Behind The Scenes Of 'Lady Bird' With Director Greta Gerwig

In a moving car, a nurse and her teenage daughter evoke a palpable air of tension. 17-year-old Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson expresses her desire to flee California for an East Coast college. Her mother, Marion, tells her that she’s a snob and needs a reality check. “The way that you work, you’re not even worth state tuition. Just go to city college, then to jail, then to city college again.”

The teenager then yanks the car door open and hurls herself out while her mother screams.

This dramatic confrontation is the introduction to “Lady Bird,” the solo directorial debut of Greta Gerwig, the actress turned writer-director who's best known for her work in films “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America.”

Gerwig says that the film — in which Saoirse Ronan stars as Lady Bird and Laurie Metcalf as Marion — is largely an homage to the complexities of the mother-daughter bond.

“For a long time, the working title of the movie was ‘Mothers and Daughters,’ Gerwig tells Patch. “The mother-daughter relationship is the love story of the film. It is the central theme of the movie.”

“Most women I know had infinitely beautiful, incredibly complicated relationships with their mothers in their teenage years,” explained the director. “I wanted to make a film where the audiences feel that neither of the characters is a monster nor an angel, and neither one is right nor wrong.”

Although the coming-of-age film is about an artistically talented high school senior who longs to escape her monotonous suburban life in Sacramento, the director said that it was actually her deep love of the city that inspired her to film this movie.

“I grew up in Sacramento, and I love Sacramento,” Gerwig said. “The film represents my desire to write a love letter to a place that only came into focus after I left.”

“None of the events in the film literally happened. Of course, there are events in the movie that are connected to me, and at the core, they all rhyme with the truth,” continued Gerwig.

She also explained the significance of setting the semi-autobiographical tale around Lady Bird’s senior year in high school. “Senior year shines bright, but its vividness disappears as quickly as it emerges. It has a sense of beauty that you only get to appreciate and understand when it ends.”

Gerwig shared that by the time she had the first full draft, she knew she was going to direct the movie —despite having a brief “moment of not being sure” about her choice.

“I’ve always wanted to direct, but I didn’t go to film school,” said the director. “So, I really learned how to direct by being on the film set through acting, producing, co-writing and watching the directors do it.”

“I’ve been working in films for 10 years, and I thought there’s more to learn, but there’s not more to learn by not doing it. You have to do it, and see what’s on the other side.” she asserted.

In the end, her decision to both write and direct the film ended up being the right choice.

“There’s no greater pleasure than being a writer-director because I love the communal aspect of making films,” explained Gerwig. “I get to work with different people every step of the way during the entire movie project.”

This film is the first collaboration between Gerwig and Ronan, and the director can’t speak about the Oscar-nominated Irish actress “without becoming emotional.”

“I met with Saoirse at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015. As soon as I heard her say the words from the script, I knew that she was Lady Bird. Her performance in the movie is mind-boggling. The way she transformed herself is simply flawless, bringing in the entire physicality and rhythm into Lady Bird,” Gerwig said.

While Gerwig said she hadn't seen Metcalf during her Emmy-winning tenure on “Roseanne,” she's always admired her for being one of the “great stage actresses, a person who had shaped modern American theater” and knew Metcalf would bring depth to the role of Ronan's domineering mother.

“Laurie brings so much humanity and pathos to Marion and still has hairpin comic timing,” said Gerwig.

The way in which Ronan and Metcalf interacted on camera made shooting certain scenes — like that tense opening fight — both exciting and memorable for Gerwig.

“We shot the first scene in the last week, that massive fight in the car. By then, [Ronan and Metcalf] were completely locked into each other’s rhythm. I wanted the confrontation to feel intimate, like they’ve had it a million times. In the end, I was mesmerized as I was watching two masters working at their craft. It was thrilling,” the director said.

So, would Gerwig be open to directing a blockbuster movie in the future?

“Yes. I would be open to directing a big movie with a big budget because it would give me an opportunity to have a bigger palette, a bigger canvas for what I’d like to do — but I want first to have enough of a reputation to make them a little bit scared to tell me what to do. That’s the ideal, I’ll say,” Gerwig said laughingly.

“Lady Bird” opens in select theaters on Friday Nov 3, and everywhere on Nov 10.

Watch "Lady Bird" Official Trailer:

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  Top Photo: (L-R) Director of Photography Sam Levy and Director Greta Gerwig on set of "Lady Bird" (Photo Courtesy of A24)