While promoting her poignant portrait of adolescence, Lady Bird, writer-director Greta Gerwig dropped by Late Night With Seth Meyers to talk about the making of her movie. She had a strict, no-cellphone rule on set, and she encouraged people to wear name tags so that cast and crew could get to know each other.
These anecdotes jibe with Gerwig’s unassuming nature—it also sounds like they had their own version of AVQ&A—but the earnest letters she wrote to artists like Alanis Mrrisette and Justin Timberlake to request permission to use their music are even more endearing. In what could be passages from Lady Bird, she tells Morissette and Timberlake how important their songs (“Ironic” and “Cry Me A River,” respectively) were in her formative years. Gerwig also dubs the Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash Into Me” the “most romantic song ever” (emphasis hers), which we believe is as wrong as it is adorable. But hey, she got all the rights, and the songs definitely lent the right ambience to her coming-of-age story. And at least she addressed everyone properly.