Greta Gerwig’s debut feature Lady Bird, as solo writer/director catapulted her career in the entertainment industry. Narrating the story of a titular teenage girl’s final year at her Catholic school and her journey of losing and gaining friends and boyfriends, Gerwig featured Saoirse Ronan in the lead role.
Further, coming up with the most relatable aspect of the film where the lead character gets attracted to her bad boy boyfriend Kyle, played to perfection by Timothée Chalamet. For this scene, Greta Gerwig apparently had to charm the actor to fit the persona, as she later mentioned Chalamet is not a typical dirtbag boyfriend.
Timothée Chalamet Isn’t A Typical Heartbreaker Boyfriend
The phenomenal writer-director, Greta Gerwig created a coming-of-age story when she released her indie drama Lady Bird in 2017. Featuring Saoirse Ronan in the funny and touching story about the typical phases of a young woman’s life, Gerwig presented piercing clarity mixed with hyperrealism.
Gerwig then presented the audience with the romantic relationship between Ronan’s Lady Bird and Timothée Chalamet’s Kyle. Posing the blunt-cut hair with red streaks growing out, a gangly yet graceful girl alongside the handsome rebel, the director brought out an authentic representation of teenage girls.
However, while the movie portrayed Timothée Chalamet’s character as a pretentious mansplainer, Greta Gerwig claimed Kyle wasn’t actually a typical dirtbag heartbreaker. Although the movie portrayed him as a chain-smoking, leather-jacket-wearing boyfriend, the director claimed to resonate a lot with the character. Further, she also mentioned how she had to charm Chalamet for the role.
Greta Gerwig Had To Charm Up Timothée Chalamet For Lady Bird
Finding Timothée Chalamet as a dreamy guy who isn’t a typical heartbreaker, Greta Gerwig mentioned how she had to give the actor his makeover for Lady Bird. According to a trivia shared by IMDb, the director told Chalamet to grow out his hair for the role of Lady Bird’s chain-smoking, conspiracy-theorizing boyfriend, Kyle.
“That look is really working for him.”
Writer/director Greta Gerwig later discussed with The Guardian, how she often resonates with Timothée Chalamet‘s Kyle. While the world believes that Gerwig is actually the person behind Lady Bird, she is actually the woman behind Kyle. Relating a lot to Chalamet’s character, Gerwig thus tried to focus more on how to bring out the best in him.
“I talked for a long time with Timothée about his character’s beliefs, and he said, ‘The funny thing is that everybody is going to think you’re Lady Bird, but you’re Kyle’. And I was like, ‘I know! I am secretly Kyle.’ I have all of the same paranoias as Kyle does.”
Thus, eventually, Greta Gerwig tried and successfully turned Timothée Chalamet’s character into the crush archetype formed in our early teens and often carried through into the adult dating world.
Watch Lady Bird on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: IMDb, The Guardian
