Anyone who saw Greta Gerwig providing the soft, gooey center for Noah Baumbach’s sharply acidic Greenberg would understand why he’d want to cast her again; as the accidental love interest to Ben Stiller’s misanthrope, she gave a performance so nuanced yet winning and deeply felt that it sent anyone who observed it reeling for synonyms for “star quality.” His initial idea for their follow-up, Frances Ha, was vague: “I just had more general ideas that it would be something in New York and something in black and white and something with Greta,” he recalls. “I didn’t really know more than that — and maybe something that felt sort of European to me, some, like, story of youth.” But he wasn’t interested in solely collaborating as actor and director. “I suppose I had an instinct, to kind of involve her in the process of coming up with what it was going to be.” Gerwig jokes that his motivations may have been more pragmatic. “I think part of it was, he was like, ‘You’re cheap, right?’” … Read More