Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie discuss Barbies surprising feminism 730
Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie discuss Barbies surprising feminism 730
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00:00 Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, welcome to 7.30. Margot I'll start with you because this is your
00:05 project. You started this, now when you went to see the Toymaker in 2018, so it's a
00:12 few years ago, what was driving you then? I thought it was a big and exciting
00:17 opportunity. The word Barbie is just already globally recognized, and people
00:25 feel really strongly about Barbie. Some people love Barbie, some people have a
00:30 lot of problems with Barbie, but everyone has an associated memory with Barbie.
00:34 Whether they kind of felt ambivalent or indifferent about her, they still
00:38 remember her. She was always, she was kind of omnipresent I think in nearly
00:43 everyone's childhood, and that's just kind of an interesting place to start
00:47 off with an audience. And what about that love-hate, makes people angry, makes
00:52 people love, was that in your mind at the beginning or was it just that it was
00:57 such a powerful global image? It just felt like we could ignite something with
01:03 it. It just felt like it, it seems like over the last 64 years it hasn't taken
01:09 much for Barbie to ignite conversation or sometimes you know revolutions or
01:15 protests. You know it's very, I don't know, there's something, something about
01:18 Barbie that just always kind of blows things up, and I just thought that would
01:22 be, we could do something exciting with it if we paired it with the right person.
01:26 The big thing is the fact that you're both here and the thing was about the
01:30 choice, who was going to write it in the first instance, because you weren't the
01:33 director at first were you? No. So why did you choose Greta Gerwig? Well I really
01:38 wanted to work with Greta, love her as a... Why did you choose me? Because I love you and you know it!
01:43 No, I had seen, as soon as I saw Lady Bird I think I tried to get a
01:49 meeting with Greta. I really wanted to work with her, I was trying to find a
01:52 project to do with her. So we met and we talked and I was prepared to be
01:58 intimidated by this smart indie director. You know I'd seen the movies that she's
02:03 acted in, all very like cool, quirky, highbrow. I just thought I'm just like I
02:09 hope she doesn't think I'm you know not cool. But as soon as we spoke I was like
02:14 my god I feel like we're best friends. She's so warm and inviting and very
02:19 smart without making you feel stupid and very funny without making you feel
02:23 boring and charming and enthusiastic and all these things that I thought that's
02:27 just someone I want to be around. Anyways other projects didn't work out, she went
02:31 on you know she was prepping Little Women, went on to do that, another movie
02:35 that I absolutely adore. Just kind of reinforced my belief that she is one of
02:38 the great directors of our generation. What is it about her, what is it then about her
02:42 writing skill that you wanted to bring into Barbie? I think it's very evident in
02:47 her work that she can you know that she's very very intelligent that comes
02:52 across in her. I'm so sorry we're still talking about her. She's very strange, I apologise.
02:57 No carry on. No no no. She's very intelligent you can feel that and how her scripts and stories and
03:05 characters are constructed and how they kind of come at you and it still feels
03:08 real. It doesn't feel heady but you can tell there's a lot of thought behind it
03:12 and there's a lot of heart most importantly and the humor is there and
03:15 the humor lands and that's already like that's a hat trick that's hard to pull
03:19 off already but for me she just does that just so exquisitely and then on top
03:24 of that it's constructed in a well-made film like it's just you can tell that
03:28 everything had intention behind it and it's just it's just a real film you know
03:33 it's a real filmmaker making the choices that great filmmakers choose and
03:38 I getting to know Greta know how much she respects and honors the legacy of
03:44 film that's come before her and filmmaking techniques in particular but
03:47 at the same time you can speak to her for five minutes and know that she just
03:51 has her finger on the pulse of where society is at today and that's exactly
03:55 what we needed for Barbie someone who would be able to honor the legacy and
03:57 also have a culturally relevant conversation with where we're at today.
04:01 Greta Gerwig is not just an auteur does Barbie obviously but when the idea came
04:07 along at first what was your do you remember your very first response not
04:11 withstanding that it's Margot Robbie and you already like her and you know she's
04:14 clever and the production company is doing really interesting things
04:17 especially for women but as the concept Barbie do you recall? Well it's actually
04:24 funny because today I find myself in very similar circumstances than I found
04:28 myself when we initially started talking about it which is that I had I was in
04:33 post on Little Women and I had an infant I had just given birth so I think I was
04:40 in the kind of postpartum delirium where to reconstruct your mindset later is a
04:48 little bit difficult in a certain way but I I think I just it's essentially
04:53 what Margot was describing there there felt something sparky about it that I
04:58 couldn't quite put my finger on and it and I wasn't sure how it would all fit
05:04 together and I was sleep-deprived and and but I thought oh this is this this
05:12 there don't really truly the only way I can describe it is it feels like like
05:18 some part of me is leaning towards the idea and and and that's what you sort of
05:23 go with and that's true whether like with things I've written just from
05:27 you know nothing and also things I've written with like Little Women that had
05:31 some sense of a source material some source material it's like you can or I
05:36 it's like a physical sense of like I'm leaning into it and I think I felt that
05:40 around it and but I didn't know and it wasn't really until after we had written
05:45 the script that I thought I just had that feeling of like now I can't bear to
05:50 let anyone else direct it. So that had to that then had to be but I think you said
05:55 at the beginning you were also terrified you thought that it could be a career
05:58 killer what what in the Barbie story were you afraid of? Well I mean number
06:05 one that there wasn't a story and just that all of that feeling that Margot was
06:13 talking about of people like loving it hating it not you know just all of that
06:19 kind of emotion directed around it I that that felt both like there's story
06:26 in that and it felt terrifying because it felt like oh you can really there's a
06:32 lot of places you could put a foot wrong and then you'd be off on a terrible
06:36 tangent so but I think that that yeah but that's also but yeah what made it
06:41 kind of intriguing was all of that sparkiness. Now of course you were never
06:49 going to make a hagiography either of you were not going to do that but how
06:53 were you Margot able to persuade Mattel that you could make something sharp
06:58 clever funny caustic something that makes conversations happen while still
07:02 respecting their property their product? I guess it was just step by step you
07:08 know the first step was to say we're the production company to do this and you
07:12 know we assure you we want to honor the brand but we have to be up front and let
07:15 you know that we're not going to shy away from the problematic parts of this
07:19 otherwise it's not a movie we're interested in making but it will come
07:23 from a place of love it will come from a place of respect because I absolutely
07:27 have respect for anyone that can make a toy sustain popularity for 60-something
07:33 years that's that's incredible and tons of people you know there's thousands of
07:38 employees and people have poured their lives into Barbie and the brand I would
07:42 never want to do them a disservice and there's tons of fans out there you know
07:45 who love Barbie I wouldn't want to do them a disservice either but that was
07:49 step one just getting on board step two is bring it to the studio step three is
07:53 doing all the deals and then you know getting someone like Greta and Noah to
07:56 write the script after that once they had the script in their hands then it
08:01 was okay now we have the movie that we're gonna make now everyone needs to
08:04 get on board with supporting this vision. How did you persuade them that this path
08:09 that you were on was the right way? Again step by step just it's okay tell us I
08:15 can tell you yeah well I can tell you just from she would she does this thing
08:20 it's almost reflexive but I know it now enough because I've seen it enough times
08:24 she'll say to people whether it's Warner Brothers or Mattel well if we're having
08:29 a meeting you'll end it or when we get to it towards the end she'll say and
08:33 does anybody else have any problems or fears or things that they want to say to
08:37 us tell us now like you'll you'll almost like she almost in a pathological way
08:43 you like run towards what is gonna be the sticky point for people and you try
08:48 to extract it from them. What was it what was the sticky point? I mean there were
08:52 millions like I mean there was a million it was like every it was it was the one
08:56 that was closest to or being not able to be resolved you thought this could hold
09:00 it up this could really get in the way. Um well luckily we made a crazy enough
09:04 script that it was literally the whole thing. I was just saying that almost worked in our favor that the list of things to be scared of for them was so long that it wasn't one thing to focus on if I think if they had like three things to be scared of we would have lost all three battles but if you're fighting a hundred battles at once
09:22 you just keep winning on inches and you keep moving forward and and again it wasn't
09:30 that we were trying to you know discredit what no worried about it was
09:35 just that it's like okay we need to hear you out we understand that now let's
09:39 keep moving forward with prepping this film whilst also talking about the thing
09:42 that's scary but at the same time we have to keep prepping this film and then
09:45 everyone eventually gets a little you know like desensitized to all those
09:50 scary things and and also I think the thing that we knew that like was also at
09:55 the core of it was not just like vis-a-vis of the brand is but just the
10:01 story and the characters was that like I I know I knew and Margo knew and all the
10:07 actors knew that what we wanted at the center of it was just a really big heart
10:13 and that that part of it was so important for me that however anarchic
10:19 or crazy or throwing elbows the movie was that that the thing that you walk
10:24 away with was this feeling of this heart in the middle of it and I thought I was
10:29 like well I'm not lying to them that's true yeah and so that that that I can
10:34 tell I can look them in the eye and say this might you might not love this or
10:38 that but I'm telling you like this movie has only love for people because it did
10:45 and that's another hard thing I think when you read something in text form
10:49 it's easier to assume the worst version of that and it's like if you've read a
10:53 text and someone didn't put any emojis in it you're like are they mad at me I
10:56 don't know and like if I got to voice know that you could hear my voice and
11:00 I'm saying it like I'm happy you know but like sometimes when you're reading a
11:04 script I think it's easy to be like oh this is all there but we were like none
11:09 of this is gonna feel mean-spirited like we are poking fun at ourselves like
11:13 Mattel's a character Mattel's gonna poke fun of itself like we're gonna be
11:17 self-aware and that is the access point but when we deliver that it is gonna be
11:22 delivered from a place of love and the overall feeling is is to kind of
11:26 deliver an uplifting experience. So it's interesting that they we stood in the
11:30 little that you know was able to be understood about the film in advance
11:33 clearly Mattel still talk about it in slightly different terms to you two but
11:38 somehow you know they don't like to call it a feminist film the actors seem very
11:44 comfortable with talking about it as a feminist film yeah somehow it doesn't
11:47 matter that you talk about it differently. Yeah yeah I mean well it most
11:51 certainly is a feminist film and I think that the sort of can you explain that
11:57 why how so? To me it's like that's like one slice of the pie like it's so
12:03 big it's a big slice but like I don't know why I know I know I also wouldn't
12:09 call it a funny film because that's just credits the fact that it's got a lot of
12:13 heart and it's got a lot of emotion and it's got a lot of like movie references
12:17 you know all this kind of stuff I'm like it is funny that is a huge part of it
12:20 it's a comedy right but if you just call it a funny film you almost make it sound
12:25 like it doesn't have a lot going on and it does. Well I mean like this is this is
12:29 sort of when we talk about this stuff it's it also it almost sounds silly
12:34 because you you start talking about Barbie and Ken and you know and then
12:37 you're having very serious discussions about Barbie and Ken but it's like I
12:41 mean I think to whatever that sort of like it's also a humanist film because
12:49 it's like the humanity insofar as you can call it of like Barbie and Ken is
12:54 what's paramount in the film and at the beginning of the movie you know Ken is a
12:59 person with no status in this world so in this kind of reversed world that
13:06 person who has no status is in a completely untenable place long term.
13:13 Quite a brave decision to to give Ken such a big character in the end to take
13:18 him away from being the cypher that he's always been into a real thing. Right
13:22 which is you know but that in that way it's it's it's giving him you know
13:29 humanity as it were as a doll as you know whatever these these are kind of
13:33 knots on knots that we have of the of the world of Barbie but yeah I mean I
13:38 also think just I will say just the existence of this film in in the way
13:43 that it does is pretty incredible and is pretty I mean like what I think of it
13:50 this sort of as as it stands I'm like this is this is amazing that this movie
13:55 is is made and it's made the way it is with Margo as a producer and a star and
14:00 and what what the story is of the movie it feels sort of unbelievable that it's
14:07 been made but I think it's also it's feminist in a way that's includes
14:12 everyone it's like a it's a rising tide lifts all boats version of it. I think
14:19 some people hear the word feminism means that doesn't mean men and I'm like yeah
14:22 no it does mean men anyone who believes men and women should be equal is feminist.
14:27 But I think some people hear the word feminist and like associate a lot of
14:33 negative baggage with the word. So what is it for you in the film if you think
14:36 if you guys are comfortable you guys there I go look at me you know if the
14:40 actors if all the people on set are comfortable they get that the word
14:44 belongs to the film how so? I think it belongs to the film because I think it's
14:48 because when we were when we were making it the whole Barbie is like an icon that
14:55 as Margo was speaking to that it's both it's it she exists in the the both and
15:02 not the either or she's not either good or bad or you know is that diving into
15:07 the complexity of it and not running away from it but like looking at all the
15:12 thorniness and stepping into it and also looking at all the thorniness and
15:16 stepping into what what what is the negotiation of what women need to be
15:23 and how to give them something other than a tightrope to walk on is how it
15:31 feels feminist to me. I actually when I got asked the other day like is Barbie a
15:34 feminist I was like well she's actually like the level up from that because if
15:39 you look at Barbie land at the beginning like yeah the Barbies are on top and the
15:42 Kens you're kind of disregarded so I was like well that's not equal so whatever
15:47 the opposite of misogynist is actually Barbie's like so yeah towards the end
15:52 when they balance things out then it might be feminist but actually it's like
15:56 beyond feminist but then the power dynamic is in the favor of the Barbies
16:00 to begin with. Exactly but then not to give too much away but then like the
16:04 human character of I will say yes Gloria played by the brilliant American
16:08 Ferra also articulate some stuff about what this negotiation is and yeah and it
16:15 I think I think really what it feels is like allowing all the things to exist at
16:21 once and not shoving things down because they don't fit with something. You've
16:26 spoken about this before this sense of the American young girl brash confident
16:31 maybe a little brash but very confident doing well comfortable with her skin and
16:36 then adolescence comes along and then there's this sense of not being enough
16:41 not being good enough and there's a speech in the film that we hear in the
16:46 promo section what's to come that mentions that but I actually wanted to
16:51 ask the two of you about that do you is that important in the film that the
16:56 teenage girl and that loss of confidence and does that resonate with you as an
17:00 Australian? What's interesting in the movie or the way I see the movie is that
17:06 the character of the 13 year old girl is actually she's that she doesn't really
17:12 suffer from that she's like she's kind of like a Joan of Arc
17:16 clarion call of like I'm gonna tell you what for and that Barbie in a way
17:23 actually takes on the feeling of shrinking inside of herself like so that
17:30 the team in in in this in this movie it feels like that that our teenage girl is
17:36 like has certainty and then Barbie kind of shrinks and I don't know if it's like
17:41 specifically a mirror I mean I know I remember the moment when I started I
17:45 think it's pretty universal yeah I mean I don't know I would I would guess it
17:50 probably yeah I mean it's there's so many things about it but I always think
17:55 of like friends my friends who have daughters who are you know they're like
18:00 amazing and so you know they put like I always think of Barbie as being related
18:05 to the to the little girls playing dress-up where they put on everything
18:10 they put on like the tutu and the tiara and the boa and the gloves and the bag
18:14 and the cowboy boots and they have sparkle like they are just like there's
18:18 no real like it's like more more more and that part of that like aesthetic and
18:23 part of that I ID so many ideas like putting everything into it like that was
18:27 part of what I wanted out of Barbie and then this moment where then they just
18:31 just start wanting to disappear and I think and I watched it happen with them
18:37 and I'm like what is this changeover and in any case not to spoil too much but
18:42 when Barbie has this moment and then Gloria is able to speak to her it just I
18:49 don't know I I think for me I'm I've seen this movie obviously more than
18:54 anyone else on planet Earth and I am still touched by that ability for a
18:58 woman to look at another woman and say you're good enough
19:04 Margot Robbie we're incredibly proud that you're here doing this film but for
19:09 the whole world it's an amazing cultural moment thank you both for talking about
19:13 it and for starting what is going to be just a rip-roaring conversation around
19:18 the globe thank you
19:21 thanks I hope it's a rip-roaring conversation
19:25 you
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