Greta Gerwig Quotes

1. As a woman, pretty much now is the best time. It's only gotten better in the last 100 years and I feel the more women who are writing and directing and running companies and doing everything, the less it's going to be an object of scorn and fear and judgment.


2. I'm not really capable of memorizing stuff without moving around, that's how I do it.

3. I didn't know the city at all, but I was so happy to be in New York I cried. I was so excited.

4. To be honest, it's really exciting, because having a higher profile means someone will actually send something in the right size. They used to only send way smaller sizes. I'd get this little tiny dress, and just look at it and be like: "Oh, I'm so sad." But when you have a little bit of clout, they'll send over a six, which is awesome.



5. 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.

6. I've never had a plan, I've always done things from instinct.


7. 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.

8. When I did plays in high school and college, I never remember memorizing my lines, but once I had blocking, I had all my lines memorized. Once I had movement associated with words, it was fine. Before I had blocking, it was just text on a page. Once it became embodied, it was much easier.

9. Some of the independent movies that make money have a very specific thing that you can tell audiences they'll feel about it. "This will make you feel so happy". "This will make you feel something about your family". And anything that's not that, if it's "This will make you feel perhaps uncomfortable about choices you've made in your life". ("Frances Ha") will touch your deep feelings of failure and unworthiness. (My father said about it:) "You know they play that Steve Miller song in the beginning? You think: "This is really gonna make you feel great". He was "Yes!" and then "What?"

10. I had dreams, but I didn't have the sense that they would necessarily work out. They seemed very far-fetched.

11. 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.



12. Getting bad reviews or doing something that's not great is also really good for you as an actor. It also makes me feel as an actor that I've earned my stripes a bit.

13. I loved dance.

14. I was really depressed. I cried a lot. It was a hard year. I was 25 and thinking: "This is supposed to be the best time and I'm miserable." Looking back, I wish I had taken that time and written more, but it felt like acting was happening for me, and I went back to acting classes. The blessing and curse of my life is that I think I thrive when I have a singular purpose and a calling. But actually I'm happiest when I'm doing lots of things. And I have to reconcile that.

15. (on her screenplay for "Frances Ha") So much of writing is like baking a cake. I can't tell you where the sugar is.

16. 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.

17. Sitting and waiting is such an awful way to live, but it's a big part of being an actor. Creating projects is really what's happening these days. The chance to participate in your own career is a lot more exciting than just hoping that it all works out.

18. The economy is rough. I think that affects everyone from big filmmakers to tiny filmmakers.

19. I tend to fall more on the side that there is a place for it as long as you, like Frances (the main character in "Frances Ha"), can let go of the past and still find a way to love each other and be there for each other in a more mature way - like that you can love each other as adults. But, one of my very best friends, her mother told her, when she was younger: "Enjoy your female friendships now because you'll never really have them as you get older." And she really believes that. So, I feel like I tried to give both sides a hearing in the movie - like, it does have to change and it will change, but I ultimately feel like has gotta be possible.

20. 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.

21. I think that, definitely in your 30s and 40s and early 50s, a lot of women can lose sight of each other because the pressures of marriage and family can take over, but I've found that in my mom's generation and for different women I've known in their 60s, they've seemed to really find each other again, in a significant way. Whether it's that they got divorced or the kids are grown up, they have all this time again. I've known more women in their 60s who have traveled with each other or see each other all the time and hang out all the time. I feel like it can be rediscovered as a primary relationship, maybe later in life.


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