Greta Gerwig and Natalie Portman on the “Cosmic” Connection That Still Links Them

Portman: I feel like it’s what I’m drawn to—heightened expression, yeah. But I feel like getting to spend time with you on both those sets, I’ve never met anyone—it’s hard to say with you here— who’s so smart, and interesting, and cool, and not intimidating at all. Just having the openness and loving and putting-you-at-ease sense at the same time as having the most interesting story, and listening to the coolest music, and knowing all the interesting stuff, but not in an intimidating way at all. And it was so clear that you were going to create magic. Because I feel like you directed Lady Bird soon after that.

Gerwig: I think I had the script, actually.

Portman: I remember you talking about that you were going to direct your first film, and that you had just worked with Rebecca Miller and you had just worked with Mia Hansen-Løve, and that you were geared up for it. And I was like, Oh, this is going to be great. And then I remember seeing it at Telluride and I was like, Oh, my God, this is just the greatest. It had your spirit and generosity. That’s the thing, your films are so good and they’re so generous of spirit. It’s a joyful experience.

Gerwig: It’s like that funny moment when you have a script—it’s like your secret. I remember reading about Martin McDonagh—when he wrote Beauty Queen of Leenane, he wrote it when he was on the dole in Ireland. He said he went to the pub and he’d written it and he thought it was good. And he looked around and he saw all these people with their girlfriends, and he’s like, They have girlfriends, but I have The Beauty Queen. It was this feeling inside, and it is that sort of—you’re like, I have a secret world now. And it’s the best feeling.

Greta, you were just at the Palm Springs gala and you said, “It took me a long time to say out loud that I wanted to be a director.” When was that moment that you realized you did want to say that out loud?

Gerwig: For a while it didn’t occur to me, in a way. For a while it didn’t occur to me to write, because when I went to college, I loved playwrights, but I didn’t know very many lady playwrights. I just knew Wendy Wasserstein, but all of the other playwrights I worshipped were men. And I remember actively thinking, like, Oh, it’s too bad I’m not a man. I can’t really do it. But it wasn’t sad, it was just like, That’s just not open to me. And then I had a great playwriting teacher, Ellen McLaughlin, who’s an actor and a writer, and she gave me a stack of plays written by women. And it was like, You’re wrong. Look at all this. Look at Caryl Churchill. What are you talking about?