Your Local Furry Loser

“…there were all these things I felt were mirrored in each other, the biggest one being Beth and her illness. To me it’s the fairy tale versus what life is. In the first book, she gets sick, then she gets better, and in the second book, she gets sick and then she dies. And it was that doubling that made me think, well, what if I could layer these two things on top of each other, because in my experience of a lot of fiction about women, there’s this sense that all the adventures happen when you’re a girl or a teenager, and as soon as you become an adult, it’s all over, and it’s not that interesting. And I cannot have that be the story we’re telling young women. I felt like I wanted to give the March women back what they had as girls. That felt to me like part of the task of this film, because I can’t tell you how many women are like, ‘I only read the first part.’ If the thing we’re telling girls is that once you become an adult, it’s all over, that’s not good enough, because then there’s nothing left to desire, there’s nothing to look towards. If there’s no bravery and ambition and scope once you’re an adult, if it all existed as a girl and then you put away your childish things, it just feels not right. So I wanted to ground it in adulthood.”

“Since all the awards shows started, and she’s been overlooked in the way she has, the thing that’s made us go, ‘This is happening,’ is that the movie has made over a hundred million dollars already. It’s wonderful to win awards, but if your movie makes $100 million in its first few weeks of opening, that’s going to do the most for paving the way for other movies like this to be made, and that’s something Greta’s done. You can see it getting to the stage where you can’t go on with [women filmmakers] being overlooked in the way they are.”

“Gerwig didn’t have the [‘as a woman’] speech in her script initially. Streep convinced her to include it, pointing out to the writer-director that she had to make clear to the audience why there’s so much pressure on Amy to marry, and to marry well. Amy is the one tasked with keeping the March family afloat, given Meg’s marriage to a poor teacher, Jo’s refusal to be engaged to Laurie—a man she considers more of a brother than a lover—and Beth’s illness. Amy is the sister with the greatest understanding of how her femininity could work for her. ‘There’s something about Amy,’ Gerwig said. ‘Jo can’t put her ego aside long enough to get what she needs to get, but Amy can. It’s just, I loved that [Europe] section of the book …I wanted that feeling in it, of Amy’s utter practicality when it comes to how to get ahead.’”