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This woman is Hollywood’s unknown golden girl

Greta Gerwig deserves to be a household name, but she’s not.

At 32, the actor and film maker has spent the last five years carving a very particular niche for herself in the film industry.

If you do know Gerwig, it’s probably from her breakout role in 2010’s Greenberg opposite an uncharacteristically serious Ben Stiller, or 2013’s consciously-hip and meditative Frances Ha

You may even recognise Gerwig from her brief foray into the mainstream, as Natalie Portman’s best friend in No Strings Attached or opposite Russell Brand in the questionable Arthur.

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“It never felt right… I’m not a well-known mainstream actor who does studio films,” Gerwig told The Guardian of that time in her career.

greta gerwig noah baumbach

Gerwig with writing partner and boyfriend, director Noah Baumbach. Photo: Getty

Gerwig is the kind of actress who you watch and immediately want to hang out with.

She’s a more indie Jennifer Lawrence; a younger, less serious Cate Blanchett.

Although at pains to point out she’s nothing like the quarter-life crisis dreamers she plays, the real-life Gerwig is a failed ballet dancer (like Frances in Frances Ha) who in her twenties floated around Brooklyn and tutored SAT students for cash (like Brooke in Mistress America).

Mistress America is Gerwig’s latest role: a 30-something dabbler who knows the band and has plenty of ideas but can’t seem to capitalise on any.

In the vein of Girls creator and actress Lena Dunham (a friend, naturally), Gerwig’s at her best when portraying the difficult space between child and adult – that confusing time in our twenties or thirties when careers, friendships and (especially) relationships are yet to fall into place.

But in real life (from the outside at least), it all fell into place when director Noah Baumbach (The Life Aquatic with Steve ZissouThe Squid and the Whale) cast Gerwig in Greenberg. 

She’s been his writing (and personal) partner ever since, as well as muse, appearing in three out of four of Baumbach’s last films.

Despite Baumbach’s tendency for creating hateable characters (Greenberg in Greenberg, Bernard in The Squid and the Whale) Gerwig’s characters in Frances Ha and more recently Mistress America are so anchor-less, dysfunctional and yet optimistic that you can’t help but root for them.

“What I do is kind of hard to explain,” says Frances when asked her profession at a dinner table in Frances Ha.

“… Because I don’t really do it.”

Gerwig with co-star Adam Driver in 2013's Frances Ha. Photo: Getty

Gerwig with co-star Adam Driver in 2013’s Frances Ha. Photo: Getty

On screen, Gerwig is larger than life – instantly sucking an audience into her orbit with laugh-out-loud physical comedy in the vein of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Elizabeth Banks.

Like Jennifer Lawrence in real life, Gerwig gives off an unapologetic realness on-screen that viewers can’t help but find endearing and hilarious.

Put simply, Gerwig is the ultimate retort to the late Christopher Hitchens’ and former Disney CEO Michael Isner’s arguments that women cannot be feminine, beautiful and funny.

There’s no shortage of glamorous and poised young actresses to look up to in Hollywood – Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Anne Hathaway to name a few.

But Gerwig’s ability to feel like your best friend draws us deeper into a film than Keira Knightley’s perfect pout.

Mistress America is in cinemas now.

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