2020-01-23 The Hollywood Reporter

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 28 JANUARY 2020 AWARDS 1

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I

n the early 1990s, Amy

Pascal was the Sony

production executive

in charge of develop-

ing the latest big-screen

adaptation of Little Women.

That version, directed by Gillian

Armstrong, starred Winona Ryder

as Jo (earning her a second Oscar

nomination) and Christian Bale as

Laurie, as well as Susan Sarandon,

Kirsten Dunst and Claire Danes.

A decade later, when Pascal

was running Sony’s film studio,

she was approached by another

adoring fan of Louisa May

Alcott’s iconic 1868 novel about

four sisters who march to their

own drumbeat in a patriarchal

world: Greta Gerwig, an actress

and then-emerging filmmaker

who had her own unique take on

the feminist tale.

Pascal and Gerwig formed an

immediate bond, but it would

take years to get the project off

the ground. Pascal left her top

studio gig in early 2015, after the

Sony hack, to become a producer,

while Gerwig went off to make

the Oscar-nominated Lady Bird. It

was worth the wait: Little Women

has earned more than $75 million

at the U.S. box office since skat-

ing into theaters on Christmas

Day, and is now nominated for

six Oscars. And it’s only the third

film in history that’s directed,

written and produced by women

to contend for best picture.

(Pascal also reunited with the

1994 film’s producer Denise Di

Novi and screenwriter Robin

Swicord, who both served as pro-

ducers on this latest adaptation.)

Pascal tells THR about how

she convinced Sony to make the

film, a tough moment on set

(think: weather) and why she was

obsessed with Gerwig’s vision of a

story she holds close to her heart.

“I’m all things Little Women,” she

says. “My father read the book to

my mother when I was in utero,

and my name is Amy Beth.”

You were first approached by

Greta Gerwig in 2014 when you

were still chairman of Sony’s film

studio. Why were you so drawn to

her take on this classic tale?

AMY PASCAL She came in and told

me what she intended to do with

the screenplay. She had the entire

movie already worked out. She

knew that she wanted to make it

From left: Producer Amy Pascal, Timothée Chalamet, Eliza

Scanlen, Saoirse Ronan, Laura Dern, Florence Pugh and Chris

Cooper on the Massachusetts set of Little Women.

Little Women

Writer-director Greta Gerwig breathes new life into

Louisa May Alcott’s timeless tale of four close-knit sisters coming of age

in the years during and after the Civil War BY PAMELA MCCLINTOCK

about women’s economic indepen-

dence. And she wanted to tell it in

two timelines. She knew the cast

that she wanted to put in it. She

even knew the colors, and showed

me references from Winslow

Homer paintings. She had already

done an entire bible of what she

wanted the movie to feel like, what

she wanted it to sound like and

what she wanted it to be. It was

one of the more inspiring meet-

ings of my life.

Were you concerned about the

script jumping back and forth in

time, versus telling the story in a

traditional, linear fashion?

Never. I always felt very confi-

dent in her vision. She wanted

to make it about our memory,

and the way in which we idealize

our childhood.

This was before Lady Bird, correct?

Yes, it was. But Greta Gerwig is a

force of nature, and I fell in love.

Why didn’t it get off the ground

before you left Sony in early 2015?

Oh, it’s like every other thing — it

takes forever to make a movie

happen. She went off and did Lady

Bird, so it took a while to come

up with the complex orchestra-

tion of the screenplay she had in

her mind.

Was it difficult persuading [Sony

chairman] Tom Rothman to green-

light Little Women?

I remember him calling me and

saying, “I read the script over the

weekend and I cried six times,

and we have to make this movie.”

Then I brought Greta in for a

meeting. He really believed in her.

BEST PICTURE

“To me, the book was so clearly

about women, art and money. I felt

like there were all these spiky

things that I could really dig into.”

GRETA GERWIG

VITAL STATS

STUDIO Sony

RELEASE DATE Dec. 25

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE

$111M (through Jan. 16)

DIRECTOR Greta Gerwig

CAST

Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson,

Eliza Scanlen, Timothée Chalamet,

Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper

TOP AWARDS

6 Oscar noms, 5 BAFTA noms, 2 Globe noms