Greta Celeste Gerwig (born August 4, 1983 in Sacramento, California) is an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, and director.
Gerwig first gained attention for her work in several 2000s films associated with the "mumblecore" genre, of which she has since been deemed a codifier. During the latter half of the decade, she additionally co-wrote or co-directed a number of the films she acted in, which were primarily directed by Joe Swanberg.
Beginning in the 2010s, she collaborated with her partner Noah Baumbach on several films including Frances Ha, for which she received a Golden Globe acting nomination. Some of her other film credits as an actress include Wiener-Dog, the Jacqueline Kennedy biopic Jackie, and 20th Century Women. She also starred as the lead in a planned How I Met Your Mother spinoff, How I Met Your Dad, in 2014, but it wasn't picked up with a series order.
In 2017, a new phase of Gerwig's career and popularity began with her debut as a solo writer-director. To date, she has directed three films: Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie. All three were widely acclaimed, and all of them received Academy Award nods for Best Picture and for Gerwig's screenplays among other nominations. This gave Gerwig the history-making distinction of being the only director to have their first three films all be Best Picture nominees (though her getting passed over for Best Director for Little Women and especially Barbie proved to be controversial). Barbie marked Gerwig's biggest budget ($145 million) and most star-studded cast (led by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling) yet, and was an undisputed box office sensation, grossing over $1.4 billion. It became the highest-grossing film of 2023 and currently stands as the highest-grossing film released by Warner Bros. and the highest-grossing film by a solo female director.
In July 2023, it was reported that Gerwig had been hired by Netflix to write and direct two film adaptations of C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia book series for the streamer.
Gerwig and Baumbach have two sons together, born in 2019 and 2023.
Works with pages on TV Tropes:
- Baghead (2008) (2008) as Michelle
- The House of the Devil (2009) as Megan
- No Strings Attached (2011) as Patrice
- Damsels in Distress (2011) as Violet Wister
- Arthur (2011) as Naomi Quinn
- To Rome with Love (2012) as Sally
- Frances Ha (2013) as Frances Halladay note
- How I Met Your Dad (2014) as Sally note
- Wiener-Dog (2016) as Dawn Wiener
- 20th Century Women (2016) as Abbie
- Jackie (2016) as Nancy Tuckerman
- Isle of Dogs (2018) as Tracy
- The Ghost and Molly McGee (2021) As Herself note
- White Noise (2022) as Babette Gladney
- Nights and Weekends (2008) note
- Lady Bird (2018) note
- Little Women (2019)
- Barbie (2023) note
Tropes in Greta Gerwig's work:
- Creator's Oddball: Considering her previous auteurist drama directing efforts, Barbie comes off as quite an oddball.
- Production Posse: She's made two films with Saoirse Ronan, and has joked about having to share her with Wes Anderson, and about it being "a round robin" with Joe Wright.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The films she has directed have either been in the middle, or more towards the idealistic side.
