If anyone could make a “Barbie” movie for adults, it’s Greta Gerwig. For her third solo directorial outing, Gerwig’s choice to helm a film about Barbie (the doll? the doll?) struck more than a few people as odd (or worse), but Gerwig’s affection for the material and her whip-smart take on what Barbie really represents shines through.
Like Barbie, Gerwig’s “Barbie” contains multitudes: It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s deep-thinking, it’s clever, and it’s filled with wonderful crafts and stellar performances. It’s the rarest kind of blockbuster: entertaining, intelligent, and destined to be talked about for years to come. For Gerwig (who co-wrote the film with her personal and professional partner Noah Baumbach), it’s an expression of love and joy, another passion project in what we can only hope is a long line to come.
Ahead, Gerwig talks to IndieWire about a little bit of everything. From reviews to studio notes, picking weird dolls and “cinema gods” to honor, how she maybe broke star Ryan Gosling, the insanity of the Barbenheimer meme, and the exact moment her film captures her entire ethos, Gerwig is only too happy to take us deep into her neon-pink brain (and heart). And the results? Fantastic.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
IndieWire: The reviews dropped on Tuesday night. Have you read them?
Greta Gerwig: No, I haven’t. Actually, I knew they were coming out [Tuesday], and I decided I was going to cool my heels and wait until I was caffeinated the next morning. I’ve checked in. I know the general sense, but I haven’t read. I haven’t done the read. So I’m going to do the read at some point, but not yet.
But you do know the general read is very positive?
Yes, I do. I couldn’t be happier. I’m very, very thrilled about it.
OK, so reviews, covered. Next up: box office. The film just keeps tracking higher and higher. If you open this weekend over a $100 million domestic, you are going to join a very rarefied club of female directors who have met that benchmark with a live-action solo effort. As of now, it’s only Patty Jenkins. What does that possibility feel like?
I feel like I’ve been trying to manage expectations and [I do] not want to jinx anything. The thing I’ve been focusing on is that it is connecting with people and that people are feeling the joy that I hope that they would feel. That is the thing that I can hang my hat on in a way that doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to spin out into outer space.
Something that does feel meaningful to me in that scenario is that — you mentioned Patty Jenkins, and it’s something Margot and I have talked about — there’s no way we would’ve been able to make this movie if [Jenkins] hadn’t made “Wonder Woman” and it was successful. That’s just true. So one thing that I’ve been thinking about, and feeling the joy we felt reflected in audiences, is thinking, “Well, if it works, maybe it’s easier for the next person.”
And I was very touched that Gal Gadot was at our LA premiere! It felt like a vote of confidence. And a good omen.
It’s funny you mentioned Gal, because I think everyone has asked you a lot about Mattel notes, but I’m really curious about Warner Bros. notes. You guys get a really great Snyderverse joke in here, which I was totally not expecting. How did Warners like that? Were there other things like that in your original script?
I think it was definitely something where when turned in the script, which was the wild, anarchic thing that it is, there was this general feeling of, no one will let us make this. Not Warner Bros., not Mattel, not anybody. I really put it down to Margot, who all the way along as a producer and as an actor, stood in front of it and said, “This is the one I want to make and let’s figure out how to make it.” And they just, shockingly, went with it.
I will say there were many notes, many notes sessions on all fronts, but the thing is that anything that have in a movie, any reference — and we reference “The Godfather,” Matchbox Twenty, Dave Matthews Band — I love all of it. I never put anything in a movie I don’t love, and that’s true. I don’t really have use for things that I don’t have affection for, within a movie. That was the core of it.
But I really, honestly, can’t believe that they let us make this movie. It feels like it’s some strange ripple in the universe that allowed this to slip through in the way that it did. And now that it exists, they’ve been totally behind it and just doing an incredible job on all fronts, but it feels like a minor miracle. Margot and I have talked about it. It was like, maybe we turned in something that was so bananagrams that they were like, “Well, we don’t even know where to start.”
This is such a strange reference, but you see certain art in Italy, and there’s one room in Venice [I’ve been in] that has this painted ceiling, and suddenly you realize every single thing on the ceiling that’s holding the ceiling up is not only the painting, everything is a baby angel head. And you’re like, “That’s too many baby angel heads.” And then you’re like, “Or is it just enough?” That’s what I felt like with this movie, was put all the baby angel heads everywhere.
With that in mind, obviously, you have to kill some darlings. Was there anything that you had to cut that you’re like, “Oh, this sucks [to lose]”?
There were definitely lots of things that didn’t end up in the final movie, because it would be five hours, which actually is too many baby angel heads. But I didn’t ever end up cutting anything because I was made to. Everything was in service of the story and the rhythm of the storytelling. I don’t think I ever had to cut something where I thought, “Oh, that’s been taken from me by my corporate friends.”
The film references and uses a number of discontinued Barbies and Kens and other dolls. Were there any other ones you wanted to use?
I think I got most of them in there. We did have a more extensive thing that we were doing with a doll that had never been made and should never be made, which was Proust Barbie, but that was too strange for everybody. There’s like a million of them. There’s a Tanner dog that, when you press on its back, it, like, expels puppies.
Oh.
Which is extremely strange, but I think we winnowed to the ones that we thought were the funniest.
Most of the film’s marketing is limited to stuff from the first act of the film. How much of that was your choice, to obscure so much of the film’s plot?
We, definitely with the marketing team, had this sense of wanting to tease it out slowly, because the whole thing is just so odd in general. It was like, even if we sat you down and explained this to you, it’s going to be really … I don’t know. It would be like learning about a map of a place you’ve never seen. It would be too confusing. We always knew we kind of wanted to tease it out, but somehow find a way to communicate the tone without giving the whole card game away.
It felt important that people understand the tone more than anything else and once that was set, they’d go on the journey. There’s always a point in the movie where I think, “This is just the strangest thing,” and it is strange, but I think that the audience is able to go with that because the groundwork has been set.
One of the things that gets most strange is where Ken goes and the journey Ryan Gosling takes him on. Watching him both in this and on the press tour has been something else. One of my colleagues basically suggested I phrase this question as, “Ryan Gosling has been broken, in the best way possible. Does Greta blame herself?”
I know. [Laughs] I have to say, I knew it was always there, but I didn’t know him before making this at all. Noah and I had written the part for him and everyone said, “Oh, you must know Ryan.” And I was like, “No, I don’t know Ryan. Do you know Ryan? Because I’ve never met him.” But I had a kind of sense of how funny he was, how deeply funny he is, and how all of his comedy comes from just extreme commitment and grounded-ness, that it’s never standing outside of it and judging it, it’s always from the inside.
After a few months of schedules and this and doubts and that, when he finally said yes, it’s like he allowed something to happen that I don’t think even he knew was going to happen. We’ve talked about it and he’s like, “I don’t know what … I couldn’t access that again if you asked me to. I was in a different state.” But I think now that it’s completed, he’s speaking from a place as almost a defender of Ken. He feels it deep inside of him, and it’s honestly pretty wonderful to watch. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve encountered during this insane, protracted world promotional tour?
Margot, America [Ferrera], and Ryan went to Mexico City and like 16,000 people showed up at a mall. Ryan and America sent me videos, and it was funny because they were both in each other’s videos. That was the moment where I like, “Oh my Lord, this is unlike anything I’ve ever been part of.”
I saw “Barbie” on Monday morning and saw “Oppenheimer” on Tuesday night. As I was leaving the theater for “Oppenheimer,” there were all these Barbie fans going to a “Barbie” promo screening, trying to take pictures in front of this big Barbie poster, and they’re all dressed in their pink and all the critics are coming out of “Oppenheimer” feeling very dark, having to scoot past them.
It’s Barbenheimer!
It was my own Barbenheimer! Do you remember the first time you heard the term “Barbenheimer”?
I don’t remember the first time I heard it, but I guess it must have been a couple months ago. My brother sent me a fan art of a mashup poster, which is amazing. It’s like a ’70s style poster with everybody. I was like, “This is great. Whoever made this, this is amazing.” It’s everywhere now. There’s a big, big rave happening in Brooklyn this weekend. It’s the Barbenheimer rave and it has a full DJ set.
No spoilers, but the moment that you choose to end the film is so wonderful and so funny. Was that always going to be that scene, that final line from Margot? When did you land on that?
I feel that line and that ending is something that I feel about most things that I’ve ever made — there’s something where I don’t rightly feel like I can take credit for it. It sort of came to me in a dream and then it was like, “It can be no other way.”
There were some discussions about if that was the right ending, and is that OK, and is it upsetting, or whatever it is. I really was like… you get a certain amount of gifts as a filmmaker. Not to be mystical, but I think you get some gifts that aren’t really down to you. If you’re engaged with making them, sometimes they fall into your lap and that one did. And I was like, “To the extent that I believe in cinema gods, if I tell them that I’m not going to use this gift they gave me, they’re going to turn their backs on me.” You’ve got to use the gift that you’ve been given and I just know this is one of those gifts. And then everyone was like, “You’re talking about cinema gods. Please end this meeting right now.”
In your own Greta Dream Land, how do you want audiences to feel when they leave the theater after seeing “Barbie”?
I want them to feel some sort of euphoric, collective catharsis of the glorious absurdity of being human. And that, in itself, it is worth celebrating.
Last question, and it’s the only one it could be: Do you ever think about dying?
Oh, my gosh. All the time. All the time. No, I really do. Really. But I think that is one of the reasons cinema feels like this thing I just want to keep making, because they are these time capsules of something that’s going only one way, it’s only heading in one direction. It’s all the sort of joy of it and the fear of it, all wrapped up into one thing.
Of the many things I’ve made in my life, Margot at a dance party as Barbie, asking everybody, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” is pretty much the nearest I’ve felt seen by my own work. It’s moving and also strange. When people first laughed at that, I thought, “Oh, good, I guess we’re all this way. I guess we all have this.” And yet we make dolls and get angry at them and go to the dance party and worry alone, and then find each other in the worry and then try to make meaning. I don’t know what else we can do.
Warner Bros. will release “Barbie” in theaters on Friday, July 21.
