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<p>From her ability to write, direct and act in movies simultaneously, to her determination to cinematically explore female friendships, Greta Gerwig is a new kind of movie star.</p><p>But perhaps nothing makes Gerwig as distinctive as her knowledge of Hollywood history. Unlike most actors who, strange as it sounds, aren&#8217;t big film fans, Gerwig can talk your ear off about her favorite directors ranging from screwball champions Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges to modern masters like Mike Leigh and Woody Allen.</p><p>It&#8217;s not surprising then that when she tries to describe her latest movie &#8211; the Sundance hit &#8220;Mistress America&#8221; &#8211; she invokes the names of a handful of &#8217;80 movies that made a big impression on her growing up.</p><p>&#8220;Back in the &#8216;80s, there was this group of movies like &#8216;After Hours,&#8217; &#8216;Desperately Seeking Susan&#8217; and &#8216;Something Wild&#8217; where the plot involved a square &#8211; or an Uptown person - getting dragged into the crazy underworld.</p><p>&#8220;That plot stopped happening in films&#8230;and we thought maybe our movie could have some of that spirit.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Mistress America,&#8221; which opens Aug. 28 in Philadelphia, is the third film that Gerwig has starred in for director Noah Baumbach, who is also her off-screen beau. They met in 2009 while making &#8220;Greenberg&#8221; and a year later, they began collaborating on &#8220;Frances Ha,&#8221; a portrait of an aspiring dancer who moves to New York City and is faced with career setbacks and the loss of her beloved roommate.</p><p>&#8220;Frances Ha&#8221; was such a big indie hit the pair decided to team up again for &#8220;Mistress America,&#8221; which casts Gerwig, 32, as a flaky hipster, Brooke, who takes her soon-to-be-stepsister Tracy (Lola Kirke) under her wing.</p><p>Brooke winds up giving Tracy the education of a lifetime by taking her on tour of all the coolest Manhattan nightspots and parties. The pair wind up roadtipping to Connecticut so Brooke can try and convince a wealthy pal (Michael Chernus) to give her $75,000 to open a restaurant.</p><p>Less immediately likeable than Frances, Brooke is based, at least in part, on some of the hip New Yorkers Gerwig met when she was a student at Barnard College.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s funny that people ask me if I&#8217;m Brooke because really I&#8217;m more like Tracy,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I went to Barnard. I dressed Lola in the kinds of clothes I wore at 19. We shot (on the floor of the dorm) I lived in at 19.</p><p>&#8220;And I idolized a lot of girls while I was in college, girls who seemed older than me. I remember there was this one girl who intimidated me because she was so cool. She was cooking one night and asked me to go out and buy pasta for her. I was gone an hour and came back with 12 different kinds.</p><p>&#8220;I had such a panic attack that I&#8217;d buy the wrong kind of pasta&#8230;I always felt that (these girls) knew what was going on in a way that I didn&#8217;t. But when I was around them, I felt more alive.&#8221;</p><p>These days it is Gerwig who&#8217;s seen as the ultimate New York hipster and style icon.</p><p>&#8220;I do not feel that way at all,&#8221; she said. &#8220;All I&#8217;m aware of are the times I dressed badly or showed up for events wearing, like, hats for no reason at all.&#8221;</p><p>Gerwig&#8217;s physical comedy skills have been likened to Buster Keaton&#8217;s. In &#8220;Mistress America&#8221; she throws herself, literally, into the role, whether descending a long red staircase with a strange kind of panache or pretending to rewind herself ala an old-fashioned videotape machine.</p><p>&#8220;I think my dance background influences everything in terms of acting,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Every (performance) is really physical for me, and I really experience it with my whole body.</p><p>&#8220;I could play characters who aren&#8217;t comfortable with their bodies, or awkward, but it&#8217;s all connected to my ability to inhabit my own body fully. It&#8217;s one of the biggest tools in my acting arsenal. I like to think I inhabit my characters from head to toe.&#8221;</p><p>While many of Gerwig&#8217;s characters are at strange junctures in their lives, yearning for the next step, the actress always seems to know the importance of making opportunities happen.</p><p>She was born in Sacramento. Her mom worked as a nurse and her father toiled for a credit union. Gerwig credits her own ignorance about the film industry with inspiring her to write and direct her own material.</p><p>&#8220;I never had a strong sense of the different jobs that you can do on movies,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I never thought, &#8216;oh that&#8217;s what an actor does and that&#8217;s what a writer or director does.&#8217; I just thought, &#8216;I want to make a movie.&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;And it is kind of an illusion that there are separate jobs &#8230; At this point, I&#8217;ve seen enough great actors on set to know that they are filmmakers &#8230; They know the shots, the set-ups, the lighting and what the other actors are doing. Nobody who is good at what they do just knows their little corner of it.&#8221;</p><p>Gerwig developed her own performing skills early. When she was 5, she decided to organize a production of &#8220;Gypsy&#8221; with her kindergarten classmates as he co-stars.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;d seen a Broadway production and even though I didn&#8217;t understand what strippers were, I was determined to have everyone do this show with me,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I was the most annoying child.&#8221;</p><p>Initially, it was dance which captured Gerwig&#8217;s imagination. She took ballet lessons and delved deep into the lore of dance icons like Gelsey Kirkland and George Balanchine</p><p>Gerwig wound up at New York&#8217;s Barnard College where she majored in philosophy. She began writing plays at the suggestion of a professor and initiated an improv group called The Tea Part Ensemble.</p><p>Following graduation, she made her starring film debut in Joe Swanberg&#8217;s &#8220;Hannah Takes The Stairs&#8221; and, after appearing in a handful of no-budget films by Ti West and the Duplass Brothers, was dubbed the &#8220;Meryl Streep on Mumblecore.&#8221;</p><p>Gerwig co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced and co-starred in Swanberg&#8217;s &#8220;Nights and Weekends,&#8221; which led to higher-profile gigs in movies by Whit Stillman (&#8220;Damsels In Distress&#8221;) and Woody Allen (&#8220;To Rome With Love.&#8221;)</p><p>These days, Gerwig is part of a growing wave of actresses, like Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham, who also write (and sometimes direct) their own material.</p><p>&#8220;I hope I&#8217;m part of a trend,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I love those women. They&#8217;re all amazing. I think it&#8217;s a good moment but also a necessary moment. There are not enough female voices. And people are just becoming acutely aware of that, and making an effort to see it change. But we are not there yet.</p><p>&#8220;I just read a report that in 2014, less than 7 percent of films were directed by woman. That&#8217;s a tiny, terrible number.&#8221;</p><p>Still to come from Gerwig are a number of indie projects including Rebecca Miller&#8217;s &#8220;Maggie&#8217;s Plan&#8221; with Julianne Moore and Ethan Hawke; Mike Mills&#8217; &#8220;20th Century Women&#8221; with Annette Bening; and Todd Solondz&#8217; &#8220;Wiener-Dog,&#8221; a semi-sequel to &#8220;Welcome To The Dollhouse.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I love the camaraderie of making movies,&#8221; Gerwig said. &#8220;It&#8217;s like throwing a small party every day where you have to work really hard. It&#8217;s 5:30 in the morning and all these people are there because they love telling stories. There&#8217;s something almost religious about it to me.</p><p>&#8220;What funny creatures we are that we spend so much time creating fictions so we can better understand our lives. I find it very moving.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Greta Gerwig attends the premiere of &#8216;Mistress America&#8217; during the Sundance NEXT FEST at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on Friday, August 7, 2015 in Los Angeles. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_gerwig2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Greta Gerwig attends the premiere of &#8216;Mistress America&#8217; during the Sundance NEXT FEST at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on Friday, August 7, 2015 in Los Angeles. </caption0><photoCredit0>AP photo </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_gerwig3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This photo provided by Fox Searchlight Pictures shows, Lola Kirke, left, as Tracy, and Greta Gerwig, as Brooke, in a scene from &#8220;Mistress America.&#8221; </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_gerwig3.jpg</photo1><caption1>This photo provided by Fox Searchlight Pictures shows, Lola Kirke, left, as Tracy, and Greta Gerwig, as Brooke, in a scene from &#8220;Mistress America.&#8221; </caption1><photoCredit1>AP photo </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>The &#8216;Mistress America&#8217; star is one of several up and coming women in Tinseltown</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Amy Longsdorf | For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Amy Longsdorf is the Times Leader&#8217;s ticket into the Hollywood movie world. Her column, Vintage Videos, include reviews of DVDs with local ties. She also interviews stars of soon-to-be-released movies.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Greta Gerwig, one of the up and coming ladies in Tinseltown, ‘Mistress America’