“Barbie” director Greta Gerwig, in a recent interview, gets candid about her exclusion from the Oscars Best Director category. While most of her leading cast members have long decried the snub, Gerwig has quietly waited to react — and addressed the matter with grace.
“A friend’s mom said to me, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t get nominated,’” she told Time magazine in an article published Wednesday. “I said, ‘But I did. I got an Oscar nomination.’ She was like, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful for you!’ I was like, ‘I know!’”
Gerwig was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, which left the film’s fans on social media fuming. They were equally miffed that her lead actor Margot Robbie, who produced the record-breaking blockbuster, only received a Best Picture nomination.
“Of course I wanted it for Margot,” Gerwig told Time about Robbie’s exclusion from the Best Lead Actress category. “But I’m just happy we all get to be there together.”
These remarks are a far cry from those of her closest collaborators, including Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera and Robbie. Gosling, nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance as Ken, was the first of his peers to address the snubs.
“I am extremely honored to be nominated … But there is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie more without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie,” he told several media outlets,” the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film.”
Ferrera, who received a Best Supporting Actress nod, publicly agreed. Her co-star Helen Mirren was largely accepting, while Robbie said she was “beyond ecstatic” about the film’s eight Oscar nominations — and said that the cultural impact of “Barbie” has been “the biggest reward.”
“There’s no way to feel sad when you know you’re this blessed,” said Robbie at a SAG screening in January. “Obviously, I think Greta should be nominated as a director because what she did is a once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime thing, what she pulled off, it really is.”
While Gosling recently admitted he had much more to say about the matter, Gerwig appears satisfied. After all, “Barbie” became the first-ever billion-dollar movie directed by a solo woman — and is going head-to-head with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” this year for the Best Picture award.
The 2024 Academy Awards will air on March 10 on ABC.