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.
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