Home #Hwoodtimes Director Greta Gerwig on her Barbie influences + Barbenheimer! on KCRW

Director Greta Gerwig on her Barbie influences + Barbenheimer! on KCRW

Academy Award nominee Greta Gerwig’s films as writer-director include Lady Bird, and a crackling adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel Little Women. Both films center young women navigating their way in the world.

Her latest, Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has smashed box office records and been largely well regarded for pulling off the balancing act of both critiquing and celebrating the wildly famous toy. Gerwig tells The Treatment that her influences for the film include classic comedy director Ernst Lubitsch, and playwright Thornton Wilder. She talks about the simultaneous minimalism and maximalism infusing Barbie, and her interest in exploring the interpersonal dynamics of faith within her work.

ICYMI, more Barbenheimer on KCRW: Actor Cillian Murphy — star of Oppenheimer — joins The Treatment host Elvis Mitchell to talk about disappearing into the role of “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Plus, The Business host Kim Masters discusses whether the Barbenheimer box office boom can be replicated. And Greater LA reporter Giuliana Mayo explores the World of Barbie, an “explosion of pink” in Santa Monica.