"Greta Gerwig"

0:28Okay, guys, we're going to do this next podcast from our pool. Smart. Less.

0:37Smart. Less. Hey, gang. Hey, Jason. Will, why do you have green screen behind you? Are we doing an animation episode today? Yeah, we're going to do a full... Because I just wanted people to feel free to do whatever they want behind me. Oh. That's been happening for years. So we can put in like, why is that there? I got to do a junket this afternoon. Would you put like a background behind you, like an image? Yeah. And what would that image be? It's of an ice cream truck. Oh, so it's a drama? I have the same one. Is it like a fourth quarter prestige film? It's the Sean Hayes story. That's what you have the junket about?

1:22The history of ice cream. There's a Lick It joke in there somewhere? No. But no, no, no, it's for twisted metal. So there's the big ice cream, you know, Sweet Tooth is my character. Oh, yeah. That's your new nickname. Sweet Tooth. Now, do they send you the green or do they ask you to go to a hobby shop and get a nice big... They sent me the green in this light that uses this big bright light that you see. Don't make like you don't know what a ring light is. I think they're all over your house. I've never had one. That's not true. I've had one before, but I haven't used one since pandemic. Speaking of pandemic, Sean, What are you eating?

1:56Cheez-Its. Cheez-Its. But they're white cheddar Cheez-Its. Am I wrong? Oh, they looked white. Have you had the white cheddar Cheez-Its? Is there such thing? No, are they good? I don't know. Is there such thing? I just don't know. Asking for a friend. You know me. Asking for a friend. If you have them, please send them. I do want to just do another shout-out to our friends at Chex Mix slash Bugles. Did you guys get, like, a big box of that? Oh, my God. I had the Cool Ranch. Was it Cool Ranch Bugles? they were in the plane but they sent everything Funyuns and everything you know what I'm gonna stop I'm gonna stop talking because my instinct right there was like oh I would never eat that stuff because I'd hold water in my face for five years I'm not gonna do it anymore because people now are coming up to me after the doc hey man so sorry to hear about your food disorder your food issues that's not true that's not true yeah and I said well you know a lot of it's true but comedy kind of lives in the exaggeration and so I'm leaning into it and, you know, kind of playing my role.

2:59Yeah, just for the record, we've all seen you eat candy and other stuff. Yeah, I eat like a fucking shit pig most of the time. Not most of the time, but when I want it, I have it. It should be noted because I'm often at the sharp edge of that point that is puncturing you that I have seen you devour more shit than anybody I know. Not as much as Sean. I love giving you, because what happens is, as you say, that there's a larger person inside of you waiting to get out. Two or three of them. Right, and so you're trying not to feed the beast as much as you can, as hard as you can. If you unzip me, you'd find three after-school specials of teenagers that wake up in crumbs.

3:48I brought it before. Do you remember when we, like when we were up at Pebble and you had kind of a, you had an off week. You got to sort of, and we would sit down, they'd go, can we, this is my favorite, they'd go, as soon as we sat down, not even the way or the summer, they'd go, hey, can we start you off some ice water? And you'd go, yeah, and if you've got a basket of bread back there, they'd be like, hey, man. That's right. Remember that restaurant? She was like immediately. Yeah, and I looked at you like, who are you? They were still handing out the menus. Yeah, exactly. You were at valet.

4:19I was, wait. You were at valet. I was at, I went to a restaurant. We don't have bread in the house. I got super, super, super, super stoned with Raina, my friend Raina. This is years and years ago. We were in New York. I was high as a kite and I was starving. We walked down the street. We walk into a restaurant and the maitre d' goes, how many? And I go, Caesar salad.

4:43Not even joking. I almost just did. I swear to God, I wasn't even joking. And Raina grabs me and I'm like, what? I go, I just wanted to start off like so before we sit down if the Caesar's there waiting.

4:58I do like a Caesar salad mix at the table. I think there's something very, very refined about that. Caesar salad mix at the table. Get your salad chopped in the kitchen so they bring it to you chopped. I do like my dressing on the side. That doesn't give me food issues, does it? I just think that people overdress salads. Yeah, I agree. It's too soggy. And it should be noted that in a town, and by town I mean L.A., in a town where a lot of people, when they get burgers or they get stuff, they're all like, no, Brad, can I get that wrapped in lettuce or whatever? Every time on the off weeks, on Sunday nights when we do burgers, Jason always gets full bun and he has at least two burgers.

5:38No, I do the single. I do the single. Watch it. You've had two burgers. I've seen you do two burgers. Oh, two burgers. No, but not double patty. No, I do double patty. I do two burgers. Well, you have, I do one patty per burger because that's proper ratio with the bread, right? That's right. Only a fool would have double meat. It's too much meat. Tell that to the Big Mac. Well, he's got another piece of bread in there. He does have a piece of bread in there, yeah. It is. You're true. Yeah. That's so true. Yeah, some cool with Big Mac. Three pieces of bread. He knows what he's doing. All right, all right.

6:08So, where do you guys get a load of this guest? Wait, wait, wait, wait. I just wanted to show you guys. Yeah, Sean, I saw you were playing with the... Wait, but look, all our faces are on this Rubik's Cube. It's the Rubik's Cube with our faces. Isn't that cool? The world's smartest game for the world's dumbest podcast hosts. We don't know how this all happened, but we're not going to question it too much. Here's the deal. Yeah. The smartest toy of all time just got Smartless, guys. Oh, nice. So in celebration of the Smartless podcast, Third year anniversary. We have partnered with Rubik's Cube to make a limited edition, limited quantity, smartless Rubik's Cube.

6:56Yeah. Huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've always wanted to be one of those people that can solve it in like three seconds. You ever see those guys? Wait, can you do that? Oh, yeah. I've seen those. But there's a way to do it. I can't. I want to learn how to do it. Jay, they mix it up and then they solve it in three seconds. The kid just set a new record last week or something. Really? He looks at it and he goes. Yeah, and he goes. and puts it down. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. It's fucking bonkers. It's amazing. And by the way, it's a little bit of a cheat though because you can see our faces. You just line our faces up.

7:24Oh yeah, it still takes some skills. We're not smart enough to do it. But listener, if you're smart enough to do it, or you want to try to get smart enough to do it, go ahead over there to that merch store, you know, that Smartless shop and buy one before they're all gone. Do we need to tell them, what is it? It's www.shopsmartless.com. Anyway, Jay, sorry we interrupted. Yes, I apologize. I apologize to our guest. Hey, guys. I don't know if you like, if you guys, wait, hang on a second. We're going to start. Back to one. Hey, guys. Start from hey, guys. Hey, guys. I don't know. Tighten up, mystery guest.

8:06Here we come. I don't know if you guys like folks. Hey, guys. Hey, guys. I don't know if you like folks with talent. People are people who, God damn it. Let's just reload. Hey, guys. Here we come. Here we go. I don't know if you guys like folks with talent, period, but. Comma. That would be a comma. I don't know why I write these. Why do I write? I should just freestyle it like Willie. Hey, guys. Hey, guys. I don't know if you guys like folks with talent. People who are funny, smart. This sounds insincere, but it is sincere, mystery guest. I don't know if you guys like folks with talent. Comma.

8:42People who are funny, smart, charismatic. I don't take them until after four. Funny, smart, charismatic, and sparkly. I do. So I've invited one to join. You wrote I do? I do, comma. So I've invited one to join us today. She's not yet 40, but she's already written nine movies, directed four of them, starred in four of them, gotten three Academy Award nominations for them, and I'll bet there's more of those coming for her new one. She was born in Sacramento but lives in Brooklyn. She was interested in dance but was competitive in fencing. Almost pursued musical theater but instead got a degree in philosophy from Barnard Carle at college despite the destructive and reckless influence of doormate Kate McKinnon.

9:25Please welcome Miss Greta Gerwig. Greta. What? Yeah. Oh, my God. Pretty good, right? That was amazing. It was great. Also, I'm so nervous behind my little sheet of paper. I'm nervous. Why? Hey, don't be nervous. Oh, my God. We're hard-hitting journalists with a lot of research. Yeah. Okay? And we're going to bring the hard-hitting questions. You can see we take our craft very seriously. Get ready. I'm ready. Greta Gerwig, it's so nice to meet you. Yeah, great to have you. It's so nice to meet you, too. And I have to confess that I have a circle light behind me, which I didn't even know existed.

10:03You're allowed to have ring lights. And they sent one to me. They sent one. That's what happened to me, Greta. Is that a baby crib off to the side there? Yes, yes, that's a baby crib. That's where Noah sleeps. You know, Sean, they don't, they drop the baby. They just say crib. Yeah. Okay. Don't say baby crib. Everybody knows when you say crib that you're talking about. But it's four. Well, some people might say, they think it's your house. No. Now, Greta's got two baby boys. Yeah, and a stepson who's 13. Got it. Wow. So you're swimming in testosterone over there. That's why I made Barbie. Hey-oh.

10:38Yeah. No, it's great, though. I never, I actually, having a bunch of boys around is so fun. Oh, and I apologize. You can hear sirens. Are you currently under indictment? Are you, no? So you're in Manhattan. You have two sons and a fun partner. Yes? We call Noah fun, right? Yes, he's fun. And you've got a really fun movie coming out. Oh, God, I love the trailers on this thing. I know, me too. Thank you. All right, we're going to get to that. Where are we going to get started here? Let's see what kind of hard-hitting question I've got here. Let's start at the beginning. Let's go back to the beginning.

11:21I want to know. I sadly don't know enough about you yet. Ask your questions. We're so bad at this that we probably won't find out more because we'll end up talking about ourselves. But what... I want to know, like, from when you were a kid, What were you drawn to most, the acting or the writing? Because you're such a brilliant writer. Were you drawn to writing right away as a kid? Like creative arts class or something? Well, I didn't. I was sort of drawn to the whole thing of it. Like I did grow up in Sacramento and there was a really healthy and vibrant community theater scene there. So I spent a lot of time going to community theater and participating in community theater because if you liked it, that's sort of the way in, you know?

12:06And now don't you look back on the shows that you've done in community theater and be like, you know, they're great and great experience, but it's like high school. No, but it was also like sort of the purest art I think I've ever done. Like it's the most, you know, I don't know. There's something like really, it's like everybody has like a secret sort of like Clark Kent Superman identity, like a substitute teacher might in the night do Tennessee Williams for all you know. And there was something about that that I was always like, I love it. Yeah, I used to play auditions for, piano for auditions for community theater shows.

12:49And you're right, you'd get, it was just like waiting for government. It's like people like moms and dads and dentists and everybody would come in. You didn't see Joseph and his Technicolor coat in Sacramento because Jessica Chastain saw that in Sacramento. She did? Oh, that's right. I think she saw it at the Walnut Creek Theater, which was a little outside. But I did see, but fun fact, I saw Jessica Chastain in community theater when she was like 15 or 16. No way. Yeah, and I saw her in You Can't Take It With You at the Chautauqua Theater Company. No way. Yeah, and she played the ballerina. Yeah, I was in You Can't Take It With You in high school and had one line, and I was a G-man, and it was, you were right, Chief, they have enough gunpowder down there to blow up the whole town.

13:38That was my only line. Right. I think You Can't Take It With You later in high school. I'd love to get one more take on that, Sean. Let's just have fun with it. Here we go. Still rolling? You're right, Chief. They have enough gunpowder down there to blow up the whole town. Got it. Thank you. Check it. that's cool so what were you so you're one you can't take it with you what else yeah I think I played it's been a minute since I've seen the play is there a Russian woman in it because I have a memory of being Russian it's a bold choice if there wasn't

14:14but it was so it was going to start with it did start with acting and then when did it go to writing well I was always writing but I didn't really have I didn't no there wasn't really an outlet for in terms of like my my high school and everything there wasn't like you know and here are the plays our students have written but they did let you do like um I wrote all the homecoming sketches for homecoming rallies like that was my way of like being sort of um a writer and then it wasn't until actually I got to college at Barnard that I was um I was taking an acting class and I was writing scenes and I wrote on my own monologue to audition and they were like that's not you're not meant to do that and I was like oh and then they said one of the teachers who was great was like I think you want to take a playwriting class and then I started taking playwriting in college and that was like an instant oh wow at what point in Sacramento or what in um what got you excited to leave Sacramento like did you know when you were you're like, I'm limited here.

15:19I know there's only a certain, you know, place I can go here. Well, I had, my dad actually had, one of his best friends was a math professor at Columbia. And we went to New York City when I was five. And I had a, just a really strong memory of waiting for like rush tickets for Broadway plays. and I saw, like, Time Daily in Gypsy, and I saw Jerry Orbach in 42nd Street, and all the rush tickets, you'd be sitting in the front row and looking sort of straight up. Yeah. And I remember I was like, I got to get back to Broadway. That was sort of what I felt. I just was like, like, it never in my life, and it was 89, So I also think it was like there were still kind of like the neon strip bars in 42nd Street and like everything.

16:17And everything was like I just was interested. And so I kind of had it in my mind for a really long time. It was still kind of grimy and kind of like exciting in that way. Yes. And I remember I said in a cab. We were in a cab once and I said to my mom, I had this like. Take me to Laquadio. I was five and I remember I had my favorite outfit. It was pink and had guitars all over it. And I called it my rock and roll outfit. And I said to my mom, I was like, can I wear my rock and roll outfit tomorrow? And the cab driver said, I'll wait for you. I'll marry you later. And I was like, oh, this cab driver is going to marry me.

16:58Which in retrospect was maybe gross. Yeah, pretty gross. It was amazing. He was arrested. And his name is Noah Bombay. And we will be right back.

17:13And now back to the show. So if I'm a young writer and I want to, or an aspiring writer, would you recommend writing plays or trying to write like a dialogue scene before you start to take on sort of the formatting of a feature and stuff like that? Well, I think it's really useful just in terms of like it's very cheap to do in terms of like seeing how it works with actors. Because your dialogue is so great. It's so easy. It's so natural. It's so – yet you're also saying something. Like that's a great little trick, right? You have something – well, people actually talk like that, but then you sort of Trojan horse in something actually pretty profound and like, oh, my God.

17:59and realize I'm now crying and, you know, or laughing. And like, you make it seem very, very easy. And did that start? Also, stop sneaking messages in, Greta. You know what I mean? It's too much for us. We need to be ready. We can't take it. We're too sensitive. So did a lot of that come from trying with being a playwright and doing mostly dialogue with that? Not to be a little bit. I mean, well, I think actually doing community theater, or doing theater at school. It was also memorizing really great text, even in like scene class is amazing because it kind of makes you realize why it's great is because it, I don't know, I haven't had this experience that many times as an actor, but like I remember like doing, you know, I don't know, Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee or something like that when the text sort of opens up to you and you realize like you could make so many decisions as this character and they're all right because it's rich and it's sort of full and it's there for you.

18:57And I think I was like, oh, that's a gift to an actor if you can kind of find words that make them feel free and not constrained. And yeah, for me, writing, again, it was all in college. I was really lucky. One of my playwriting professors was like, because we'd all read each other's work. And also Kate McKinnon, she was also doing playwriting classes with me at the same time. She's a problem. She's trouble. I'm really glad you got away from her. Congrats on that. Wait, so that was in Jason's intro. You were roommates? Yeah, yeah. We went, well, she was at Columbia and I was at Barnard and then we ended up, you know, I don't know, you like go in for housing together, you know, that thing.

19:42She tried to pull you in, right, and take you down the path and good for you that you stayed away. She was always the funniest, most talented person I'd ever met and like good at everything. And I also saw her do drama. Like she could do anything. She was like Meryl Streep. She was like unreal. And yeah, but we would do these playwriting classes together and you read each other's work out loud. And then our teacher organized for real professional actors to come read our plays, which was like... Real professional actors? Real professional actors. And the actor, I don't know if you know him, he's a wonderful actor, Michael Chernis.

20:22Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. He's amazing. No way. And he came and he read my play. And I was like 19 and he was amazing. And I thought I was the best writer because he made it even more wonderful. It was so exciting. Let me ask you a question. Have you cast Michael Chernis in one of your films yet? Actually, we did. Yes. You did. Good for you to call Jason's bluff. Good for you. A movie called Mistress America and we cast him and I told him, I was like, do you remember coming to Barnard College one fall? And he said, oh my God, that was you. That's so crazy. You know, I just saw an interview yesterday with Matt Damon talking about when he wrote Good Will Hunting.

21:04He wrote that in college as a, he was writing, he was doing like a, they had to write one act plays and he was talking about the fact that he wrote this sort of 40 minute thing and he says to his professor, I think I've failed because I've got this thing and I don't know what it is, but I think maybe it's a screenplay and then he ended up taking it back and writing with Ben and what was interesting was talking about the process of then Ben looking at it going I think we should work on this together and then talking about the discovery as young writers and going and Ben saying to him like if your character says this I think the other guy should say this and them having as you know as a writer that so much of it is just that right is just trusting your instinct in those moments of understanding who that character is and going...

21:53And I thought it was very valuable to say out loud to young writers. Just that process is really that, right? And having the confidence. Or like Chuck Martin used to say, right? Writing's just talking. Was that Chuck Martin? Jim Valley. Jim Valley. Yeah, the great Jim Valley. No, that's all. I mean, I think it is... I always said, you know, I'm probably stealing this from someone, but like writing is listening you have to sort of that was you no you kind of have to listen to the characters talk to each other and yeah and I think and in a funny way or for me anyway with directing like I can't I for me the writing process and the directing process are are pretty are different they're very separated and I don't really want to direct something until I feel like the script is good and and and like worth doing and i think because they're kind of separate parts of my brain um there's times as a director where i'm like i knew something as a writer a year ago or six months ago which i don't know anymore and i sort of have to trust the writer part of me that they knew what they were doing and not tinker with it later like any edits i've done in the directing process, I've always regretted.

23:08I've always gone back to the original script. I'm like, what was I trying to do? Yeah, you know, it's funny. You write, I imagine you always write alone, right? You write by yourself only. Unless I write with Noah. He's the only other person I've ever written with. Yeah, because I write with Chappie. I know, I bring up Chappie. Once an episode. And I find, I get so much value from me. Now, he writes some stuff on his own as well, but he and I write together and I get so much value out of those conversations and those moments so that later when we do stuff and when we actually shoot stuff that we've got each other to go back on and go like, wait, what was I think, what were we thinking in that moment?

23:49And one of us will catch the other one and go, we're doing it because blah, blah, blah, and it does make sense. And I think we are right on this. You need that sounding. Yeah, it's kind of what you're talking about a little bit. Exactly. But Greta, what about when the directing, do you let the directing win over the writing or is it the other way around? You may have just answered this, but what if while you're directing something, you figure, oh, you know what? We're actually saying that with this performance or saying that with this camera shot, so we don't actually need to literally say it.

24:14Let's cut the line. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like it's not really the director side of me wins as much as when you kind of expose it all to air and bring actors in. I think it's often more that I feel that the actor, usually I shoot what's on the page. I'm pretty good at it because I'm like, well, you know. But then often because I've gotten to work with such great actors, you find that the actor has done it without, you know, you've written all these lines and the actor, the audience knows right away what the actor is feeling. They're communicating it anyway. But, yeah, it's really with, like, actors that I feel like it changes.

24:54What interests me is, so I haven't, obviously, like everybody else, I've seen the trailer for Barbie and I haven't seen it yet, but it looks amazing. and it's so visually, first of all, visually, it's so stunning. There's so much to look at. And so I'm curious because I've never worked on something like that before where there is such a visual element to it that how you approach that as you're writing it, how much of that ends up on the page. And if you're directing, you don't really have to explain it, although you do have to walk everybody else through it, right? Right. A little bit. In some ways, it was on the page.

25:27Yeah, there were things on the page in a sort of general sense, But I found that for Barbie in particular, it was I had a very long time working with a production designer before. I mean, I think I started talking to the production designer in the at least a year before we started shooting. And DP, at least a year. And same with the costume designer. And so a lot of the things that got worked out in the movie were things that came out of just like tons of meetings of like how even things like, you know, there's these incredible sets that they built. It was like a combination of like large scale sets that are on these sound stages.

26:12And then also we built a lot of miniatures, which was amazing. And I've never built miniatures, but I love them. Like those pictures of like when they were making, you know, Star Wars. Or if you watch the like ILM documentary, you're like, all I want to do is glue little things with a star. Did you watch the ILM documentary? I love the ILM documentary. It's incredible. Incredible. incredible it's like my those guys are like i just love them and they're all so special i don't know they were all like in college just like in a warehouse going like let's make this well we can't make that there's no it doesn't exist well let's build it well what and they just built a camera that makes it do what you want to do it's just phenomenal it's also i think it's also i mean i have to say like in terms of documentaries about making things disney plus It's killing it.

27:04They've got the ILM doc and also the Get Back, the Beatles doc. Yes. And did you see the Pixar doc? No. That's incredible. That's incredible. Did you guys see the doc about the Pixar doc? Yeah, they did a doc about the making of the Pixar doc. Wait, credit. Since we're on the Barbie thing, I just have to ask an obvious question. First of all, when somebody approached you or did you come up with the idea, how did it happen? And weren't you, because someone like me sitting back was like, they're making Barbie a movie? Like a live action movie? And then you see the trailer, you're like, oh my God, this is so cool.