Greta Gerwig
Greta Gerwig's face became synonymous with the work of contemporary American indies through movies like Hannah Takes the Stairs, Baghead and the deeply intimate Nights and Weekends, for which she shares a directorial credit with DIY filmmaker Joe Swanberg (see our profile here). The actress spoke with us and offered a few lessons she learned from her time with the director as she prepares to step onto a new plane by appearing opposite Ben Stiller in Noah Baumbach's upcoming Greenberg (scheduled to release in 2010).
"Keep moving forward, don't get too comfy. As an actor and collaborator, I worked with Joe off and on for a year and a half, and it engaged a really strange part of my brain that isn't usually required while acting. It's not just that we were making up the dialogue; it felt very much like living without gravity.
"Don't listen to your critics or to the people who praise you. Joe always tries to have his next film finished before criticism about the current film comes out, so he won't let other people affect what he makes one way or another.
"[Joe]'s an incredibly brave filmmaker. Or maybe bravery is the wrong word, because it indicates that you would rather do something else but you're going to grit your teeth and do the right thing. Which isn't the case with Joe. I don't think he ever even flirts with the idea of not making the project he has set out to make.
"He was an integral part of creating a sense of community in the independent film world by putting so many other filmmakers into his projects. I think he contributed greatly to people seeing these so-called D.I.Y. films as unified in some way -- not because he said, "Look at us, we're all the same," but because he was the link between so many people. And more importantly, he really did make a lot of people feel less alone in what they were trying to do.
"If something interests me as an actor, I'll do it, no matter the budget. In many ways, though, I don't see a division. I have not found that people are any less passionate or committed to making something good when they have more money rather than less."
"Keep moving forward, don't get too comfy. As an actor and collaborator, I worked with Joe off and on for a year and a half, and it engaged a really strange part of my brain that isn't usually required while acting. It's not just that we were making up the dialogue; it felt very much like living without gravity.
"Don't listen to your critics or to the people who praise you. Joe always tries to have his next film finished before criticism about the current film comes out, so he won't let other people affect what he makes one way or another.
"[Joe]'s an incredibly brave filmmaker. Or maybe bravery is the wrong word, because it indicates that you would rather do something else but you're going to grit your teeth and do the right thing. Which isn't the case with Joe. I don't think he ever even flirts with the idea of not making the project he has set out to make.
"He was an integral part of creating a sense of community in the independent film world by putting so many other filmmakers into his projects. I think he contributed greatly to people seeing these so-called D.I.Y. films as unified in some way -- not because he said, "Look at us, we're all the same," but because he was the link between so many people. And more importantly, he really did make a lot of people feel less alone in what they were trying to do.
"If something interests me as an actor, I'll do it, no matter the budget. In many ways, though, I don't see a division. I have not found that people are any less passionate or committed to making something good when they have more money rather than less."
