeah that's true i mean i certainly watch movies at

home all the time but it's not that same experience it's just not weirdly some of the movies i remember most i've seen on planes oh yeah because you're probably so scared that you're gonna right yeah i mean it's like a heightened it's a mixture of fear chocolate and red wine yes conspires to make an indelible impression on you emotionally that's why you cry you cry more you cry oh mate i saw um the kids are all right oh yeah and i cried i saw that in the theaters and i cried my i cried in the theaters too i love it when i think annette benning says to mark ruffalo you are an interloper yes you are not family and you're like oh god yeah it's great i like a film where you are suddenly moved to tears oh me, me too. Me too.

Remains of the Day. I made a list of some of them because, you know, there are some real gut punches in Lady Bird. Yes. Mother and daughter stuff. Yeah. And Enough Said. Do you know that film? Oh, yeah.

Nicole Hall Center. Oh, God, that's good. Made it with James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Wow. There's some real douche to the solar plexus stuff in there. I mean, the most, I mean, terms of endearment. Yeah. Shirley MacLaine.

That's a weird one, though. Deborah Winger. About strange, jarring, tonal things. Though watching that now. Yeah. A mother dying. In her dying moments, she sort of says goodbye and dismisses the children from the room oh my god though that i think she i've got a quibble with you on that i mean i'm just

saying i'm not saying that it's but she you know who knows how you're going to respond to her older son the most i mean this i probably will cry when i describe it, but she knows she's dying, and he's mad at her. Probably, you know, he can't handle what's happening. And she says, Tommy. She's got that great raspy voice. She's like, I know you love me. I know it. And you can't say it right now, but I know you do.

And then she says, and you're going to feel guilty later, but don't, because I know that you love me. And you're going to feel guilty later. But don't. Because I know that you love me. And you're like, no. And she's like, when I'm gone, you're going to look back and you're going to say, I wish I told her. But you don't have to because I already know. And it's like, I really am going to start crying. It is very sad. Because you're like, oh, what a beautiful, like, I mean, I don't know. And I just love Shirley MacLaine.

And it's based on a novel by Larry McM I mean, I don't know. And I just love Shirley MacLaine. And it's based on a novel by Larry McMurtry, who's a great writer. And it doesn't show you perfect people or people who, I mean, Shirley MacLaine's mother, the mother that she plays, it's a deeply flawed character. She's kind of a lunatic in a way. Yeah. of a lunatic in a way yeah but the love that she feels for her daughter and the people in her life is real and you forgive her and you even forgive like jeff daniels who's kind of a kind of cheats on his wife but he's not a bad guy he's just a limited guy there's less depth to that character than there is to some of the other ones in that film.

You know what I mean? Right. He's more of a caricature of a bit of a... He's more of a caricature. But you're right. It is... It's a weepy. Incredibly painful, that moment, that goodbye scene.

And I only brought it up because to me it seems like I wouldn't have the strength of personality, or on any level probably, to say that. No. To be so... I don't think the strength of personality or on any level probably to say that. No. To be so – I don't think that many people would. Oh, God. I don't know. No. I mean, I think the truth is – I can't imagine.

Yeah. You don't have – there's not life and death stakes in Lady Bird. No. in Lady Bird. No. But there is definitely that same incredibly painful dynamic between the mother and the daughter

and her inability, Laurie Metcalfe plays the character brilliantly, her inability to just let go of what she feels is her duty to be tough with her daughter. Yeah. Between family

or between a mother and daughter. I mean, I think that there can be a tremendous amount of feeling, even when nothing explicitly dramatic is happening, that it can still be just, yeah, filled with emotion. And I think I wanted to stay true to some of that pain and some of that conflict because the love wouldn't seem real if that stuff wasn't real. And the love would have no meaning if it was all perfect. The love has value because it's not based on everybody behaving perfectly.

It's something else. And I think I definitely wanted, I mean, the film's funny. I'll just say that. It's funny. It's's funny. I'll just say that. It's funny. It's really funny. But I wanted it to have a kind of central ache of this moment of childhood ending and having to let go and having to move on and how it does come to a close. And you sort of look behind you when it's over and you're like, well, whatever childhood was, that was it. It's over now. And you feel it and your parent feels it and it's difficult and it's hard to know if you're ready for whatever the next step is.

But it doesn't really matter if you're ready because it's already there. It's already happening. And I think that kind of emotion of time slipping away faster than you can hold on to it is something that it always makes me feel achy. Achy on the verge of panic is how I feel about it. Yeah, the linear nature of time is something I am always stressed about. It's crazy that it's linear. And you talked last night. Sorry, that sounds like a druggie comment.

No, it doesn't. I know exactly what you mean. But I just wanted that sense of like it's all moving forward so fast. Yeah, yeah. You brilliantly set up the whole relationship between Lady Bird and her mother in the very first scene when they're in the car. Yes. Is that the, that's the fight you were referring to when you talk about Paper Moon? That's right. So it starts off with them listening to an audio book of The Grapes of Wrath.

That's very funny yeah and immediately you are convinced of their affection for each other that's a very intimate thing to do yeah not only to listen to the same story quite a sort of esoteric choice as well yeah but to be similarly moved by both of them so they're both occupying the same emotional space. Totally. And then immediately, like within a few sentences, they get into it. They get into the worst fight. I share the script with like a few people who I trust to read and kind of give feedback.

And I remember I was thinking about changing the beginning. I had written it the way it was but then i had you know kind of a an 11th hour like maybe it should be different and then i remember i talked to um the filmmaker mike mills who i was in his 20th century women that's right 20th century women and he also made beginners and thumbsucker and air wrote a song about him yes yes he's um he's great. But he's become a very good friend and someone I trust a lot. He said to me when I was thinking about changing it, he was like, no, you can't change it. Because he said, you get so much real estate out of having them listening to that audio book and cry. Yeah, defo.

Then you can have them just rip each other apart because you've given them that moment and he's like because at the beginning of a movie no one knows what the rules are yet so you're establishing straight off something that's connected and then you take it apart and i was like oh you're right yes i was right i was always right i'm not changing i'm not changing it i love it that they're listening to Grapes of Wrath. It's funny, it's esoteric. But if you grew up in California, it is one of those books that you end up reading because it's so much about this migration that happened to California during the Depression, these Dust Bowl farmers, and everybody had to leave the Midwest

because it was a disaster, an economic disaster, and California seemed like this land of promise. And I love the book. I find the book very emotional. I love the idea of them listening to it and crying and then immediately getting into this fight where after they've listened to this emotional book about probably how their family got to California. Then Lady Bruce says, I hate it here. I want to leave with just no acknowledgement of the hardship that was gone through to get her into her privileged position, which I think that's so much of the inevitability of being a teenager. You will be narcissistic.

You will be completely self-focused and you are maddened by the indignation of your parents and their inability to understand like both sides can see how the others are feeling but they just think well screw you you know like at one point her mother is talking about how much they've spent on her and all this and we've done this for you and that for you it's a speech that i've given and every parent everybody and at some point you do one i think i mean my brother and his kids my sister has kids and they were like you do eventually want to be like yo this is really hard and um but then you're like as a parent yeah as a parent and then and then you're like don't

don't tell them that don't say it like that yeah yeah but you did i understand she just flips it right back yeah i mean in a way it's irresponsible because now you have given children everywhere yeah i know the answer for what to do she gets out a pad and a pen and she says give me a number yeah and mom's like what yeah she said give me a number how much have you spent on me because one day i'm gonna get rich and i'm gonna write you a check and then i won't ever have to see you again yeah i know oh my god it's just like being stabbed in the yeah i know it's a bad one what i loved about working with saoirse ronan and laurie metcalf who play the mother and daughter, is, like,

Saoirse's character of Lady Bird, she learned to fight from somewhere. Do you know what I mean? It's like they can take each other. And then the mother's response of, like, I very much doubt you'll get a job good enough to do that. It's just like you mess with the best, you die like the rest. It's, like, totally, like, you know, she's got her. Because there's some, I mean, I don't know, acting's so weird and casting's so weird, but there's certain actors that you feel have, they communicate something different to the audience.

And I think both Saoirse and Laurie, they have this, they've got backs of steel, those women. And there is something instinctively that we feel, even when they go at each other, we feel like they're not going to break each other. Because they can't. They're not breakable. I can't you see where I am coming from Speaking of acting. Yes. What sort of actor are you?

Oh, God. And I mean, you've come up through a scene that was called Mumblecore. Sure. Which presumably was a description of was called Mumblecore. Sure. Which presumably was a description of a fairly naturalistic style of performing. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the features of those movies tended to be improvised. It tended to be also handheld camera work. Did almost the cameras capturing things as they're happening. It almost has this like a cinema verite feel or

documentary feel right even though it's not documentary i mean that's not entire that doesn't describe all of those movies but it is a loose approximation of what that style was do you still do things that way or have you moved on to a more sort of conventional way of making films and performing in films do you think well not as a writer director i don't do any improvisation and i have no handheld camera work everything is very placed and and static in a way like i mean i'm very precise about language and precise about people saying exactly this the script that as it was written and you know extensively storyboard and i have a real kind of rigorous approach to like, even what lenses we're using, like, what,

what are the sizes we're using? What, what are we giving ourselves as limitations for how we visually tell this story? Like, this is, these are things that are important to me. And I moved away from it pretty quickly. But what was great about those movies was it gave me this ability to experiment and it gave me the ability to almost write on the fly because i was acting in them but they were all improvised so it was like i was writing as i was talking and sort of inventing the scenes as we were going and then because it was sort of an all hands on deck situation like if you weren't in the scene you were holding the camera or the boom or at night the footage from the day was being edited so you would watch it being put together and then there would be this kind of looking at the the movie and saying we need one

more shot here and we need this connective piece of tissue and we'd be looking at what we had and and then deciding what to shoot next based on what we had. And that feels like film school to me in a way, just sort of the nuts and bolts of what do you need to tell this narrative, whatever the narrative is. But then I never really felt totally comfortable with improvisation as being the primary form of how we made something. I was too in love with written language and then giving that language to actors. What's your favorite of those early films, by the way, that I was part of that you were part of? Oh, probably Baghead, just because we made it in this strange pine forest in Texas,

and it was entirely night shooting. So we were up all night in the woods and sleeping during the day, and I loved doing it, and that one was probably the most fun. Haven't seen it. I will seek it out. It's strange. It's sort of like a horror genre. Okay. But it's like an improvised horror movie.

Yes. And also that movie, I remember it got into Sundance, and I went to Sundance, and I'd never been before, and it was really exciting. Okay. Yeah. And then do you think that that approach to acting and filmmaking had the effect of making you a bit less self-conscious as a performer? Definitely. Well, I mean, I've never been – I suppose I've never bit less self-conscious as a performer definitely well i mean i've never been i suppose i've never been that self-conscious no i mean that's something that's very striking about your stuff is how naturalistic it seems in in a because sometimes

naturalism can be its own pose sure um yeah but it never seems like that and there's so many moments in francis har especially particularly the dinner party scene. Yeah, it's great. There where you are swerving all over the place emotionally. Yeah. You know, sometimes trying to appease and ingratiate yourself. Other moments just sitting there going, fuck this, you know. Yeah.

And it's really wonderful to watch your face through those scenes. Thank you very much. I think I don't, I've never had a lot of, well, because I think because I started this way, making these tiny movies, these improvised movies, these movies where I was watching the edit being put together at night is, I know a lot of actors have this feeling of like, oh God, I never want to watch myself on screen, which I completely understand, but I didn't, since I came up this other way, I didn't, that wasn't an option. So I kind of got over it really fast. And I think I mean, I love perform.

I love performing. I love acting. And I and it's such a big part of who I am as a writer and director. So I don't I don't think I'd ever stop doing it. But I like the making. Even as an actor, I like the making. And I co-wrote Frances Ha and the Mistress America. I just found that every time I became more involved with the making, I felt like it just became more and more satisfying. Yeah, well, you have an intimate understanding of what's required of you as the performer. Yes, exactly.

What needs to be done. Although I don't think I'll ever direct myself. Oh, yeah, you have an intimate understanding of what's required of you as the performer. Yes, exactly. What needs to be done. Although I don't think I'll ever direct myself. Oh, yeah, okay. You know, as a person who writes, and I've written my whole life, I only ever wrote things for other people to say. I never wrote novels or short stories or poetry. I only wanted to write things that people would speak out loud to each other. Music.

That's a big part of your films, the films you've been involved with. I really loved the music in 20th Century Women. Oh, yeah. Presumably that's Mike Mills' playlist. playlist yeah those are all mike mills playlist but were those songs that meant a lot to you as well well some of them i knew i mean of course like talking heads and david bowie or you know yeah i mean that's of course of course my sort of emotional bedrock

but i didn't know some of it like i didn't know um the punk punk band the raincoats oh yeah yeah there were a few other like i hadn't listened to a lot punk band the raincoats oh yeah yeah there were a few other like i hadn't listened to a lot of like wire or black flag or that kind of stuff he did such a good job of um creating a sense of family on his film set that i really was inspired by every character was you know had this very specific reading list and playlist and I took a lot of what he did on that movie and did it with my movie because as an actor I found it to be just so helpful. The music though is not sort of gratuitously like look at my cool record collection. No in mine.

It's all really important to the character. There's a great scene in 20th Century Women where the mother comes through and they're playing the raincoats i think and she sort of deconstructs it and says okay i understand what's going on here they know this music is bad but they're expressing themselves that it's it's a really great little talk about what music does and the gap that there is between a parent's understanding of their children's music yeah and she says she says like but they know they're bad right yeah you know it's really great and annette's so um annette has this ability to be uh so imperious when she wants to be annette benning who's the mother it's very good but they know they're bad right

um yeah and uh your character in 20th century women of course has the bowie hair bowie hair my favorite bowie period yes from the sort of low uh 1975 that's right fell to earth period that's right no beautiful orange hair and there's something of that in searcher's character and yes in too. Yeah. To my mind anyway. I didn't Bowie was. Was he a big deal for you? He was a big deal for me but I did not know about Bowie when I was a teenager really. I mean I sort of knew about David Bowie but I didn't really know about David Bowie. I discovered Bowie well I was still a teenager, but I was in college. And I remember the first time I listened to Ziggy Stardust, I couldn't believe it. I had a full on, I fell in love with David Bowie.

And I was, you know, 19. I was a little older and I felt a little embarrassed. Like I shouldn't tell people that I hadn't known what it was. But then I listened to everything he ever recorded I was so in love with it I was in love with him and I sort of felt this sense of like is there more is there more I can listen to it's like I couldn't get enough of it and I he's a perfect artist in that respect. Because the answer was yes, there's loads. There's loads more. And now with YouTube. Yeah.

And a sort of communal exercise in uploading every single thing that he ever did, good and bad. It's so great. And his last album, I just cried and cried. And it was after he was gone. And I'm going to start... I never met him. I have never... Never bumped into him in New York.

Nope. Never met him. But never bumped into him in new york nope never met him but i he meant so much to me and i never tire of his music what's the record the album that you think you come back to most of his oh god uh i don't know i mean there's so many different ones for different moods aren't there that's it i mean probably hunky dory in a way in fact it was just the one bowie track in Francis Ha, wasn't it? Yeah, Modern Love. Which gets used in one scene in the middle when you're just sort of dancing joyfully down a street in New York. That's not an easy thing to do, I would imagine.

No, it's exhausting. But it's so good because it's not a scene you see very much in modern films anymore. It seemed to be something that happened more in films in the 80s or something. Yeah. A kind of happy-go-lucky, look at me, I'm sort of walking down the street, I'm just a fun person with some pop music playing. Yeah. And that seems almost too naive to do now, but it works so well in Frances Ha. That was sort of this externalizing of her interior joy.

And I think I came up, I still love musicals. I love a musical. And that sort of singing and dancing out of emotion has been something that I've never really lost as something I go to and that scene it was totally exhausting and totally joyful to shoot because we actually shot on east broadway in new york in the middle of the day those are people we did not block off a street they were on the back of a truck and i mean this is kind of nerdy but it's a complicated shot actually because i'm running already they're beside, but they're not on me, and they find me. The camera pans to find me running, and that's a nightmare of timing. And we were doing it with no crew, essentially, and we were just doing it.

There was like five people working on it. And I did that run and dance lots and lots and lots lots of times which take did they use an early one or a late one i think a late one okay i mean it took a long time to get it just right and also um you know that kind of when you run and you're you're a bit not used to it um yeah i do know how your your lungs hurt and it's like your throat gets thick. Like there's some sort of reaction where your body's like, no, stop it. Just stop it. Wait.

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Continue. Jump it up! Hey, welcome back listeners. Greta Gerwig there. Wow, it was great to meet her. Really exciting. Sort of exactly the way that you would hope she would be really, if you've seen her films, then you'll know what she's like.

She's got a very definite style and a strong, likeable personality that comes through in those performances. And that's exactly what she was like in real life. So thanks to Greta very much indeed for her time. And good luck in the forthcoming Academy Awards, even though really at the end of the day, who really gives a shit? That's got the fucking Oscars, honestly.

But no, you know, she deserves it. Hey, it's important. So come on, go Greta, go team Greta. There you go. I pulled that right back, didn't I? Before I leave you today, I'm going to give you a couple of recommendations, a couple of podcast recommendations. Everyone likes podcast recommendations, right? I was on the Fortunately podcast the other day with Fee Glover and Jane Garvey. Fee, the host of, well, she does lots of stuff, Fee, doesn't she? I met Fee years ago when she was on GLR, as it was then. Me and Joe used to go on a program that she did in the late 90s and talk bullshit. And she was really nice. I hadn't seen her for ages. And I went on the podcast that she does with Jane Garvey, who, of course, is one of the hosts of...

Oh, there's Rosie. Hey, Rosie. How are you doing? She's off. Jane Garvey is one of the hosts of Radio 4's Woman's Hour. A woman? Yes. It's just funny to hear them bantering.

Also, especially, I suppose there's an added edge of enjoyment because as their BBC hosts, especially on Radio 4, especially on Woman's Hour, Jane Garvey has to be quite serious and respectful and tiptoe around people's sensibilities to a certain degree or at least just be respectful of them and they just are able to relax a lot more on this fortunately podcast where they just talk to random people and I was one of the people that they talked to the other day it was fun uh Jane Garvey

what did she say we were talking about Star Trek I brought Star Trek up and she gently ridiculed me for liking Star Trek and then we were talking about um Blake Seven and I told her that when I was little I wrote a letter to the BBC to complain about the way that the science fiction series Blake 7 had concluded if you're a fan you will remember that it was quite shocking and like the whole cast was wiped out they all were killed it was yeah it was I found it traumatic and I wrote to complain and Jane Garvey said that she had done the same thing even though she was a little older and I believed her. And then she made it clear a little later on that she was just winding me up

and I felt quite stupid and offended and I'm going to complain and try and get her fired. But anyway, listen to that. Fortunately, with Fee Glover and Jane Garvey. And the other podcast that I've been listening to is actually this was a recommendation from someone on Twitter. And I apologize, I didn't make a note of their name.

But it's called Stop Podcasting Yourself. And it's a couple of Canadian guys, Graham Clark and Dave Schumker. They've been doing it for a long time, maybe 10 years or something. Two more white blokes talking inconsequentially about things and making each other laugh. But they do it really, really well. I mean, it's very funny. And they're incredibly quick. And they're talking to, you know know it's the usual sort of thing talking to comedians and people like that but um and most of them i

hadn't really heard of but they're it's really good i i liked it if you used to like the the show i did with joe then i think you'll like this to stop podcasting yourself. Anyway, there you go. A couple of recommendations that you may or may not get something out of. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast. And thank you very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support and to Matt Lamont for additional editing. Oh, by the way, the Adam Buxton app and blog are still in the process of being tweaked because we started this run of the podcast a little earlier than we thought because I have some work to do over the summer.

So they aren't quite ready yet. We're still tweaking the blog. The app has been updated. So if you do have the Adam Buxton app, the free app, has been updated. So if you do have the Adam Buxton app, the free app, then do download the update because it may fix a few little buggy things in there.

And that's it, I think. Yeah. I love you. Bye! Subscribe, like and subscribe Like and subscribe Please like and subscribe Give me like a smile and a thumbs up Nice like a pat where me bum's up Give me like a smile and a thumbs up

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Nice like a fan, put me thumbs up Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe Give me a little smile and a thumbs up Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe ស្រូវាប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ Thank you.