Interview: Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke Discover ‘Mistress America’

Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version

CHICAGO – Greta Gerwig’s persona as a character actress has blossomed in the last three years, as she has taken on three women in their twenties at the crossroads of life, in that life decade of consequence. In addition to her title roles in “Lola Versus” and “Francis Ha,” her latest is “Mistress America,” which she also co-wrote.

Directed by Noah Baumbach, the film is essentially a buddy comedy, if the buddies are two women – one a Freshman in college and aspiring writer named Tracy (Lola Kirke), and the other (Gerwig) a overwrought urban survivalist named Brooke – living with uncertainty, guile and pomposity in New York City. Like the Greta Gerwig characters of Lola and Francis, Brooke is an achiever in a different way, as they all learn to understand what their purpose is, when challenged with life altering change that is not necessarily what they wanted.

Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke in ‘Mistress America’
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Greta Gerwig has been making a mark since her early films with Chicagoan Joe Swanberg, “LOL” (2006) and “Hannah Takes the Stairs” (2007), followed immediately by a collaboration with the Duplass brothers (Jay and Mark) on “Baghead” (2008). She continued with smaller independent films until 2010, when she appeared in the Noah Baumbach-directed “Greenberg,” co-starring Ben Stiller. From there, she worked on mainstream movies (“Arthur”), Woody Allen pictures (“To Rome with Love”) and her second Noah Baumbach film, “Frances Ha,” which she co-wrote. She will appear in the upcoming “Weiner-Dog,” portraying a grown up Dawn Wiener in a sequel to 1995’s “Welcome to the Dollhouse” – which will be directed by Todd Solondz, who also did the first film.

Gerwig’s co-star is Lola Kirke, a young actress who has credits going back to 2010. She made her biggest splash in the recent “Gone Girl” – as the young gal who meets the gone girl Amy at a hotel – and has three films scheduled the next two years. She is also the sister of Jermima Kirk, who is featured in the HBO series “Girls.”

HollywoodChicago.com got an opportunity to speak with both of the movie “buddies” in “Mistress America.” And the being of Greta Gerwig – however the actress can be defined by her performances – is perfectly articulated when talking to her. And no, we didn’t talk about “war zones.”

HollywoodChicago.com: You and Noah seem fascinated with a certain type of New York City woman, ones that seem to get by with limited funds but maximum chutzpah. What fascinates you about characters like Frances and Brooke, in the sense you want to create and perform their types of personality?

Greta Gerwig: One of the character traits I like best is mystery, and I don’t like to analyze it to the point of it not existing anymore. But really I don’t see Frances and Brooke existing in the same universe, they are completely estranged individuals that are fully formed entities in their own orbit.

I am interested in strivers and strugglers, those kind of characters that are like the strugglers in the great American literature and cinema. When, for example, I think of ‘Citizen Kane’ and his insatiable craving to be more, especially based on the limited opportunities of his past. Brooke didn’t go to college, she’s self educated – clearly smart but not erudite. The difference with Frances is that she is smart, and she is more confident in her relative value as a person with ideas. Brooke is always needing to prove herself.

Those strivers you see in literature generally are not women. I think giving female characters an epic struggle, even if it’s just epic to them. I think it’s a distinctly American psychology, but also New York City represents the epicenter of where people go who want to make something of themselves. I’m originally from Sacramento, California, and I made my way to New York, so I have a lot of that in me.

Michael Shear and Lola Kirke Share a Scene in ‘Mistress America’
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures

HollywoodChicago.com: Lola, what part of your own coming-of-age story did you most relate to the character of Tracy and how she approached it?

Lola Kirke: I think a relationship of idolizing somebody, and coming into your own power a bit more because of the power you suck from them. [laughs] What I love about Tracy is that she became a vessel for all my awkwardness. She was like when you’re around people where you can’t be yourself – everything you say or do sounds lame. I experience that all the time and hope that I’m not so transparent, but that’s what I connected to in Tracy.

Gerwig: I feel that way every time I’m around Adam Driver. He makes me so nervous, and gets me babbling until I don’t know what I’m saying. [laughs] I go back through a conversation and think, ‘why was I talking about war zones?’

HollywoodChicago.com: When you and Noah are collaborating on a script, what process for formulating characters and story have you both decided works best for your particular creative styles, and in what element of scripting do you best come together?

Gerwig: We formulate the story and the characters simultaneously, letting them inform each other. We try to create story out of character. It’s built bit by bit, there are a lot of conversations – what are we interested in now? What is our unified unconsciousness? It’s so fun to write together, and we do end up sharing a brain. We live in an imaginary world, and we spend a lot of time in that world. We don’t do improvisation, and we don’t change lines on the set. That are full labors of love that only the two of us know about, before we bring everybody else into it.

We’ll go off sometimes and write scenes, then trade them. I think it is apt that there is this E.L. Doctorow quote that says, ‘writing is like driving at night, you only see as far as your headlights, but it’s enough to get you there.’ We build it little by little, but once you have a big enough thing we begin to understand how it fits together. The way that the story and character fit together is based on getting the psychology of the characters right, and figure out what those characters inevitably overlook, because of who they are? How will that bite them in the ass?

HollywoodChicago.com: Any tricks for getting out of ‘writer’s block’?

Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke of ‘Mistress America’ Photo credit: Patrick McDonald for HollywoodChicago.com

Gerwig: We do a lot of ‘MGM telephone.’ In the studio system era of the movies, the actors were given lessons in all kinds of disciplines – dancing, singing, speaking, and how to to be present on the set. They had a class called ‘Telephone,’ and it was about how to answer a phone in a movie. The idea was that you always react opposite to the news you receive – if you receive terrible news, you act like everything is great, and then you crumble. So often we say, ‘let’s MGM Telephone that moment.’

HollywoodChicago.com: For both of you, a question about directors. Once you get a part, and if you don’t know the director, how do you best gauge how they approach their work, and how you fit into that plan?

Kirke: In this film, Tracy was in every scene, so I factored in largely in the plan. Even though I think Tracy is a lens for Brooke in a way, I think Tracy stands through herself in the story, I don’t think she’s just the way we see the other character.

Gerwig: There are many things that Noah is great at, and influenced me with a lot of directors. He’s very exacting, he does a lot of takes, and he wants to get the final result in a way he can’t describe to you. He’ll go until he gets it. Once he hires his actors, he has a lot of faith in them, and knows they will give him something that he wouldn’t be able to articulate. It’s a combination of being precise, and letting the spirit and the wildness of the person doing the part do their thing. He’s looking for that performance to give him the thing he doesn’t know that he wants.

That openness as a director is essential, and that separates the directors who are great working with actors, and those you are not. You really believe that they will bring something that is undefinable. Noah has that. Directors hire you for a reason, they can’t do it themselves. They need you to bring what you have, and you’re a part of the filmmaking process. They don’t know the answers any more than you do.

HollywoodChicago.com: Finally for both of you – which is better, knowing Greta Gerwig or being Greta Gerwig?

Gerwig: Oh my gawd!

Kirke: Knowing her is pretty great.

Gerwig: Yeah, I don’t have any choice in the matter. [laughs] I will say ‘being Greta Gerwig’ because as Oscar Wilde said, ‘I can’t stop being myself, because everyone else is taken.’

By PATRICK McDONALD Writer, Editorial Coordinator HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com