Boxoffice Pro - December 2019

GRETA GERWIG WITH MERYL STREEP AS AUNT MARCH
She sees how it is. She’s just as ambitious
as Jo, but she’s got to figure out how she’s
going to make this work. And I think
there’s something about her ability to talk
with almost a clinical clarity about her
position. It’s so fascinating.
In the book, she has two lines that I
love that I didn’t manage to put in the
screenplay. One is, “I don’t pretend to
be wise, but I am observant.” And you
think, holy shit, that girl sees everything.
And the second one is, “The world is
hard on ambitious girls.” And you think,
she knows! She’s the same as Jo! She’s
a worthy adversary and she’s a worthy
partner. I felt that with Florence Pugh,
who is so extraordinary. I knew I wanted
her to play Amy. I wanted an actor who
could punch the same weight class as
Saoirse, which is hard because Saoirse is
extraordinary.
There are all kinds of interesting
things written about Jo and Laurie. One
thing is, Jo is a girl with a boy’s name,
and Laurie is a boy with a girl’s name,
and that plays with gender inversion.
Throughout the entire film I have them
switch costumes. I have them wear each
other’s clothes. I wanted to draw out this
androgynous aspect of their relationship,
because I think they really are each
other’s twins in a way. And the thing that
happens when Laurie asks Jo to marry
him is Laurie rejecting the androgyny of
childhood. And Jo’s not ready to leave it
yet. He’s saying, “No, I would like you to
be the woman to my man, the wife to my
husband.” And Jo’s saying, “Can’t we just
stay down here where we don’t have to
make any of those decisions?” She doesn’t
want to. And Amy’s ready to. And Amy
wants to. And Amy loves him.
You and Saoirse and Timothée Chalamet
had already worked together on Lady
Bird. For the rest of the cast, though, did
you do anything to help them achieve
that intimacy that the March family and
their various hangers-on have?
We were very lucky that we were
able to get two full weeks of rehearsal.
It’s always the first thing to go. No one
ever believes me that we did that much
rehearsal. But I did, because I knew that I
really had a specific way that I wanted the
scenes to be played. In particular with the
four sisters, I wanted them to feel like one
organism. That they were a four-headed
beast. The way I wrote the dialogue
was very specific—overlaps and people
cutting each other off at very specific
points. And it took time to get all of that
up to speed and to get it into their muscle
memory so they could run the scene very
fast and all be in sync with each other.
For Timothée, I wanted him to experience
what Laurie experiences, which is
wanting to be part of all these girls! And
he did, which was wonderful, because
they really took him in and made him
part of their group. He has a sister. He
understands that. Part of why I wanted to
cast him is that I would see him during
awards stuff a couple years ago, and he
would bring his sister to a lot of things.
And I loved seeing them together. They’re
so sweet. His sister’s lovely. I saw the relationship
between him and his sister, and I
thought, “That’s what it is! That’s Laurie!”
The physicality between the four
sisters is so present. They really lean
into each other.
They’re always hitting each other or
hugging or pinching or grabbing. I didn’t
want any of us to be polite. Any time
you’re around four sisters, it’s loud.
42 DECEMBER 2019