‘Little Women’ Helmer Greta Gerwig Thanks Steven Spielberg For Mentoring Her

Greta Gerwig has thanked director Steven Spielberg for serving as a mentor while she was working on “Little Women,” and she revealed how he helped her in making the film by giving small anecdotes from time to time.

Speaking in a roundtable discussion with the Hollywood Reporter, the 36-year-old filmmaker expressed her gratitude towards Spielberg for continuously helping her in capturing the setting of the movie “Little Women” because the movie had to be shot in the same year as Spielberg’s “Lincoln.”

The “Lady Bird” helmer further stated that the “Post” director gave her every piece of information he had about that era, from lighting the houses shown in the movie to the elegant interiors.

“It is the same world. He opened up every piece of research he had done, how he’d decided to light things given that it was all candlelight, how he’d decided to shoot interiors,” Gerwig said.

The film is set in the 1860s and revolves around the adult lives of the March sisters – Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth – and how they faced trials and tribulations including struggles with romance and sickness that threatened their family dynamic.

Later in the interview, Gerwig also admitted that Spielberg did not let her use a digital camera for shooting the film and instead gave her the camera he used for shooting the original “Jurassic Park” movie. She also confessed that Spielberg would not even let her touch a digital camera during the filming.

“He said, ‘You have to shoot on film, it smells different. You cannot shoot a story that takes place in 1861, digitally. You just cannot, I won’t let you do it,” Gerwig explained.

But she could not control herself in saying that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her to talk with a visionary like Spielberg who knows how to tell a story and, most importantly, how to bring people into the stories.

“It is not one thing, it is everything,” Gerwig said.

The other directors present in the discussion included the likes of Martin Scorsese, Todd Phillips, Noah Baumbach, Fernando Meirelles and Lulu Wang.

The movie has garnered universal acclaim and is considered to be one of the best films of the year. The American Film Institute and Time Magazine also recognized “Little Women” as one of the top 10 movies of 2019 in their annual lists.

Florence Pugh is considered to be one of the top contenders for a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the 92nd Academy Awards. On the other hand, Saoirse Ronan could get her third Best Actress nod.

The movie also stars Emma Watson, Meryl Streep, Laura Dern and Timothée Chalamet in pivotal roles.