THE BRAIN BEHIND Barbie

ONE OF HOLLYWOOD'S MOST BRILLIANT DIRECTORS SPENT THE PAST FEW YEARS IN... BARBIELAND. GRETA GERWIG GOES VERY, VERY DEEP ON THE PINKEST MOVIE EVERMADE

- BRIAN HIATT

WHEN GRETA GERWIG was in preproduction on her Barbie movie (out July 21), executives from the brand’s owner, Mattel, paid her an inevitable visit. She gave them a preview of the movie’s look (very, very pink) and feel (Elf-y magical- realism ramped up a thousandfold). Then she hit them with a monologue: stuff like the influence of spiritualist painters, how Barbie is like an ancient religious myth, references to The Red Shoes and “Stairway to Heaven” and Heaven Can Wait. “I think at that point, when I was in hour three of talking,” Gerwig recalls with a small laugh, “they all realized no one has thought more about this. They saw I wake up every morning and panic about proportions and color saturation. And they were like, ‘We don’t have to panic. She’s already panicked about this.’ And I think that gave them a sense of comfort.”

On a sunny late-May morning, Gerwig is sitting at a conference table in the rented Manhattan office suite where she’s finishing postproduction, in one of the denim boiler suits she started wearing every day during the making of the movie (today’s is black), her hair in a loose bun. It’s 10:30, and she has a three-month-old baby at home (plus a four-year-old and a 13-year-old stepson), so she’s just now getting to breakfast, which she takes down as she embarks on two more hours of erudite Barbie talk.