Greta Gerwig
I think as an actress, I prefer having a character on the page. It allows you to be more invested in actually creating a whole person. It's easier when you're not trying to come up with your next line on the spot.
We would go down to Riverside, California, which is very poor now, but that's where my grandfather grew up. He grew up during the Depression in Riverside.
I live in New York, and I love New York as well, but I think Los Angeles is a place where if you have the right person with you, there are all these little worlds that you would never guess by just looking at the exterior of what the city is.
The economy is rough. I think that affects everyone from big filmmakers to tiny filmmakers.
I was serious about ballet for a long time, but my mom got me into tap and jazz and modern and hip-hop, and I was one of those over-lessoned children.
I loved dance.
I'm not really capable of memorizing stuff without moving around, that's how I do it.
Books and theater were the way I understood the world and also the way I organized my sense of morality, of how to live a good life.
In terms of sheer pleasure, Tom Stoppard was very big for me because he is so funny and so smart, and it felt delicious reading him.
Something people say about acting is that acting is listening. But I think that writing is listening, too. That you really have to listen to what are they saying and what they're communicating to you. And so, a lot of it is just getting stuff down.
I'm so interested in taking tropes from other movies and putting them on something where it doesn't belong.
Writing on my own versus co-writing kind of is the exact same thing because we don't sit in the same room when we write. We're always writing alone anyway.
I'm all for the banalities of life and humiliation and everyday tragedies, but I also think people have big moments, and they have bigness in them.
I stopped being interested in improvisation, and I continue to not be that interested in it. Comedians can do it on a different level because they have a goal, but if you're improvising something that's dramatic, there's not that much to be good at.
I've never worked on anything that I haven't in some way enjoyed.
When I was a kid, I used to do my homework in the living room, where there was a picture window. I was hoping that someone would walk by and see me looking very studious in my living room.
I always feel like a vague failure in L.A. - it always makes me feel like I should somehow be different than I am. And I don't know why.
I'm, like, the only actor in New York who's never, ever been on any 'Law & Order.' And I've auditioned for so many. The sad thing is I love 'Law & Order.' I'm really obsessed with it. And they always said to me, 'You seem like you're making fun of the material.'
When I graduated from college, I thought that I would probably never be an actor because it seemed like everyone was big by the time they were 20 or not at all.
It's really hard for me to be around people I admire.
I was a massive Whit Stillman fan. Groupie. I would have done anything for him.
I love movies, but sometimes I think it's better for actresses not to be total cinephiles. You have to be able to do the work at some point; you can't be totally starstruck. 'I can't believe it's Woody Allen!' You have to get past that.
I sometimes have to turn off the fan part of my brain when I'm acting; otherwise, it would be terrible.
I knew I wanted to be involved with theater or film in any way I could, either as a writer or director or actress.
I love writing, and I think I'm kind of a workaholic. I'm happiest when I'm working.
For me, the French new wave is Truffaut and Rohmer. Godard I sometimes have trouble with because he's very much of a director's director. I feel Truffaut is such a humanist, and I always go in that direction.
Woody Allen was the reason I wanted to move to New York City and one of the reasons I wanted to make films. I felt that I understood his films, and I love them so much. When you're starting out, certainly, you have this sense of wanting to talk back to people who have influenced you, and I always wanted to talk back to Woody Allen.
As a writer, I think I'm mainly interested in contemporary themes, so when I create my own stuff, it's inherently that. But as an actor, I would like to do lots of different things. I would love to play someone completely different from myself in a costume drama.
I feel like I'm an actor that likes to have lots of points of connection.
There's something very satisfying about old cameras because they're ingenious. I mean when you take them apart and actually see, 'Oh, this is how we make photographs,' it's an ingenious thing, but it feels like it's in a way a layman can appreciate, whereas a digital camera, I don't even begin to know what goes into making a digital camera.
For Mike Mills, I learned that having dance parties and crying with your cast does not make you a weak director, it makes you a strong director.
I feel like a good pair of diamond studs goes a long way. They make everything look dressy, and you just seem more put together.
Young Harrison Ford, what a dreamboat.
I'm scared of the Internet. That's not real, but it is. I'm worried about what it's doing to us.
I sound like an old man when I talk about the Internet, but I am actually worried about what it's doing to our brains and our sense of connection.
One of the things that happens when you write characters - and maybe this is my own sentimentality - is that I always find I have an instinct to protect them.
I was very serious about ballet until the age of 12, at which point my body changed, and it wasn't quite right.
I was part of a hip-hop group called Fly Style. I was one of two white girls, and I was part of the younger company, which was called Touch of Style. And it was amazing. It gave me a different perception of dance and beauty because the other girls were mostly African-American and Latina.
I've made so many films in New York. There was an assumption I think a lot of people had that I am a New Yorker, that I am from New York, and I always felt like nothing could be further from the truth.
The Catholic theatrics are pretty high quality, but the Protestants have better hymns.
I feel like movies are presents, and credits and fonts are bows and wrapping paper. I like everything to feel like it was given a lot of time. I hate it when I watch movies, and it seems like they just went and picked a font and, like, called it a day.
When you write something you know, you're making a story that will work, whether or not there's bits taken. It's always funny to me when people say, 'Well, it's clearly autobiographical,' and I say, 'Well, how do you know my autobiography?' Certainly, there are things that are connected, but I just think it's a very interesting assumption.
I feel like, when I play characters, I create a space in myself that feels like the character and that doesn't go away. Somehow, you carry that with you. You let it go, but a little piece of it remains.
Whenever you work with someone who you idolize, you realize... he's just a person trying to make a movie as best he knows how. And that doesn't look so different from other people trying to do the same thing.
When I read 'Greenberg,' I had a really strong sense if I could be any kind of writer I wanted to be, I'd be this kind of writer. And I felt like, even in my experiences, what writing I had done, even on a small scale, when it was good, it shared some quality with it.
I get nerdy and nervous around not only great actors, but great directors and DPs I love.
I love movies, so getting to be in the conversation and meet some of my heroes has been so fun. It's just the most fun thing ever.
Greta Gerwig always seemed like a name that was mine. My mother did a good job.
'A People's History of the United States' was actually a very big book for me. I read it in high school, and I felt like my mind was really blown by it. I think the truth is I read it because it's referenced in 'Good Will Hunting.'