Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig (birthname: Greta Celeste Gerwig) is one of her generation’s most acclaimed directors/writers/actors, with only her third feature as a filmmaker.

Gerwig’s first three features were collaborations with indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg: first, a supporting role in Swanberg’s movie, LOL (2006), with Kevin Bewersdorf, Swanberg, C. Mason Wells, and Tipper Newton, and which premiered at the South by Southwest film festival; next, as co-writer (with Swanberg and Kent Osborne) and as co-star (with Osborne) of Swanberg’s most acclaimed “mumblecore” movie, Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007), and which again premiered at South by Southwest and was released by IFC Films; and then, with Swanberg, as co-director/co-writer/co-producer/co-star of another “mumblecore” comedy, Nights and Weekends (2008), with Jay Duplass, Osborne, and Lynn Shelton, and again released by IFC after a South by Southwest premiere.

For the other major voices in “mumblecore cinema,” filmmaker-brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, Gerwig co-starred in Baghead (2008), with Ross Partridge, Steve Zissis, and Elise Muller, released by Sony Pictures Classics after its Sundance premiere. Gerwig co-starred in writer-director Mary Bronstein’s indie film, Yeast (2008), which marked a meeting of several major artists in the U.S. indie world, including—besides Gerwig–Josh and Benny Safdie (in supporting roles), Sean Price Williams (in a supporting role and as co-cinematographer) and Ronald Bronstein (as editor and assistant director).

After playing a supporting role in filmmaker/star Rod Webber’s I Thought You Finally Completely Lost It (2008), Gerwig had a small role in writer-director Ry Russo-Young’s indie film, You Won’t Miss Me (2009), with Stella Schnabel, Simon O’Connor, Noam Kimmerling, and Aaron Katz and which premiered at the Sundance film festival. In the early phase of her work in independent cinema, Gerwig was mainly an actor, such as her supporting role in director/writer/producer Ti West’s solid horror film, The House of the Devil (2009), with Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, A.J. Bowen, and Dee Wallace, and premiering at the Tribeca film festival.

Gerwig’s first major role was as co-star opposite Ben Stiller in Greenberg (2010), Gerwig’s first project with future husband and frequent collaborator, director/co-writer (with Jennifer Jason Leigh), Noah Baumbach, along with supporting players Leigh and Rhys Ifans, and which premiered at the Berlin film festival. After starring in the minor indie film, Art House (2010), with Iggy Pop, Gerwig co-starred again with filmmaker-actor Rod Webber in his next improvisational feature, Northern Comfort (2010).

Gerwig co-starred with Olly Alexander in the indie rom-com by director-writer Alison Bagnall, The Dish & The Spoon (2011), followed by a major supporting role in the biggest project Gerwig had worked into date, the Ivan Reitman-comedy, No Strings Attached (2011), co-starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, and grossing $149 million globally for Paramount Pictures. Greta Gerwig became a kind of “Indie Queen” during this period in such starring roles as hers in filmmaker Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress (2011), with Adam Brody, Lio Tipton, Aubrey Plaza, Alia Shawkat, and Megalyn Echikunwoke, and which premiered at the Venice film festival.

The second studio movie for actor Gerwig was Warner Bros.’s disappointing remake of Arthur (2011), starring Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Luis Guzmán, Nick Nolte, and Jennifer Garner. Gerwig starred opposite Joel Kinnaman in director/co-writer (with Zoe Lister-Jones, who also was in the cast) Daryl Wein’s Lola Versus (2012), with Bill Pullman and Debra Winger. Gerwig was cast by one of her filmmaker heroes, Woody Allen, in his Italian-set comedy, To Rome with Love (2012), opposite Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, and Elliot Page, and earning a robust $73 million worldwide.

Greta Gerwig’s first widely acclaimed filmmaking collaboration arrived in her showcase performance in the title role of Frances Ha (2012), which she co-wrote with then-new husband, director Noah Baumbach, with Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, and Michael Zegen, and which premiered at the Telluride film festival, and leading to a wave of award nominations for Gerwig, including from the Golden Globes and critics associations in London, Toronto, Vancouver, Central Ohio, the Broadcast Film Critics, and the IndieWire critics poll.

Gerwig’s first movie outside the U.S. involved a supporting role in Mia Hansen-Løve’s acclaimed French-language drama, Eden (2014), with Félix de Givry, Pauline Étienne, and Vincent Maccaigne, which premiered at the Toronto film festival. For The Humbling (2014), Gerwig joined an impressive roster of some legends, including star Al Pacino, co-star Dianne Wiest, Kyra Sedgwick, Charles Grodin, as well as co-screenwriter Buck Henry—who adapted Philip Roth’s novel—and director Barry Levinson. Greta Gerwig’s next significant step toward her own filmmaking career was marked by her starring/co-writing/co-producing Mistress America (2015), which she made with her most serious collaborator, filmmaker Baumbach, and alongside cast members Lola Kirke, Heather Lind, Kathryn Erbe, and Mickey Sumner.

For director/writer/co-producer Rebecca Miller, Gerwig starred opposite Ethan Hawke in Maggie’s Plan (2015), with Julianne Moore, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, and Wallace Shawn, which Sony Classics released in 2016 after a 2015 Toronto film festival premiere. Working with yet another major American indie filmmaker, Todd Solondz, Gerwig joined the ensemble of Ellen Burstyn, Kieran Culkin, Julie Delpy, Danny DeVito, Tracy Letts, and Zosia Mamet for Wiener-Dog (2016), premiering at the Sundance film festival.

Greta Gerwig had, by 2016, worked with a growing number of the leading writer-directors in North America, but then was cast by one of South America’s top filmmakers, Pablo Larrain, for a role in his stylized biopic, Jackie (2016), starring Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Crudup, John Hurt, and Richard E. Grant, and grossing a strong $37 million globally. Gerwig joined the distinguished ensemble of indie writer-director Mike Mills’ acclaimed 20^th Century Women (2016), co-starring Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Lucas Jade Zumann, and Billy Crudup, premiering at the New York film festival, and earning a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination for Mills, and Golden Globe nominations for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) and Best Actress (for Bening).

Greta Gerwig’s major breakthrough as a filmmaker arrived with her highly-praised autobiographical drama-comedy, Lady Bird (2017), featuring a superb cast led by Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, and Lois Smith, and which premiered at the Telluride film festival and went on to gross a robust $79 million gross for A24 (in North America) and Universal Pictures/Focus Features (ex-North America), capped with five Oscar nominations, including two for Gerwig (director, screenplay).

For her first collaboration with filmmaker Wes Anderson, Gerwig did a vocal performance for his stop-motion animated feature, Isle of Dogs (2018), with Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Kunichi Nomura, Tilda Swinton, Ken Watanabe, Akira Ito, Akira Takayama, Frances McDormand, F. Murray Abraham, Yoko Ono, and Harvey Keitel, and which premiered at the Berlin film festival.

Greta Gerwig’s triumphant third film as director-writer was her fine adaptation of Louis May Alcott’s classic, Little Women (2019), starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Louis Garrel, and Chris Cooper, grossing an excellent $219 million globally for Sony Pictures, and gaining six Oscar nominations (including best screenplay for Gerwig).

Gerwig continued her ongoing work with Noah Baumbach, as co-star opposite Adam Driver and Don Cheadle in the long-awaited adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise (2022). Greta Gerwig made a striking shift into big-budget ($145 million) studio filmmaking with the splashy summer 2023 release of Barbie, which she co-wrote with Baumbach, and co-starring Margot Robbie as Barbie, Ryan Gosling as Ken, and Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, and Rhea Perlman. For Disney, Gerwig co-wrote (with Erin Cressida Wilson) the live-action musical adaptation of the Brothers Grimm’s tale, Snow White (2024), with Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot.