Sam Lansky in Time:
The filmmaker Greta Gerwig was in west London the other day when she walked past a movie set—not her own, but something that just happened to be filming on the street—and stopped for a moment to watch. A light was positioned in front of the house; a car pulled up and an actor got out, shaking the gates and yelling. There was an intensity to the scene, and a vulnerability to his performance. Then, abruptly, the spell was broken. Someone yelled: “Cut! Going again.” A groomer ran out to fix the actor’s hair, a mundane but crucial bit of business.
“Movies!” Gerwig says, almost in the manner of an old-timey studio executive, recalling the moment. “Love ’em!” We’re having lunch in Soho; she’s in London while her husband, the writer-director Noah Baumbach, preps production on his next film, and while she works on a new adaptation of the first book in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series. It’s one of the biggest pieces of intellectual property of all time, but that’s a fitting thing to tackle after what’s been, for Gerwig, a remarkable year. Her dazzling, subversive Barbie, which she co-wrote and directed, grossed more than $1.4 billion at the box office, making it the biggest movie of the year, and the highest-grossing film ever directed by a woman. Barbie has since become a pop-culture phenomenon, from I Am Kenough hoodies to discourse over a third-act monologue delivered by America Ferrera about the impossible pressures women face. Alongside Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Barbie was credited with keeping the theatrical model afloat last year; in January, the film received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture as well as Best Supporting Actress for Ferrera.
More here.