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- Laura, you worked with both Noah Baumbach
and Greta Gerwig on films.
What did you find sort of similar about the way they work
and what was sort of the starkest difference?
- Well, I think they're both exacting about the words
because they really,
I think as a playwright would,
they really hear a rhythm to the language.
With Noah, it has its own specific nature
and one thing that I was so inspired by
and I think we found in rehearsals,
even when we aren't in the scenes with the people at hand,
when it's Adam with his attorney
or Scarlett and I together,
he feels there is a real musicality to the film.
I think he hears a rhythm, Noah,
that he's waiting for everyone to resonate with
in a really beautiful way.
And so having rehearsal time
and many dinners over,
in the case of Scarlett and myself and Adam,
over a year, year and a half,
as he was writing the script,
you started to see him build for each character
a similar melody.
In the case of Greta,
she was also adapting Little Women.
We wanted to honor Louisa May Alcott's words
and another time seemingly
but she's so brilliantly trusting
of how modern the story is,
of how modern Louisa's writing is,
and how clear a revolutionary Louisa was
and through these characters,
complicated and beautiful
different female characters that she wrote
but also that she heard the language
in a way that I think is very similar
to how she and Noah have worked and collaborated,
both as cowriters and her as his actress,
that there is a rhythm to the language that she brings
that is seemingly messy and joyful and complicated
and angry and all of those things
but it's very strategic.
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- I'm curious if you've ever had an experience
where the actor you had to work across from
wasn't giving you what you needed
or it just wasn't really vibing the way it needed to?
(laughing)
- Not working meaning chemistry,
like you don't connect?
- Yeah, and you really need to with that person.
- You know when you go to a party
and there are people who have that rhythm
where they're listening to you
and then they wait a long time before they respond
and if you're a person,
and I think we all share this,
where we're like almost finishing everybody's sentences
'cause we're having so much fun talking,
it's super weird when somebody goes,
I know what you mean.
You're like what?
How has it taken six minutes to respond to the?
So if you're with an actor
who's maybe rhythm is so different,
it could feel odd
or if they're just a mean unkind person.
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So I just wanted to say
because it's a rare,
unfortunately this is a rare gift
that we get to be in community like this.
Sometimes two of us or something
but as a group like this to talk,
so I want to say to each of you
what a privilege it is to be with you
and to also thank you
because raising a 14-year-old,
I'm watching how each of you
have inspired her as she walks through middle school,
which we all remember
and beyond it being about your art,
the nonengagement with needing to change the story
which is what we got into in middle school,
the bravery of saying, I know who I am
and I'm gonna hold that
and I don't need to defend the story
is a massive thing for young girls,
the power and the ferocity of knowing who you are
without that need to justify,
with as small as to friends in seventh grade
having their own story of like she said this
and she said that,
all the way to love stories
all the way to careers and being public figures.
So thank you for that,
the work of being true to yourself ultimately.
That's like the big stuff.
- I knew you were gonna make us all feel good at this table.
- You did?
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