I’m not saying that everyone needs to be celibate, but you don’t need a romance to complete a story about a woman Greta Gerwig More Quotes by Greta Gerwig More Quotes From Greta Gerwig I love just seeing shots of New York inside of a fictional movie that are not controlled. I do not like shots with extras, I have to say. I don't mind extras in other scenes, but I love New York City streets just as they look. I don't even care if someone looks at the camera. It doesn't bother me. Greta Gerwig cities new-york mind I wanted to be a playwright in college. That's what I was interested in and that's what I was moving toward, and then I had the lucky accident of falling in love with film. I was 19 or 20 that I realized films are made by people. Shooting digitally became cheaper and better. You couldn't make something that looked like a Hollywood film, but you could make something through which you could work out ideas. I was acting, but I was also conceiving the plots and operating the camera when I wasn't onscreen. I got very unvain about film acting, and it became a sort of graduate school for me. Greta Gerwig falling-in-love school moving It's so hard for people to give up their cell phones or their ideas of being connected to everything all the time in order to get an immersive experience. That's the best way to make art. It's almost like you have to treat it like you're going into a submarine, and Noah Baumbach totally agrees with that. There's not a real other life that happens outside of the movie while it's being shot, which I like. Greta Gerwig giving-up real art There are a million little things, but one of the best ways to get to know characters is to just put them in situations and see what they say. Greta Gerwig littles character way I love shooting in New York because I love the city. Ultimately, I like doing it there and the city is important to the story, but it can be hard to shoot where you live too because it is so all-absorbing. Greta Gerwig important cities new-york I'm not really capable of memorizing stuff without moving around, that's how I do it. Greta Gerwig memorizing stuff moving I think the problem with growing up and idealizing self-destructive artists is that you only see the beauty they created rather than all the pain that went along with it. Greta Gerwig growing-up pain artist I'm far too middle-class to morally object to a paying job. Greta Gerwig Everybody's got a dud. You can't get out of it. That's the price of admission: you'll get some duds. You'll get some things where you missed a little. It's a crap feeling when you're going through it. But the main thing is as long as you're not doing anything for cynical reasons, then you'll be okay. Greta Gerwig cynical feelings long I think I'm pretty committed to staying. I'm not committed to not doing big movies, but I am committed to continuing to make smaller movies, not for the sake of making smaller movies, but because I think it's really invigorating to just go work with people and know that it might be awful. Greta Gerwig big-movie people thinking I'm interested in the feeling of getting to zero after a play, like you're never going to do it again. That's a really scary feeling. Greta Gerwig zero scary play I think in general with micro-budget films right now, it's rough. The economy is rough. I think that affects everyone from big filmmakers to tiny filmmakers. Greta Gerwig economy film thinking A lot of my friends are struggling. A lot of my friends didn't make movies, which was really hard and sad. I'm good friends with this film collective, Red Bucket, which made Daddy Longlegs and The Pleasure Of Being Robbed. They're climbing the walls. They're all making cartoon booklets now, because they can't raise the funds to make another movie. But I think that when it returns, which it hopefully will, there will be another surge of energy. Greta Gerwig good-friend wall struggle I don't do well when I don't work. Greta Gerwig wells I'm not someone who's an immigrant who's struggling in that way, but between New York and L.A., I had someone tell me very early on, "If you're going to be broke anywhere, it's better to be broke in L.A. At least the weather is nice." I was like, "You're right." I didn't take them up on that. Greta Gerwig nice new-york struggle I was a ballet dancer. I did other kinds of dance but ballet was my great love. But then it became clear, when I was 12, that my body wasn't going to be right. That's always a heartbreaking moment because there's nothing you can do about that. Your body is just not right. You don't have enough turnout. You're not built properly. Greta Gerwig dancer great-love ballet If you're with one person, then you don't have to meet other people. It's like when you're acting in a movie, you don't have to audition for other movies. I prefer that. Greta Gerwig auditions acting people I think it's really hard to work in a city where you live too, because I get so absorbed with the movie that I become a bad friend and a bad participant in my own life. Greta Gerwig bad-friend cities thinking I think any break-up from a long relationship has this accompanying feeling of who am I without this person. You feel like a half-person because you've integrated yourself into an idea of a couple for so long, and then teasing that out and finding out who you are without them, it just takes a while. It feels like an amputation. Greta Gerwig couple ideas thinking I'm just a relationship girl. I fall in love and I usually have long relationships. I like getting to know people well and having substantive, long relationships. Greta Gerwig falling-in-love girl long