Greta Gerwig

I wrote the script to 'Lady Bird,' and it really came out of a desire to make a project about home - like, what the meaning of home is, and place. I knew Sacramento very well, obviously, growing up there, and I felt like the right way to tell a story of a place was through a person who's about to leave it. ”

I just don't feel like I've seen very many movies about 17-year-old girls where the question is not, 'Will she find the right guy' or 'Will he find her?' The question should be, 'Is she going to occupy her personhood?' Because I think we're very unused to seeing female characters, particularly young female characters, as people. ”

I'm really interested in trying to tell stories about women that don't involve romantic components. That's so much a part of the way we feel about female characters and their needs that it feels like it's built in - but I'd like to find a way that it's not. There are so many more stories than that. ”

When you're writing a screenplay, it's like you're dreaming the film for yourself again and again and again until it becomes almost like a memory before you make it. ”

I stopped being interested in improvisation, and I continue to not be that interested in it. Comedians can do it on a different level because they have a goal, but if you're improvising something that's dramatic, there's not that much to be good at. ”

As an actor, I just go off the director. I never ask how big the part is. I don't look at it from the perspective of, 'Is this going to be good for my career?' I just look for directors, and I think part of that is I knew I always wanted to be a director. ”

I'm far too middle-class to morally object to a paying job. ”

Greta Gerwig always seemed like a name that was mine. My mother did a good job. ”

I don't really decide what the core of the story is before I write. I write to figure out what the story is. And I think the characters end up talking to you and telling you what they want to be doing and what is important to them. So in some ways, your job is to listen as much as it is to write. ”

I think that people in their 20s actually aren't given enough credit for their ambition. ”