All right.
And people, Greta, are just discovering this movie still.
You know, most of them saw it for the first time
and obviously, they kinda liked it, you could tell.
Which makes you feel great, I bet.
You know, coming out here and seeing this
kind of response that you've been getting to this film.
Which is essentially your first,
it's certainly your first solo directorial achievement.
Can you guys hear me?
Okay good.
No, this is amazing.
This is, what a surprise on a Saturday afternoon.
Yeah, it was an amazing journey.
Like, I loved making the film.
It's my first writing, directing, solo debut,
and I had such an amazing
It was such an incredible group of actors and crew
and everyone who came together to make it.
And I know everyone really poured their heart into it,
and that it's being received that way
is just, it's the most exciting thing for me.
And I think for all of us.
Yeah, it's something.
And people, I think, will come up to you often and say,
oh, so it's gotta be your story,
you're from Sacramento, you know,
you went to a Catholic school, you did all of this stuff.
But, tell them the truth.
It is your story.
The truth is, I mean I'm from Sacramento
and I had to go to Catholic high school,
and I really very much wanted to
make a movie that took place in Sacramento,
because I love it very much and it's my home.
And I have really strong ties there, my family's there,
my best friends from growing up are there.
So that's all very much grounded in what I knew,
but the character of Lady Bird was actually
something that both Saoirse and I
realized when we started working on this together,
it was not who I was when I was in high school.
I was a much more,
I never made anyone call me by a different name,
I didn't die my hair bright red,
I was a very rule-following kid.
And I think we related on that level,
and then when I wrote I was trying
to almost create a person who was
more brave than I had the ability to be,
who was more wildly herself.
And it wasn't until I saw Saoirse to do it
that I got to meet this flawed heroine that I had made up.
You know, and we have a bunch
of actors in the audience here,
and this is such a great,
all the way down the line and those that aren't here too,
great ensemble you've put together.
And you know, as an actor yourself,
what is that approach you have
in working with actors as a director?
I know you're not in the movie yourself.
Yeah, oh, well, I just, I adore actors.
I mean, I've acted a lot,
it's such a huge part of who I am as a director
because it's how I was on sets, it was my film school.
Because I didn't go to proper film school.
And I feel like, for me,
part of what's so gratifying about making movies
is trying to figure out how to
work with each individual, with what they need,
because every actor needs something else,
and kind of getting in there.
Like for me, my most treasured memories
are the scenes when they,
for some reason, like, didn't work,
and we had to kinda get in there
and figure out why and solve it together.
Because those are the moments where,
you know, you're really being asked
to bring all your creativity to the moment.
And yeah, it was extraordinary,
the group of people who said yes.
And how did you come upon
the idea of casting Saoirse in this?
How did that come to you?
Did you think of her when you were writing it, or?
No, I wasn't thinking of anyone.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Saoirse.
I don't think of, I haven't thought of yet
actors while I was writing.
Plus it would seem pretty
presumptuous of me to think of her.
I was looking for my Lady Bird
and I was working with my casting directors
and I hadn't found her and
my producer, Scott Rudin, slipped her the script,
and she really responded to it.
And then we started skyping
and then we met up at the Toronto Film Festival.
And it was just instant, it was instantly right.
And it was so different than what I thought,
but exactly what I had wanted
and not been able to articulate.
Saoirse, for you, what about playing this?
We've seen you do so many great,
different kinds of roles,
but I haven't seen you do one quite like Lady Bird before.
Yeah, I mean I don't think anyone
Does this work?
It feels like it doesn't work.
Can you hear me?
Okay, all right.
Yeah, I mean I don't think anyone's
quite seen a character like this before.
And I think even within that world,
nobody knows anyone like Lady Bird.
I think, you know, you can see
the affection that her family and her friends
and Danny and all these different people have for her,
because she is so many things.
I think she's sort of allowing herself to be everything
in order to find out which thing fits the best.
And to have that sorta bravery, to pursue the thing
not knowing what the thing is
is a trait that I didn't
necessarily have when I was younger
and am still trying to use a little bit more now.
And so I think that was something
that I admired an awful lot in her,
just her bravery to sort of go for it
regardless of what it is.
[Moderator] Do you work with, I know Greta's
Yours sounds so much louder.
It really does.
[Moderator] Did you work with Greta
in developing the character?
I know once the script's done
and you're out shooting it, that's that.
But how did you develop it along the way?
I mean I think when it came to,
you know, the physicality, her movement, her look,
which can actually just really feed into a character anyway,
that sort of stuff we worked on together.
You know, her bedroom, how her bedroom was gonna look
and her, what was gonna hang from her schoolbag.
You know, the little sort of similarities
that her and her best friend were gonna have.
Which actually were all really really
important things to add to a character,
as an actor, I think, with the director.
So much of it was on the page already, it really was,
and we didn't really veer away,
well we didn't at all veer away from the dialogue.
It was sort of set in stone, which was great,
so we always had that to fall back on
and to build up from.
But yeah, I think, you know,
all of the progress came from
Greta and I talking to each other a lot,
spending time together in the year up to shooting,
and then all of us getting to,
you know, hang out a few months before we shot the film.
This is like a mother-daughter
love story of a different sort, definitely,
but you can relate to the two of you
in a big way, Laurie.
And you know, this is such a great character that you have
because even though she seems rough on her
you can see the love there.
Yeah, I know.
And that's to Greta's credit,
because, you know, on the page
you can instantly see the battles that we have
and the triggers and the passive-aggressive qualities
that we, that we're masters of,
but Greta, I love the little moments of heart
that are thrown here and there
that go a long way in telling their backstory
that we don't get to see
because we're only seeing them
at this one particular time within their relationship.
And you know that they're gonna
ease their way out of it.
But I adored working on the movie
and working with everybody in it,
and reading it for the first time
I was just, I couldn't wait to get started on it.
It was wonderful to go to work every day.
Tell me about that opening scene in the car,
which I understand was actually
shot towards the end of the shoot.
But it's so real to look at.
Did you really just fly out of
that car while she's driving along?
Oh yeah.
Now it's louder.
Yeah.
I do all my own stunts, drop and rolls.
Very good with the drop and rolls.
No, we had a big conversation about it beforehand.
'Cause I've done quite a few stunts before
where my life has been put in danger,
so in this case, everyone was like,
so cautious and, you know,
we were on a rig, so we did it near the end of the film,
and it was so great because Laurie and I
had rehearsed, and we had done
every other argument scene, which was really great.
No it actually was really great,
because you know, in rehearsals,
it was Laurie who said it at first, I think,
that it was really important to sort of pinpoint
what type of argument each argument was,
and how we can't sort of repeat the same one twice.
So we had gotten to know each other
as characters and as actors really well,
and then by the time we did this,
it just all sorta clicked into place.
The car was put on a rig,
and Greta was in a car in front
sort of looking at us through the windscreen,
which her walkie and her bag of Cheetos.
You're an action director all of a sudden.
She's an action director.
Paul Greengrass, what?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just as long as I have Cheetos
I can do any action scene.
Yeah, but it was, it sort of felt
like it clicked into place right away.
I loved working on that scene,
because it got to be kinda messy,
we were stepping on each other's lines.
And it was emotionally all over the map.
From weeping at the beginning
to you know, here comes all the button pressing
and hurling yourself out of the car door at the end.
Yeah, right from the very first
take of the two of them in the car,
it was like, it was just great.
And most of, you know, the two shot of the,
it's mostly that first take.
They were so locked into each other by that point,
that it felt like getting to be
an audience member to your own film
as it's being made is one of the
most pleasurable feelings I've ever had.
And what's great as well with the way that
Greta and Sam Levy, our DP, shot it
was that there's so many scenes
that are just mainly shot in a two shot.
And for me personally, I don't know about you guys,
but it really takes the pressure off when you're acting
to know that like, what you do
with that other person is what will be seen.
It's not like it's a shot that's just for your performance.
So it was really, that's why I love doing car scenes as well
because so much of it is about
what's going on in that one take.
So that, I think that really helped too,
that we knew we had to bring it within that one take.
You know, you and your cast here, so many of them,
and others in the movie, come from the theatre.
And it's just an incredible cast you put together.
Most of their careers are largely in the theatre,
and obviously many other places too.
But what that intentional?
Yeah, well I mean, I live in New York
and I go to the theatre all the time.
I actually knew Laurie's work primarily from the theatre,
as well as Tracy Letts, who plays Larry.
As opposed to like, Roseanne or other things she's done?
I grew up without television.
Because my parents hated me, no.
No, they were really looking out for me.
No, but I, so I didn't know,
there's like, lots of large, embarrassing gaps
of cultural pop knowledge that I don't have.
I spent a lot of my youth pretending
that I knew what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were.
Anyway.
But yeah, and Timothee was,
I mean he went to LaGuardia High School in New York,
but he was in a play in New York that I was pointed to,
and I actually, I knew his teacher at LaGuardia as well.
And Tracy, of course, he writes brilliant plays.
And I've also seen him act in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
and a play called The Realistic Joneses.
And Lois Smith I'd seen on stage, and Stephen McKinley
(applause)
Stephen McKinley Henderson
is a stage actor I love very much.
In a way it was, it's my favorite way to watch actors
because there's nothing interfering
with me looking at them, watching them work.
I'm a theatre nerd at heart,
and so I think that's always
sort of what I gravitate towards.
And I get, I just get excited that
I might be able to work with them.
[Moderator] That's what makes it
one of the best ensemble casts I've seen.
And it's also fun to shoot.
Like Saoirse was saying about the two shots,
I think there's something about
actors who are used to a stage and a proscenium.
I kind of wanna give them the space
to let them act with their whole bodies.
I don't always wanna just get in their faces,
I want to see how they,
how they move with each other.
Like the other thing that's created between the two of them,
not just isolation, if that makes sense.
And since she mentioned you, Timothee,
and my mic's now not working,
talk about, no this one works, okay,
talk about your role here of Kyle,
which is a really cool role.
You've had a lot of great roles this year too, obviously.
So congratulations on that and everything that's happening.
Thank you.
I think the thing that was important for me with this role,
besides having excellent reference points,
both from, I think people in real life that Greta knew,
but also just different books
that were good to read for the character,
it was important for me that I didn't
just sit as an antagonizer.
And if people see it that way then that's fine too.
But I had done a character arc on a TV show called Homeland
and when I watched it back I always felt
like I just, there are moments where I,
you know, where you can just be the antagonizer
as opposed to finding the real human in that.
And it's more a testament to the writing,
but hopefully people can see that character
as you know, an antagonizer in Lady Bird's life,
but as someone that is genuinely suffering
and has real emotions and is just
living a sad existence at this point, and paranoid.
I loved your scenes together, too.
You look at him, he is a, he's not the bad guy
but he's certainly the cool guy,
somebody she hasn't, you haven't seen before.
Oh yeah.
Oh she notices Kyle.
This is just me complimenting myself.
No no, it was the R&B.
Oh yeah.
Anyway, you had to be there.
Yeah, we were talking about it the other day.
Timmy and I were doing an interview,
and we were chatting about their dynamic.
And I think, I mean it's sort of
the same with Jenna as well, who Odeya plays.
With Kyle, I think she so doesn't understand that world
or what she perceives to be that world
that she's just sort of like, following his next move.
'Cause he's so unpredictable.
And I think Danny, he's so lovely,
but it's a different kind of, there's a comfort there.
And I think we're, you know, we're watching a kid.
Like what most kids do, they kind of
push themselves out of their comfort zone little by little,
just to see what's gonna happen.
And so he's that to her, I think.
And Odeya, you're playing the girl everybody wants to be,
every girl wants to be, in school.
That's for sure, that's the ideal.
But she's not a stereotype,
which is what I liked about her.
I mean, you could see the friendship,
she was not the mean girl kind of character,
which it could easily go into in a lot of Hollywood movies.
Can you talk about playing Jenna?
I agree with what you said.
I think that's the only way to do it.
I mean, I think a lot of it is Greta's writing.
The first time when I auditioned,
when I just read the writing,
I just knew how to say it.
I just knew what kind of girl she was
and how she talked right away.
And the writing was so exceptional,
so that really helped it.
I think it's just, if you grow up really comfortably
and you have a good family
and everything is kinda working out,
you don't really want to reach for anything else.
And I think she's just someone that,
everybody has struggles in their lives,
but she just didn't really have that intense of struggles,
so she's kind of okay and doesn't wanna try so hard,
whereas Lady Bird is such a go-getter,
and I think all of her struggles lead to that,
to her going to New York.
But I think Jenna just hasn't had anything crazy going on
and that's her life and that's what she's used to
and that's her reality, so it's just,
it's just kind of a comfort for her.
Did making this movie
make you wanna move to Sacramento?
No.
[Moderator] Do you all just wanna move to Sacramento?
I actually went to Sacramento for two days.
We went to a Paul McCartney concert.
Shoutout to Eli for hooking those tickets up,
that was really fun.
But it's so beautiful, and it's so
I'm not from the States, I'm from Israel,
so it's, I feel like Sacramento
is what you think America is.
You know, it's big, everything's just spread out
and there's no rush and people are super polite
and they're nice because they wanna be nice.
It's very kind of politically correct
but in a way that's, you know,
you're not trying to piss anyone off.
And Israel's very, like,
You know what I mean?
Everything is small and crammed.
So, yeah.
I asked that because I saw this movie at Telluride,
but since then I've seen three other movies
all shot in Sacramento.
It's happening.
Sacramento's, just wait and see, it's coming.
No I mean, there's lots of great things.
I can really talk about Sacramento.
It's the city of trees.
It has more trees than Paris.
It has the largest tree canopy in North America.
Tom Hanks is from Sacramento.
This is the first thing Greta talked about when I met her.
Is that right?
Mark Spitz, I can keep going.
Jessica Chastain.
You know, I mean, we're in there.
Justice Kennedy.
You do know, you should work for the Chamber of Commerce.
It's my side gig.
Marielle, so, talk about working,
obviously the role, the character
of Shelly and Miguel, they're great.
They are sort of, they become sort of the same person.
It's an interesting dynamic.
They're one.
They're like this dark shadow that just like follows.
But we decided really early on
that they were like, very much in love,
and that they had this very sweet relationship.
And although they like, look extreme,
and are like, a pretty intense couple,
but they actually really love each other.
And I think that's a testament to the writing,
is that you can follow any story
and it's a full life.
So we get a little peek into their life,
but not like, you know, fully yet.
Yet.
Just kidding.
Lady Bird II.
Shelly and Miguel Go Vegan.
Really, is there gonna be a Lady Bird II?
I mean, I do think if there was a Lady Bird II,
it would be like, following a character
that was not the main character.
Like I would, I wanna know like,
we had this whole backstory, like,
Shelly and Miguel met while they were both at Berkeley,
and they were both like, goth
and politically super-left, and they were like
living in a commune house together.
We had this whole thing, and they just,
I dunno, they're like, politically-charged veganism.
That really warms my heart.
I love them, they're great.
They're like a great, they're great characters.
You guys, Jordan and you would wear your hair
the same way in every scene.
In Christmas they both have this top-knot.
I made Jordan do that.
I was like, let's have the top-knot.
He was like, no.
I was like, yeah.
Well, I can't say, my brother's in the audience,
but he dated this girl,
and they, sorry Michael,
they became kind of the same person.
So when I ready the script I was like,
oh I know them, oh wow.
And so it was really easy for me to tap into that.
Sorry Michael.
All right Bob.
I took drama all through high school,
all through college, I was that kind of guy.
And I never had a drama teacher like you.
Well I think if you asked Greta to be honest,
they script started with the JV coach.
I mean really, like, it's kind of like
what this whole thing centers around.
His backstory and whatnot.
I went to a boarding school,
and I actually, we had teachers that would,
they never had enough teachers
so they would always kinda cover for each other.
And so, we had a math teacher try to do PE once,
and it was pretty, I was just like,
man, he's really trying.
Like, nobody really wanted to be there,
but man, he was gung ho and he's gonna do this.
And I was like, I'm just gonna do that, I think.
I feel like he's just gonna make the best of it.
You know, these kids, I'm gonna get 'em.
I'm gonna win these kids.
So, yeah.
You did it so realistically though.
I mean the whole thing was so, actually believable,
and kind of endearing.
Is he based on anybody you've ever encountered?
Well there was a football coach slash choir teacher,
which was a very exciting combination.
But when Bob did it,
he brought this incredible sweetness to it.
You know, it was written on the page
that he was that person
and now he's gonna try to do this,
but like, he brought this kind of earnest trying to it.
He was really, he was gonna do the very best he could,
he was gonna take these skills
and try to apply them over here.
And it was just, it made you love the character.
Because it wasn't just,
it was a man really doing the best he could.
And I just, it just, it was hilarious.
It was super fun 'cause it was basically like,
okay, stand at the chalk board, okay, go.
Just draw some X's and O's and start.
Yeah.
That was like one of the few places,
like I don't do improvisation at all,
but that was one of the very few places that like,
we had the scripted things,
like you know, a play is a play,
and then I was like, now just explain this
based on who you know this guys is,
and he came up with like, the wide lines are singing.
That was, I mean I was crying I was laughing so hard
while we were doing this.
I couldn't believe it.
I was like, well, if nothing else, we've got that.
And you had much more than that,
because I'm gonna turn to some audience question
which they filled out,
and go right into something that ties in with this.
And this is from Marcus, where's Marcus?
Right in the back, there's Marcus.
Okay, Marcus wants to know
what the inspiration was for choosing
Merrily We Roll Along, a show I loved,
and has Stephen Sondheim seen the film?
Merrily We Roll Along is my favorite musical.
And yeah, and Stephen Sondheim is my,
he's Stephen Sondheim, he's interchangeable
with any deity you wanna throw out there.
I love him so much.
And there was something about the musical, Merrily,
that felt like, it was,
for people who don't know the musical,
it's about three best friends,
and it starts when they're all grown up,
and then it moves backwards in time
to when they were 17, 18, graduating from high school,
dreaming about the life they'll have.
And it's a beautiful musical
but there's a real central kind of ache in it,
because it has this quality of like,
time is tumbling forward
faster than you can hold on to it,
and moments are kind of just slipping past you.
And I felt like,
it was kind of an inappropriate
musical for a high school to do,
which made me laugh.
I didn't do that musical.
I also love it when teenagers
pretend to drink alcohol on stage.
I think it's so funny.
Like, I wish I could just have a supercut
of like, all teenagers playing older people drinking.
Or doing Death of a Salesman or something.
But so, I love that,
and then I figured for the people
who knew what the musical was,
they'd sort of know why that works.
And the people who didn't,
I wasn't overly concerned with explaining what it was.
I thought, maybe you'll go home and look it up,
and then you'll know what it is.
But yeah, I love it.
And I loved, them doing it was like, so great.
Yeah like, Mari and Jordan and Tracy's face watching.
It was just like the best cutaway I could've asked for.
And did Sondheim see the movie?
Oh god, did he?
I don't know, he did read the script
when he gave his permission.
But I don't know that he's seen it yet.
I have to
I'm kinda nervous about that.
But I'd love him to.
You have put his notorious flop show
that shouldn't be on film forever.
Forever, that's right.
I bet he'll love that.
I hope so.
All right, this is for Saoirse.
I don't know who wrote this but
you know who you are out there.
Now that you're older and wiser,
do you approach your roles differently?
Or how is it different?
How is it different?
I think I definitely went through a stage where
I probably overcomplicated it a little bit.
Because, you know, when you do it when you're a kid,
it's so simple.
It's so, it's kind of easy in a way.
You're not, your thought isn't clouded by
second-guessing yourself or
comparing yourself to someone else
or something else you've done,
'cause you haven't done anything else.
There's no expectations or anything like that.
And so it's an amazing feeling
to just be completely kinda uninhibited.
So that's something that I've had to get back to.
And I only went through a little stage
where I was sort of, you know,
didn't have it as much.
But I'm back to that now.
But I also think like, from role to role,
it's always a slightly different prep.
But ultimately, for me, it's been the same.
Because I didn't train or start in theater
or anything like that,
I really did sort of just rely on
the script and instinct.
And then from that, being able to,
being open to trying things different ways.
But I haven't really veered away from that at all.
But you did go to theatre and did The Crucible,
right about the time that you got this role too.
Timmy's a big fan.
It was great.
Timothee, he's a clear fan of that show.
He loved it.
No, it was very, it was very exciting.
She was so great in The Crucible.
I brought Lucas Hedges, who's also so fantastic,
who's in this movie,
I cast Lucas as Danny,
and he came with me to see her in The Crucible,
and I was sitting there, and I realized,
because Lucas was gasping and really into it,
and I was like, have you never,
do you not, have you not seen this?
And he was like, he'd never seen it, never read it,
he didn't know what it was about.
So he was like, experiencing it for the first time,
and it was so wonderful.
And he was, how many people know The Crucible really well?
You know, the part where they're writing,
and he's like, doing his commandments
and he misses adultery from his commandments,
and Lucas was like, he missed adultery!
And I was like, yes.
For Greta and Timothee,
please tell us about the construction of Kyle,
such a wonderfully specific douchebag to our generation,
like so on the nose to be entirely Timothee's invention.
Would love to hear about the full process
that went into his creation
and specifically his clueless well-meaning narcissism.
Well I have to say, I have to say,
I have to say that I do not think of Kyle as a douchebag.
I think of him as a, you know,
a 17-year-old, who's like, you know,
dealing with his own stuff.
And he's got a lot of defense mechanisms.
I mean, I never, like with Odeya's character,
I never wanted the character Timothee
was playing to be generic.
I didn't want him to be like,
the high school kid who was just,
like, you know, some sort of jock or something.
I wanted him to be like,
he's not wrong about a lot
I mean the truth is I share some of Kyle's paranoias.
I mean, it's the honest truth.
I mean, he's got some valid points.
I'm not trying to barter, but,
I do think they might try to put cell phones in our brains.
I was in a bar two weeks ago in New York,
I saw someone kinda staring me down,
I thought, oh cool, probably saw Call Me By Your Name.
And they said, isn't that the douchebag from Lady Bird?
But listen, I mean,
he's not a pure antagonizer people.
This kid has real problems in his life.
And let me tell you,
there is a scene in this movie similar
So Danny, which is Lucas' character,
gets that beautiful scene where,
near the garbage, and breaks down in Lady Bird's arms,
and it's, as an audience you go, yay for Danny.
There was a scene in this film where my father dies
and I go over to my family and I give them a hug
and we all break down together.
Weirdly, I met the family that day,
'cause it's acting, and you meet people
you're acting with sometimes, day of.
And it was very surreal going over to a family,
and like, all crying together.
Because none of us knew each other.
And that scene evidently got cut
and it's not in the movie.
I know.
That was one of the only scenes
that didn't make it in the final.
That was one of the only scenes that didn't make it?
Well there's a couple scenes.
That scene, and there was an
official goodbye scene with Danny,
an official goodbye scene with Julie.
But both of those, there was like a feeling of,
those stories felt like they were closed loops
by the time I was in the edit.
But I would say like 90 percent
of the script is on the screen.
I mean, almost exactly as written.
Will it be in the Blu-Ray in the extras?
I don't know.
DVD extras have always kind of
freaked me out, I have to say.
Well it's because when I watched them when I was a kid
it was like, wait, those two characters hung out? What?
Like I felt sort of betrayed by them.
I'm specifically thinking of
the DVD extras of Good Will Hunting.
No, I swear.
Like Minnie Driver goes and visits
Ben Affleck on a construction site,
and they talk about Will Hunting.
And I was like, they're not friends,
she wouldn't do that, what's happening?
And I felt like, I don't wanna know this.
So, sorry that's just my own problem with that.
No it isn't, it isn't.
Cinema Paradiso's one of my favorite movies,
and I made the mistake of watching
the longer director's cut,
and it should have been the original version, and not that.
I didn't want to see him go on for 45 minutes later.
Sometimes what you left us is the way it should be
and what you gave us here is a gem.
So thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.
Thank all of you for coming out.
Thanks guys.