Madison news - interview: Nancy Meyers

If you’ve been to the cinema or flipped on a movie channel at any point in the last 30 years, you’ve almost certainly found yourself in the world of Nancy Meyers. The movies that she’s directed, produced and written—including Private Benjamin, Baby Boom, What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give, and It’s Complicated, which was released on DVD this week—are cultural touchstones. In this frank and thought-provoking interview, Meyers talks to Madison about her career longevity, the magic of Meryl Streep, and why white-hot starlet Amanda Seyfried needs to eat a burger.

What compelled you to write this particular story? Was there a specific incident or something that happened to you or a friend?

I am a divorced person. It’s a part of my life and part of a lot of lives of people I know—both men and women—especially if they live in the same town. And I do find—like, I was at the doctor’s office yesterday and I had to fill out a form: married, single or divorced. It’s like a thing to fill out divorced. So as much as I wanted to write about the reality of being divorced, I also wanted to write about the comedy. The funny thing is, my daughter is graduating college next month, and my ex-husband and I are flying to New York for her graduation, which is exactly what happens in the movie. We’re all staying in the same motel, too. Funny, right?

You’ll have to report back on whether it’s funny or frightening. We hear so much in the media about how underrepresented women still are—both on- and off-screen—in Hollywood. Is it still hard to get your movies made? Is each studio pitch its own special form of torture, or has it grown easier each time you have success with a new title?

I don’t find it to be torture to go pitch a movie, but you never know exactly how they are going to respond. What was really nice when I pitched this movie was that there were three or four executives from Universal in the room, and they seemed to have a great time hearing the story. But when I pitched Baby Boom to someone at Paramount in the mid-‘80s, he actually fell asleep. While I was talking, he was snoring. In the case of It’s Complicated, I got a very good response and they were very enthusiastic. They never really said ‘Do they really have to be in their late 50’s?’ They just went with it and they really just let me make my movie.

But that sort of thing just doesn’t seem typical. Is it easier because you’ve had such a run of successful movies?

I’ve been making movies since 1980 with a certain kind of regular result, you know? [Ed. note: Meyers’ 2000 comedy What Women Want was the highest-grossing film directed by a woman until Katherine Hardwicke’s 2008 adaptation of Twilight.] So I think they feel like they can trust me. And because I made the studio money last time I made a movie about people this age, Something’s Gotta Give—which was also a comedy—I think they felt relaxed. The movies that come before can help you, and they can hurt you. It’s pretty simple. It’s business.

Why aren’t there any films like, say, The Hangover, that are specifically geared toward women?

What do you mean by a Hangover for women?

You know, that sort of rowdy comedy that always seems to be focused on men. 
But which part?

The raunchiness, the buddy comedy aspect…obviously there’s Sex and the City, but that’s not quite the same thing. 

It’s not funny like the Hangover but it’s kind of raunchy, I guess. I’m not the age of the boys in The Hangover, but I don’t know that women conduct themselves that way. It seems like a male experience. Still, there are women that are writing movies that aren’t so nice and clean. We’ll see if they get made…

Your set design seems to be the thing that everyone has focused on almost fanatically when it comes to your last few films. What are your thoughts on the strong reactions that it elicits? 

I don’t love talking about it. My movies do take place mostly in the characters’ houses. You can’t shoot in a real house for that long—no-one is going to give you their house for four months; you need to take the walls down and make it a set. So that’s not unique to my movies—a lot of people build sets for their movies. I always look at it like ‘Wow, I get to build a house!’ I always dig into how I think the characters live and what I think their aesthetic is. And there’s a common aesthetic between Jane’s bakery and her house in It’s Complicated. She’s a nurturer, she’s a cook, she’s a baker, she’s into the way things look, she’s going to own things—she’s practically sixty years. She’s had 30 years of being a homeowner. She’s going to collect things, she’s going to have nice things on the walls, and she’s going to have a nice home for her family. I think people kind of overreact to the set design. I’m doubtful I’ll do it quite the same way again because I really don’t like the attention. I guess it’s nice that people respond that way, but I struggle a little bit, it mystifies me a little.

Let’s go back to Baby Boom. The world has obviously changed since its release in 1987. What do you think when you go back and watch it now? It’s such a snapshot of a certain moment for women in the workplace.

The thing about that movie is that it reflected what was going on in my life, just like It’s Complicated reflects my life now. I was pregnant with my second child while making that movie. I already had a seven year old. I was writing movies in Hollywood. I was balancing all of that, and I noticed that the men had a free ride as parents. I noticed how much harder women had to work, and how much more difficult it was to juggle the two things. And believe it or not, back in 1987 that wasn’t a topic people were writing about.

I’m 31 years old. My mum took me to see Baby Boom in the theatre when I was nine years old. And like me, a lot of people in my generation really have fond memories of and feelings toward that movie.

Really? Why is that, do you think?

Because it was always on pay TV! And it wasn’t really full of swear words or sex or violence. It just got ingrained into the culture for a lot of us.

I really have never heard that, that’s cool. I know a lot of people your age who have said that to me, ‘My mom loves it.’ Because, you know, it was about their generation. It was your mothers who had to sit down with their bosses and hear them say,“I can do it all. You can’t.’

Would you say any one particular film you have written or directed has produced the most passionate response from audiences, friends or people in the industry?

Something’s Gotta Give was a movie that I recall strangers talking to me about a lot.  I think it was because it was the first movie that had a love story that, with that age, a lot of people could relate to. People were happy to see people that age, you know, living that experience.

It’s Complicated is your first film with Meryl Streep, and you nabbed her a moment when she is just clearly at the top of her game. What was it like working with her? 

Her presence is enormous. There’s never a moment when she’s not tuned in. Some actors, over a three-minute scene, are in and out. You have to catch them at the right moment and then cut to them. Not her. And what’s happened recently is that the material she has chosen has been more relatable and more comedic than some of her iconic performances in the past. She’s becoming a girlfriend to the women in the audience. They don’t look at her with so much awe. There is a different kind of appreciation now. You know, she’s like one of us and I think that’s pretty cool! Even I think, being in The Devil Wears Prada, which is not an easy character to relate to, the fact that she took a smaller part was a really good, interesting choice for her to make. She didn’t say, ‘No, I would never do that. I’m not the lead.’ Anne Hathaway was the lead, but Meryl’s presence was strong.

And she had that great scene where she was crying in the limo. I question how effective it would have been if it was somebody else. But who knows?

It’s hard to imagine other people in her parts in general.

Is there another actor that you would like to work with in the future that you haven’t had a chance to work with, or you’ve talked about working with but haven’t found the right material for or scheduling?

No, not really. There’s some people I’ve worked with that I would love to work with again—Kate Winslet, Steve Martin and Diane Keaton…I can’t think of anybody. Oh, I would like to work with Leonardo DiCaprio.
Would you want to do comedy with him? He’s almost exclusively a dramatic actor.
I only like doing comedies.

Let’s talk about Katherine Bigelow winning an Oscar for best director. Have you ever met her, or worked with her in any capacity?

No, but I think she did a fabulous job. I was watching the Oscars at a party and I just screamed out loud when she won. I was really thrilled for her. I loved that the spotlight was on her.

And she’s almost categorically refused to talk specifically about being a female director. I realise that I’m part of the problem asking this question in the first place, but I’d love to get your thoughts on that stance.

Well she is a female director, but she doesn’t make movies driven by women. They’re mostly male leads and, you know, war is not a typical female subject—but why isn’t it? It’s something that we all deal with everyday. It’s in our newspaper, our lives and our families. True, the characters in the movies are men but most of the characters in It’s Complicated are men, for that matter. She hasn’t chosen to tell a typical female story, but who cares? She’s a director; she’ll direct movies that appeal to her, that tell stories that she knows how to tell. I don’t blame her for not wanting to talk about it. Last year, she had a movie, I had a movie, Nora Ephron had a movie, Amelia was directed by a woman, An Education was directed by a woman, The Proposal was directed by a woman…there were a lot of movies directed by women. And because of that all the newspapers and magazines tried to assemble us on these round tables, and not one of them pulled it off. None of us spoke to each other about it, but we all turned them down. What were we going to say? We are tired of talking about it. They don’t do male director round tables.

What’s next? Do you have another feature brewing?
I like to take time off between movies. I’m actually working on building a real house for myself—not one where the walls move. 

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the cultural critic Susan J. Douglas, but she recently published a book called Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work Is Done. I’m reading it now and I wanted to share a few passages with you because they concern one of your movies. 

What is enlightened sexism?

It’s the argument that women have been led to believe that they have achieved full equality, and because of this are now allowing themselves to be portrayed in very sexist ways because it’s all supposed to be very post-feminist and ironic. I’m talking about something like The Bachelor. Plenty of women watch that show and laugh at it and pretend to be above it, when in fact they’re egging on these stereotypical portrayals of women as bimbos and….

Who leads women on to believe there is equality? I don’t believe there is equality. Do you feel that in the world? I mean how do you explain the first part, that women have been led to believe there is equality?

That’s a good question. Essentially what she is saying is that there are…

Is she saying that the fights over? That IBM is run by a woman, so everything’s okay?

No, it’s about pop culture and how, say, shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Xena: Warrior Princess or Desperate Housewives or Survivor portray women as strong or fierce and perhaps have kind of lulled people into believing that women have gained some sort of equality. But if you don’t believe that argument, I’d love to hear your argument against that.

I think that every time a new, wonderful actress gets on the cover of a magazine in her underwear, there’s not equality. Because I never see James Franco in his underwear…but I see Amanda Seyfried in her underwear. Why do these women and their advisors let them do this? Meryl never did that. Keaton never did that. And that was in the 70’s, when women really weren’t making the money! Turning actresses into models and putting them on the cover of fashion magazines has hurt their work. I don’t find that to be anything positive or helpful.

It’s interesting that you mention Amanda Seyfried because I just read an article a couple of days ago in which she was essentially quoted as saying “I would not get the roles I get unless I am constantly starving myself.”

That’s horrible. But I guess the good thing is that she is saying it. I’ll tell you what’s great: Tina Fey. The fact that she created this show with a female lead who lives an uncompromised life but nevertheless is on a major network show—I like all that. I like her character, I like how she plays her, and I like how she writes her. That to me is a strong role model.