You wouldn't know from the first 10 minutes of Greenberg that it is -- or ever could be -- a Ben Stiller film. Blame it on Greta Gerwig, the 25-year-old indie muse making her mainstream debut in Noah Baumbach's nervy comedy. Starring as Florence, a young woman slogging through post-collegiate malaise as a personal assistant to a wealthy L.A. family, Gerwig embodies a sort of ethereal ennui before meeting her spiritual (and possibly romantic) match in Stiller's narcissistic-creep title character. The veteran actor may usurp the story in the end, but from the start -- a walk in the Hills, a drive through Hollywood, the routine of deference, servitude and resilience -- Gerwig hand-tailors the narrative with a lilting sincerity arguably never before seen in a Baumbach film. Attribute what you will to the touch of Baumbach's wife and story collaborator Jennifer Jason Leigh, but it's Gerwig's optimism and resolve that take the day. "You like me a lot more than you think you do," she tells Greenberg late in the film, daring to suggest that even when it's all about him, it's really about her. Which, of course, it is.
It's genuinely awards-caliber stuff, and all quite the professional leap for the actress, best known to date for her microbudget "mumblecore" trifecta Hannah Takes the Stairs, Baghad and Nights and Weekends (the latter of which Gerwig co-wrote/directed and starred in with Joe Swanberg). She spoke to Movieline recently about making that leap, getting Florence out of her system, and why all that nudity of hers really isn't that big a deal.
You're from Sacramento, right?
I am.
Me too! As is your co-star Brie Larson. Sacramento represent!
Right! But... [Pause] She's from the suburbs.
OK, so you're more midtown? Downtown?
Yeah, East Sac. What high school did you go to?
Foothill.
Foothill. [Pause] Suburbs. [Laughs] No, no, no. It's just that there's so much Sac City Unified School District Pride.
Well, we both got out eventually. What route did you take?
Well, I went to college in New York. I went to Barnard College; I really, really wanted to go there. I wanted to be an actor, and I'd wanted to go to Julliard or NYU. But my Mom wasn't so keen on conservatory. So she wanted me to study something not acting. But I wanted to be in New York, because I figured if I was in New York I'd have work and theater. And I spent all my summers in New York. I spent a lot of time working in theater companies. I worked as a stage manager in Vermont for summer stock. I worked as a lighting person for Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater Company. I was very into all aspects of theater. Then my last year of college I fell into this group of filmmakers who were working super-low-budget. And it was really appealing because I was coming from the world of theater but then a little bit of sketch comedy and improv. It was just an incredibly exciting thing to be making things. So I graduated in 2006 -- four years ago in May, which is crazy.
But I kept putting the "pause" button on my life. I kept just getting by -- just making ends meet. I kept auditioning as just a regular actress in addition to making these smaller films. Luckily the smaller films got attention, although we didn't know that they would. It's weird, because you reconstruct narratives backwards. But at the time I just kind of leapfrogged from one thing to another. It was very fortunate that this happened.
You've mentioned that the Greenberg script "spoke to my deep love of movies." What did it say?
Oh, I love Noah Baumbach's movies. He's a true cinephile. He's really engaged with what films came before him, what he's referencing. There's almost nothing that he does where he hasn't thought about every aspect. He's a true auteur. As far as American film goes, he's one of them. And I'm incredibly honored to be part of that tradition and that trajectory. Also, it was an incredible thrill to be on set with these people, whether it was the costume designer, Mark Bridges, who did There Will Be Blood, or the makeup artist who does all the Coen Brothers' movies. It just felt like I was steeping into this world of serious but large-scale cinema that feels like some equivalent of having done a Howard Hawks movie or a Roman Polanski movie. It felt really interesting.
Greenberg is obviously a breakthrough in a professional sense, but it also feels like a breakthrough in a character sense as well -- as though Florence was a role that you needed to get out of your system. Is that an accurate read?
It is. It's strange because when I read the script the first time -- which was also just really exciting, to get a script like this -- it would be like getting a Wes Anderson script. You just know on the page it's going to sing. David O. Russell, or someone like that. I just knew who she was instantly because the writing was so good. I just needed it and wanted it in a way that was a little frightening. I just felt so much for Florence. I still feel a lot for Florence. And it's an honor to be the person that gets to not only play her, but protect her.
It seems like Florence has a back story even deeper and more complex than the back stories most actors build for their characters. What did you develop before shooting?
I did a ton of back-story stuff: Journals, her family tree, where she grew up. I found the house I thought she might have grown up in, over in Burbank. I thought of her having done maybe two years at community college -- a specific community college -- and then transferring into the state system. I had very specific things that she had done. I don't know, it's hard to go into everything.
How did that part of the process differ from your writing/directing/acting collaborations with Joe Swanberg?
Well, first of all, I had more time. Second, I was coming to something that Noah and Jennifer had already spent time fleshing out; they gave it to me, and I fleshed it out more. When I was working with Joe, he would sort of have an idea what he was working on, and I'd say, "Yeah, I want to make a character kind of like this." But we had less time, and there were fewer layers. And I think... This sounds like I'm tooting my own horn, but I think I've gotten better. And I think I can get better still.
The first three movies I worked on -- Hannah Takes the Stairs, Baghead and Nights and Weekends -- were shot within a six-month period. They were the first movies I'd ever made. I think I had much broader strokes, but I'd never worked on film before. There's a lot to not knowing what things are working or not working, and there's a technique that develops. I think most actors have a different trajectory than I do because I was working in a very particular medium I don't think existed before -- HD or DV, and being able to shoot a movie like that. I think that Florence was the first time that I had that Pygmalion moment -- that feeling of someone else coursing through you on film. Well, that's not totally true. But it's the strongest I've ever felt it.
Noah mentioned something along the same lines: That when you were on "on," he just wanted to stay out of your way. Did you sense that when it was happening?
Yeah. Well, obviously I knew when it was going well and when it wasn't going well. When it wasn't right, he would step in. But he treated Florence and me -- and Ben as well -- with a lot of delicacy and care. He didn't want to crush what he thought we had that was right. A lot of the development and a lot of the work took place over conversation. Not even working rehearsals, but just talking through every moment of every scene, and just going on whatever tangent that led us. And objects -- all the objects in her car, all the objects in her apartment. Little things. Everything had meaning. Nothing was random, everything was cared for. So once we were on set, it was never, "That's not what I need." It was more like, "OK, you just gave me a bluish-green color that was more blue than green. Now I need more green than blue." Or just these tiny little adjustments. But I think he really wanted us to breathe it to life without him hovering as much. He's good at that.
The first long close-up of you driving in your car is so simple yet so evocative. What's the story behind that?
I think you'd have to really ask Noah. But for me, it was a really wonderful way to shoot because we did all that stuff B-roll, with not a ton of crew. It was just a camera guy sitting next to me, and Harris [Savides, cinematographer] and Noah sitting in the back, and we drove around Hollywood for eight hours. Living in L.A., it's a very particular kind of loneliness and ache for other people. But there's also beauty in your kind of half-engagement with the environment and the cars around you, and your half-engagement with your own thoughts, which of course are not spoken out loud.
I think what's nice about it was that -- because it had such a pared-down crew, and there wasn't someone fixing my hair and makeup in between takes, and we did it for so long -- was that I'm not faking it. That's really what it looks like to just drive and think and be there and kind of not be there as Florence. I had Florence's music. I think they really took their time to get that correct, because if there's anything you do in Los Angeles, it's sit in a car. And that better be right. That better look how it looks because if it doesn't, it's just Fakey McFakerson.
That's pretty fake.
I think it's important to pay that kind of attention to it. I don't know. Instead of just having a cursory "they're in a car" shot, the time is spent there.
A lot of young actresses are discouraged from doing onscreen nudity, which is something you don't shy away from at all.
No.
It almost seems like a statement.
It's not a statement. It's really not something I give a lot of thought to before I do it in a scene, because I've never really done it where I felt like... I mean, I'm always so invested in what the movie is that it always seems right. I certainly had vague tinges of, "Oh, man, now my body is so exposed in a way," but it only comes afterward when it's taken out of context or it's turned into something lewd, which it's not. What I try to do is think that my 80-year-old self will be OK with this. It's not going to matter. Really, it's just a body. I always find it more distracting when people cut around nipples. Like when they're in the shower or something? Or some woman is lying there with a sheet? That's not how people are! [Laughs] I like to think of myself as having a European sensibility.