Originally published on 10/9/25

If you’ve seen Taylor Swift’s latest late-night interview, you already know Greta Gerwig’s name has been trending again—though not for her own doing. During a recent chat with Seth Meyers, Swift revealed that her fiancé, NFL star Travis Kelce, hilariously mistook Hugh Grant’s wife, Anna Eberstein, for the Barbie director at one of her London Eras Tour shows—and even congratulated her on his favorite Gerwig film. The mix-up sent the internet into a frenzy, leaving fans everywhere asking: Wait… who exactly is Greta Gerwig? The answer: she’s one of Hollywood’s most brilliant and groundbreaking filmmakers—and no, she’s not Hugh Grant’s wife.

How Greta Gerwig got her start in Hollywood

Born on August 4, 1983, in Sacramento, California, Gerwig always knew she wanted to be in the film industry, and she even tried to major in musical theater at Barnard College before switching to English in philosophy. 

After graduation, she set off to become a playwright but switched to acting after meeting filmmaker Joe Swanberg. He went on to cast her in several small, low-budget movies made by first-time filmmakers that try to use naturalistic acting and prioritize dialogue over everything else. This trend is commonly referred to as a mumblecore film movement. 

Gerwig soon realized that her talents were a better fit elsewhere, so she left the independent film scene behind and set her sights on acting in Hollywood. 

And it worked, because she went on to have various guest roles in things like No Strings Attached (2011), To Rome with Love (2012), The Humbling (2014), China, Il (2011 to 2015) and Jackie (2016). 

She also shot a pilot in 2014 for a show called How I Met Your Father, which was going to be a spin-off of the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother,  but a network never picked it up. 

Her three blockbuster movies 

Despite having a moderately successful acting career, in 2017 Gerwig decided to give her dream of becoming a famous playwright another chance. So she sat down at her computer and began typing until she finally had a game-changing script in her hands. One that would solidify her place in movie history and earn her several Oscar nominations. A film called Lady Bird. 

‘Lady Bird’ 

Lady Bird is a 2017 coming-of-age film written and directed by Gerwig. It stars Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Beanie Feldstein, Timothée Chalamet and more. And while the film is about a young girl growing up in Sacramento, California, who dreams of moving to New York City, Gerwig claims the story is not biographical. 

“None of the events in the movie are the events of my life,” the writer and director said. “I never made anyone call me by a different name and my parents 100% knew I was applying to schools in New York. But there is an emotional core and truth to it in the relationships that feels right to me. It’s also a terrible thing to give someone the weight of trying to be me or trying to be my friend, and I always wanted [the actors] to have the freedom to make the person whoever they thought they should be.” 

Lady Bird was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Achievement in Directing and Best Original Screenplay. 

‘Little Women’

After wrapping up Lady Bird, Gerwig decided to team up with Ronan and Chalamet once again for the hit 2019 adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women. 

“When I heard they were interested in making it, I said to my agent, ‘You have to get me a meeting because I have to make this movie.’ I had not made Lady Bird yet,” the director explained. “And he said, ‘I don’t think they’re ever going to hire you for this.’ And I said, ‘Well, they have to.’ Then I was able to go talk with them about my ideas, and they did hire me to write it, and it was after Lady Bird had come out that I heard that they would like me to direct it, and did I want to do it? And I kind of had that— ‘Would I? I’ve been waiting 30 years!’”

“I reread the book as an adult, and I was bowled over by how modern it was, how much it was about women, ambition, art and money. There were lines that could have been written yesterday,” she continued. “was a chance to address things that were so personal and also to do something radical with it. I think you have a license with material that is beloved, because you can start with a common language.” 

Gerwig wrote and directed the 2019 Little Women and even earned an Oscar nomination in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. 

‘Barbie’ 

Between its star-studded cast, feminist plot lines and memorable moments, Gerwig’s Barbie movie was a cult classic before it even hit theaters and a box office blockbuster after. The plot follows Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) as she ventures into the real world and realizes that the world isn’t as pretty and pink as she thought. 

“I wanted to make something anarchic and wild and funny and cathartic,” she said.  “And the idea that it’s actually being received that way, it’s sort of extraordinary.”

She also said that one of the film’s most iconic lines was one that scared her the most. 

“The first time I ever screened the movie for an audience, that line — ‘Do you guys ever think about dying’ — got a big laugh, and everybody who had been holding their breaths for a year and a half finally exhaled,” Gerwig explained.  “The way it played was something I could always kind of hear in my head and see in my mind’s eye, but outside that group that was there, it was a little bit of white-knuckling.” 

Barbie is the one film that Gerwig wrote and directed but did not receive any Oscar nominations for, which a lot of people thought was a “snub.” 

Inside Greta Gerwig’s personal life and what’s next

When she is not writing and directing incredible feminist films, Gerwig can be found hanging out with her husband, Noah Baumbach, and their two kids. 

Currently, she is working on a revival of The Chronicles of Narnia, but details on it remain unknown. 

Link to original: https://www.womansworld.com/entertainment/celebrities/who-is-greta-gerwig-all-about-the-director