The first promotional stills from Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women have been released by Vanity Fair! Our gallery has been updated with the images, and you can read the article below.
Greta Gerwig doesn’t remember reading Little Women for the first time. “It must have been read to me,” she says when I ask for her earliest memories of author Louisa May Alcott’s classic tale of four girls imagining a world beyond their humble surroundings outside Civil War–era Boston.“I always knew who Jo March was,” Gerwig continues. “She was the person I wanted to be.”
In that, Gerwig has had plenty of company. Little Women is one of the most popular books in the history of American letters; after the first volume sold out its initial run of 2,000 copies in 1868, the novel has never been out of print. Simone de Beauvoir, born in 1908, pretended as a child that she was Jo—Alcott’s protagonist and stand-in, a determined, stubborn tomboy with a flair for writing. Ursula Le Guin says that Alcott’s Jo made writing as a girl feel possible. In film, Katharine Hepburn played Jo in 1933; Winona Ryder, in 1994. Now, Gerwig has created her own Jo for the screen in Saoirse Ronan, who also starred in Gerwig’s debut as a solo director, 2017’s Oscar-nominated Lady Bird.
Gerwig based that film on her own life, and Ronan’s character on herself. Still, Little Women might be even more personal to the director. (Her agent pointed this out to her, Gerwig tells me.) “This feels like autobiography,” Gerwig says. “When you live through a book, it almost becomes the landscape of your inner life. … It becomes part of you, in a profound way.”
Ronan’s introduction to Little Women was the Winona Ryder film, which came out in 1994, the year she was born. She grew up an only child, so for her, filming Little Women gave her a special opportunity: “I got to have sisters.” Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, and Eliza Scanlen play the sisters; Laura Dern is Marmee, and Meryl Streep plays their forbidding, rich Aunt March.
Gerwig shot on location in the book’s Massachusetts setting, where Alcott and her three sisters grew up. The director researched locations that the family could have inhabited, and in some cases, ones they really did—like the schoolhouse where Alcott’s firebrand father, Bronson, taught. “It gives gravity to what you’re doing,” Ronan says. “The physical place really reminds you of the story you’re trying to tell.” Gerwig also relied on paintings from the era, to give the film a vividness that the black-and-white and sepia portraits of the era couldn’t accomplish. An 1870 painting by Winslow Homer called High Tide created the texture for the beach scene; costume designer Jacqueline Durran modeled Jo’s look after a figure in the work.
Emma attended an event in Oxford yesterday! She interviewed Dr. Denis Mukwege for the How To: Academy and The New York Times, and introduced him on her Instagram account as a brilliant colleague and collaborator on the G7 Gender Equality Council.
Our gallery has been updated with images of yesterday’s event, shared by Emma herself, as well as various images from social media of events she attended in the past week, most of them in Paris, France.
“Taking action means saying ‘no’ to indifference. If there is a war to be waged, it is the war against the indifference which is eating away at our societies.” – @drdenismukwege
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Dr. Denis Mukwege has been a brilliant colleague and collaborator on the @g7 Gender Equality Council in Paris. 💫 To borrow praise from a mutual friend, Eve Ensler, Dr. Mukwege is truly ‘a beacon for all men to follow.’ The Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Panzi Hospital is so inspiring to me as a doctor, activist, and male ally in the fight against gender-based violence.✊🏾🧡
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It was so fun interviewing him in my home city as part of @how.to.academy & @nytimes ‘How to Understand Our Times.’ Thank you for sharing your learnings and lifetime of work with us and declaring what feminists across the gender spectrum know to be true: “Rape is not just a physical, violent act perpetrated against one victim, it is an assault on humanity.” 🌻💛
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🌟 If you would like to take action to support Denis’s work, please visit @mukwegefoundation or www.mukwegefoundation.org/get-involved
Public Appearances > 2019 > May 09 – W7 Summit In Paris
Public Appearances > 2019 > May 10 – Gender Equality Conference In Paris
Public Appearances > 2019 > May 10 – W7 Meeting In Paris
Public Appearances > 2019 > May 13 – Lady Margaret Hall At Oxford Visit
Public Appearances > 2019 > May 15 – “How To Understand Our Times” Interview
Emma attended a Gender Equality Conference in Paris, France, yesterday! Our gallery has been updated with images of the event. Thanks to EW Thailand, we also have a video of her speech, which you can watch below.
Today is Emma’s 29th Birthday! Although she still looks like the teenager we constantly looked up to growing up, she’s become such an inspirational grown up. It’s been a joy to see all that she’s achieved year after year, and we can’t wait for what’s ahead.
Emma, we are so very proud of you. We wish you the best that life has to offer, as we have no doubt you’ll continue to give back to the world in the most generous ways you can. Thank you for leading by example, and for being the beautiful, kind, intelligent and entertaining woman that you are. Happy Birthday! ♥️
Make sure you send her your wishes on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram!