When you and your spouse are both filmmakers, things can get a little complicated—especially when both of your projects receive Academy Award nominations in the same year, in the same category. For Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, the two decided to back their own work when it came to voting for the award winners in 2020.
In a new interview with New York Times, Gerwig shares that she and her spouse decided to vote for their own films in lieu of any other options. Both her adaptation of Little Women and Baumbach’s Marriage Story garnered six Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.
“It was so weird in the moment when we actually were there,” Gerwig says of the awards show. “It’s very funny, but we did actually vote for ourselves. We were at our computers and I was like, ‘Just so you know, I’m going to vote for myself,’ and he said, ‘OK, I’m going to vote for myself, too.’”
Voting for Little Women must not have been difficult for Gerwig while voting against Little Women must have been terrible for Baumbach. Unfortunately, despite there being an obvious winner when it comes to who made a better film (Gerwig), both lost out in the Best Picture category to Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite.
Gerwig and Baumbach have both since worked together, with Gerwig leading her partner’s adaption of Don DeLillo’s White Noise with Adam Driver. She says that while working on the film together, she took one moment to give him advice on set.
“He’s incredibly open to suggestion. The truth is, I think if I had wanted to sit there all day, every day, even when I wasn’t on the set, he’d be happy to ask what I thought of every shot,” Gerwig says.
She added, “I think also, as a director, there’s a certain loneliness. Mike Nichols said directors need a buddy. So someone who has a thought or a point of view or is looking over your shoulder makes you feel less like you’re having an isolated existential crisis every day.”