The British Film Institute’s (BFI) London Film Festival held a packed Q&A session with writer-director Greta Gerwig on Sunday evening with “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong moderating.
A natural topic of conversation has been the success of her “Barbie” movie which has “been incredible” she says (via Variety).
She revealed that during the film’s opening weekend, she covertly travelled around cinemas in New York and instructed staff on the film’s presentation. That included turning up the volume “if I felt it wasn’t playing at the perfect level”.
She confirmed to the audience she is currently “in the writing process” on her next feature and the thought of writing is giving her “recurring nightmares” at this time. She explains how she handles the writing process and the self-doubt that often comes with it:
“Writing is the thing I most enjoy having done but feels painful when I’m doing it. Writing is painful to me in a deep way. You’re by yourself and it’s quiet. Every voice you’ve ever had in your head that says ‘you’re not very good’ is loud.”
Gerwig’s most recent screen credit is the upcoming live-action “Snow White” film at Disney starring Rachel Zegler and directed by Marc Webb. What her next writing project is and when we’ll see it, sadly she wouldn’t reveal any details.
She also revealed the studio considered throwing out the big “I’m Just Ken” song and dance sequence. She says she was asked in a ‘big meeting’ if the scene was necessary and had to draw a comparison to the musical classic “Singing in the Rain” to sell the scene:
“It just said in the script, ‘And then it becomes a dream ballet and they work it out through dance’. There was a big meeting that was like, ‘Do you need this?’ And I was like, ‘Everything in me needs this.’ They were like, ‘What do you even mean? What is a dream ballet?’ And I was like, ‘A dream ballet? Where do I begin!’.
I was like – if people could follow that in ‘Singing in the Rain,’ I think we’ll be fine. I think people will know what this is. So that was the big reference point. Even though everything felt right to me and was giving me so much joy in the way we were doing it, it was also like, ‘Oh no, this could be just terrible, but now I’m committed.'”
“Barbie” has become the highest-grossing movie of the year thus far and made history as the highest-grossing film by a solo female director.
