‘Little Women’ cast members Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Eliza Scanlen and writer/director Greta Gerwig sit down with CinemaBlend’s Hannah Saulic to talk about why Gerwig changed Jo March’s ending for her movie, Little Women book moments they wish made it into the film, working with Meryl Streep and more.
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00:00This is Meg, Amy, Beth, and Joe.
00:04My girls have a way of getting into mischief.
00:07Ow, Joe!
00:10I'm working on a novel.
00:11Make it spicy.
00:12And if the main character is a girl, make sure she's married by the end.
00:16Excuse me?
00:17Congratulations on this movie.
00:20My God, it's amazing.
00:22Seriously, I love Little Women like every other millennial girl that grew up with it,
00:25so I trust you, obviously, because Lady Bird is fantastic.
00:28But you're always just like, please don't ruin the thing that I love.
00:31Now you'll travel with me to any country.
00:34But one of the things that I was really loved and I was so happy that you addressed
00:39was obviously Joe's ending.
00:40Yes, yes.
00:41Because that's the biggest thing in my mind, where it's just like,
00:43you watch the old movies, you read the book, you're like,
00:45she just spends the literal entire time saying she doesn't want to get married.
00:48Yes.
00:49So I'm kind of curious about your decision to not play it straight
00:53and do this, like, meta version of it.
00:55Well, like you, I had this feeling of when in the book Joe says,
01:02and then Joe stopped up her ink stand, didn't write again.
01:06I'm like, what?
01:07And got married and opened this school and had babies.
01:11I was like, no, no, I'm pretending that didn't happen.
01:15And then as I was an adult and I wanted to make this movie
01:20and I discovered that Louisa May Alcott never got married and she never had kids
01:24and that she never wanted Joe to get married and have kids.
01:27She wanted Joe to be, as she said, a literary spinster with books for children.
01:31And I thought, well, maybe there's a way to do that now.
01:37If she couldn't do it then or she felt like she couldn't do it then,
01:40maybe we could do it now.
01:42And it's finding that distance between life and fiction that I find
01:51intellectually exciting and also very emotional.
01:54If you decide to end your delightful book with your heroin spinster,
01:58no one will buy it.
02:00It won't be worth printing.
02:02I suppose marriage has always been an economic proposition, even in fiction.
02:06Just end it that way, will you?
02:09Saoirse and Laura, I'm curious to get your guys' opinion on Greta's new ending for Joe
02:13because obvious reasons you play Joe,
02:15but I think that Marmee is very much Joe grown up in a way.
02:19Yeah, I was so excited about it.
02:20I love when filmmakers do that anyway.
02:22I love when it's sort of like, hold on a minute, what's happening?
02:25What I really love about it from an audience's perspective is that
02:30she's acknowledging that we're there.
02:32She's acknowledging that we're watching what's happening
02:35and we know what the real life story is.
02:38And this was our opportunity and Greta's opportunity to give Louisa the ending
02:44that she probably would have wanted and that she wouldn't have changed
02:47if it was 2019.
02:50So it was very, very exciting to get to do that.
02:53And also watching someone fight for themselves.
02:57I never knew the narrative of her keeping her copyright
03:02and the idea of why this is the classic American novel written by a woman,
03:08why she was the one writer who had this staying power
03:12is because she fought for herself
03:15and not in some disingenuous, ambitious way.
03:19She was trying to feed her family.
03:21And that's what's so incredible,
03:24to see Greta's longing to make ambition this gorgeous right.
03:30And in Amy's character too, to allow ambition to be fiery and gorgeous
03:36and not like, oh, the thing we've seen in a lot of films with female characters
03:41because ambition in male characters is always, you know, honored.
03:46So that's very cool.
03:47I intend to make my own way in the world.
03:49No one makes their own way.
03:51Least of all a woman.
03:52You'll need to marry well.
03:54You are not married.
03:55Well, that's because I'm rich.
03:57Meryl Streep to me was the perfect Aunt March.
04:00I mean, my God, every time she was on screen,
04:02I was curious what it was like working with her and filming scenes.
04:04Was she kind of staying in that Aunt March mode in between takes?
04:08It's very powerful, though, being in a room with her.
04:11Anything she gives to you in a scene,
04:13you instantly feel like you're safe and you're saved.
04:16And that's really amazing when you work with someone
04:20and you feel like you're sharing that moment with them.
04:23And I've been in love with her since I was tiny.
04:26I also like, sorry.
04:29No, no, no.
04:30I was just going to say, I also like how she is when she's on set.
04:34She's just, you know, obviously she's like Meryl and she's a legend.
04:38But when she comes on set, she's an actor
04:40and she doesn't sort of draw attention to herself by any means.
04:43She's quite a quiet woman.
04:45And, you know, the one scene that I had with her,
04:48we blocked it and we rehearsed it.
04:51And then the camera department were going to come in
04:54and set it up and light it and everything.
04:56And Meryl just stayed there.
04:57And she didn't get in anyone's way
04:59and she didn't want to make it about her.
05:01But she just wanted to be on set.
05:04What I think is always lovely when you work with someone
05:07who everyone looks up to so much is when you're with them
05:11and they just want to act and they want to work with you.
05:13That is the best thing.
05:15She elevated everyone.
05:16Yeah, absolutely.
05:17Yes, there's definitely sometimes an expectation for actors to be like,
05:21da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
05:23Or like, I'm a star.
05:24But she's not like that at all.
05:26Yeah, she's totally...
05:28She's a worker.
05:29Yeah, she's a worker and it's a craft.
05:31Thank you, I'm marching.
05:32Oh, why?
05:34Where'd you get the money?
05:35I only sold what was my own.
05:37You're one beauty.
05:39Were there any moments from the book that you wanted to include
05:42but didn't end up in the final cut?
05:43Like a million things.
05:44And I could quote them all to you right now.
05:46There's a million lines that I loved that I didn't have space for somehow.
05:50There's a line that I kept trying to give to Amy
05:52but I just didn't have the space.
05:53Because Amy, who's a total unsung character,
05:56has so many amazing lines in the book.
05:59And one of them is,
06:01the world is hard on ambitious girls,
06:03which I was like, that's true still.
06:06And I don't pretend to be wise but I am observant.
06:09And I was like, oh my God.
06:11But there's amazing scenes.
06:12I mean, the development of the relationship between
06:15Lori and Amy was really fun.
06:17And a lot from the book that I just thought,
06:19they were talking about whether or not they were great artists,
06:22whether or not they were going to keep pursuing what they were working on.
06:25They were talking about essentially mutually deciding to grow up,
06:30which is a very...
06:32It's both like something gained, something lost.
06:34I mean, there's like a million things.
06:36I love the book.
06:37I could have made a whole different movie with different scenes.
06:41There's also this great scene where Jo tries to cook
06:44to show that she's good at housekeeping and stuff.
06:47And she uses salt instead of sugar
06:49and then invites everyone over and the food's disgusting.
06:53That's fun.
06:54That would have been really fun to see,
06:56especially with Lori trying to pretend like,
06:58oh no, Jo, it's fine.
06:59Or genuinely understanding it to be excellent.
07:01Also, there was an entire subplot with Lori.
07:03It's like he buys so many neckties.
07:07And it's like his necktie collection's way too big
07:11and Jo's like, stop buying neckties.
07:13And he's like, but I love them.
07:15I couldn't help it.
07:16Anyway, lots of stuff like that.
07:18Have you ever considered casting yourself
07:20in something that you write and direct?
07:22I have acted in things that I've written,
07:25but I have no interest in acting in things I'm directing.
07:28Why?
07:29I think my brain would fracture into a million pieces.
07:33I think it's really hard.
07:34I love directing because I love watching actors do what they do.
07:38And I love seeing it all.
07:41And it would, A, deprive myself of that privilege,
07:44and B, I think I would go, I would not,
07:49I would, you know, there's a reason Orson Welles became obese.
07:53You'd go crazy.
07:55You'd go crazy.
07:56Oh, no.
07:57It's true.
07:58Or is it Paul Masson's wine from,
08:01no, I haven't seen that commercial.
08:02No.
08:04Ah, the French champagne.
08:08It's like doing a commercial in his late 50s or 60s,
08:10California wine, California champagne,
08:12you know what I'm talking about?
08:13I recommend it.
08:14I just do think it's a lot on the brain.
08:16I'm amazed at people who can do it.
08:18I was just talking to Olivia Wilde the other day,
08:20and she's going to direct herself in her next picture,
08:23which I was like, oh, my God,
08:26you've crossed into territory I will never do.
08:30But maybe if I wrote something,
08:32then I could get Noah to direct it,
08:34and then I could act with Timothy.
08:36What?
08:38I could play your old friend.
08:42You know what, I'm going to, I'll be back.
08:44No.
08:45Women, they have minds, and they have souls,
08:48as well as just hearts.
08:49I want to be great or nothing.
08:52And they've got ambition, and they've got talent,
08:54as well as just beauty.
08:56I'm so sick of people saying that love
08:59is just all a woman is fit for.
09:01I'm so sick of it.
09:08So, who does she marry?
09:11Florence, I have one quick question
09:13that I want to slip in,
09:14because we have a lot of Marvel fans on our site.
09:16So, obviously going from something like Little Women,
09:19which you're not really like fighting people,
09:21not doing a ton of action, to Black Widow.
09:23Did you pick that because you just wanted
09:25something totally different,
09:26or are there similarities between Amy and Yelena,
09:29for example?
09:30Oh, I don't know if there are some,
09:32I mean, they're both stubborn women,
09:34and no, I think I love the script,
09:37and I love Kate Shortland,
09:39and I think everything that they're trying to do
09:41with that film is make it as painful and as real
09:44and as gritty as possible,
09:47and it was exactly like that when we made it,
09:50and that was a really nice thing to walk into.
09:53And, of course, I got to be with the Black Widow
09:56and watch her work, which was pretty amazing,
09:59considering she's been the only female superhero
10:01for the past ten years.