Contributor, PEOPLE
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach work well together as film collaborators and as life partners.
The No Strings Attached actress and the White Noise director first met after Baumbach watched one of Gerwig's films and decided to cast her in his upcoming project. They began their romantic relationship in 2011, while also beginning a consistent work relationship.
In the years since, they have collaborated on several films together and welcomed a child. In December 2022, the two directors announced that they were expecting their second baby.
While the couple have discussed their creative process and how they work together, they are extremely private regarding their personal life.
In a 2019 interview with Vogue, the Little Women director did share that a typical weekend for her involves “just hanging out with Noah and the baby, and writing, and making each other laugh.”
Keep reading for a complete timeline of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach's relationship, both professional and romantic.
Gerwig and Baumbach first met when she was cast alongside Ben Stiller in Baumbach’s 2010 film, Greenberg. At the time, Baumbach was married to actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, who also co-wrote the film.
After five years of marriage, Leigh filed for divorce from Baumbach. At the time, their son Rohmer was just seven months old.
Baumbach and Leigh’s divorce was later finalized in September 2013.
The pair's film, Frances Ha, which they co-wrote together, debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in 2012 and was later released via IFC Films. Baumbach, who directed the film, came up with the initial concept and pitched it to Gerwig, who starred in it as Frances. The two then bonded over the co-writing process.
“I sort of started by saying, like, ‘Here’s sort of the thing I’m thinking about. Why don’t you write down a bunch of ideas and things,’ ” Baumbach later recalled to Variety. “What I didn’t know is that Greta was this incredible writer, I mean, I had a feeling she’d be a great collaborator, but that writing really was kind of her thing when she was in college, and so I really lucked out. It was amazing.”
A Los Angeles Times article on the film referred to the duo as a “real-life couple.”
Gerwig and Baumbach kept their collaborations coming when they worked on their third movie, Mistress America. Gerwig co-wrote, co-produced and costarred in the film alongside Lola Kirke. Meanwhile, Baumbach served as the director as well as a co-producer and co-writer.
“We really share a lot of the same sensibilities,” he told Collider of Gerwig at the time. “We like a lot of the same movies. In writing, behavioral building blocks are interesting to both of us, so when we start talking about doing something together, there’s a lot of common ground, even though we’re bringing in our own perspectives and our own lives to it, but it feels very easy. Both these scripts felt like they’re very much of one voice — even though we’re working on our own scenes separately.”
Baumbach also noted that it is "less lonely, too, to work with somebody."
Following their first few collaborations, the media began referring to Gerwig as “Baumbach’s muse,” which she was not fond of, as she explained during a 2017 interview with Vulture.
"I did not love being called a muse," she told the outlet. "I didn't want to be strident about it or say, 'Hey, give me my due,' but I did feel like I wasn't a bystander."
Gerwig added that their second and third projects were "half-mine" since she co-wrote them.
"Also, I knew secretly that I was engaged with this longer project, and wanted to be a writer and director in my own right, so I felt like the muse business, or whatever it was, was a position that I didn't identify with in my heart," she continued.
After years of speculation, the couple went public with their relationship while attending the Golden Globe Awards. Gerwig and Baumbach arrived on the carpet together, both donning black outfits, and posed for a few photos.
Later on in the evening, Gerwig took home the award for best comedy or musical film for Lady Bird, which she wrote and directed.
Gerwig and Baumbach stepped out together again at the 90th Academy Awards. Gerwig stunned in an embroidered yellow dress and the powerhouse couple smiled at each other as they posed for photos on the red carpet.
The Lady Bird director was honored with two nominations for Best Achievement in Directing and Best Original Screenplay for the Saoirse Ronan-starring film.
Reps for the couple confirmed to PEOPLE in March 2019 that Gerwig and Baumbach had quietly welcomed their first child together. The baby’s birth date, sex and name were not revealed at the time.
“I was always scared about being a mother,” Gerwig later told Vogue, “in terms of what it would mean for what I was able to do.”
Gerwig shared with the outlet that she went into labor 24 hours after completing the rough cut of her film Little Women. Despite planning a maternity leave, Meryl Streep had to come into the studio to record dialogue so she brought her newborn with her to the studio where she “felt like he was being christened by Meryl.”
It was later revealed that the couple’s son is named Harold.
Gerwig and Baumbach teamed up once again to co-write a live-action film based on the iconic Mattel doll, Barbie. Gerwig, who is directing the upcoming film, admitted that taking on the project “was terrifying.”
“There’s something about starting from that place where it’s like, ‘Well, anything is possible,’ ” she explained on Dua Lipa‘s podcast. “It felt like vertigo, starting to write it. Where do you even begin? And what would be the story?”
"I think that feeling that I had was knowing that it would be really interesting terror," she continued. "Usually, that's where the best stuff is, when you're like, 'I am terrified of that.' Anything where you're like, 'This could be a career-ender,' then you're like, 'Okay, I probably should do it.' "
Margot Robbie is set to play the legendary plastic toy with Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend, Ken.
With careers that are constantly overlapping, the couple's work sometimes makes its way into their relationship, however, the pair doesn't seem to mind.
"I think the pleasure of writing for us is that it seeps into everything. I'd show her a cut of my movie, and then a few months later, I'm watching her movie," Baumbach told Vogue. "I don't want to sound sickeningly happy, but it's a truly great thing to watch someone you love make something and love the thing they make. I don't know how else to say it without saying great a lot."
Baumbach is no stranger to appreciating his partner's work, however, Little Women, left a lasting impression on him.
“That’s a movie I start crying almost from the beginning to the very end,” he shared with PEOPLE on the red carpet of the Golden Globes. “There’s so much emotion in it. It’s funny and it’s dramatic. You can tell it comes from the heart. It’s beautiful.”
During a Director’s Roundtable discussion for The Hollywood Reporter, Baumbach revealed how involved Gerwig is with his projects.
"It's beyond advice it's like the roots. She's in there from the very beginning," he said of his partner. "Greta has lines in all my movies that are actually hers — I mean maybe things she said in life but also things she wrote that I say, 'Can I use that?' "
After dating for nearly a decade, Gerwig and Baumbach explained why they don’t have a label for their relationship during an appearance on the Late Late Show with James Corden.
“ ‘Boyfriend’ makes it sound like I just met him last week,” Gerwig told James Corden. ” ‘Lover’ is disgusting. And ‘fiancé’ makes it sound like there’s an imminent wedding. So none of it works.”
Two of the biggest films of 2020 were Baumbach's Marriage Story and Gerwig's Little Women. The pair were the first couple to ever compete at the Academy Awards in the same categories. This included Best Picture, Lead Actress and Supporting Actress.
"Honestly the whole thing is surreal and amazing and I feel like we look at each other all the time and think, 'Is this real? This is crazy, this is amazing,' " Gerwig said on the red carpet.
Baumbach also shared the impact Gerwig has had on his life.
“She’s made me a better person and a better writer,” he told ABC’s Tamron Hall. “When we write together, I’m always trying to impress her. I feel like I write better because I work at it harder, I want her to be impressed.”
Baumbach released his film adaptation of Don Delillo’s White Noise in November 2022. Gerwig starred in the movie as Babette, opposite Adam Driver (Jack). As it turns out, Gerwig was the one to motivate Baumbach to accept the challenge of creating a movie based on a book.
“I felt like this represents how I feel right now,” Baumbach said during a press conference ahead of the film’s release. “It would have been true with or without the pandemic but that certainly put a finer point on it. I set out to do it almost to occupy my mind. Then I started showing pages to Greta and she was encouraging. I got deeper into it and I felt, ‘Well, let’s try this.’ ”
Gerwig announced that she and Baumbach were expecting their second child together during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
"I am with child," the actress-turned-director revealed as the crowd clapped.
Ironically, Gerwig assumed people would have already noticed that she was pregnant as she attended a public event with her baby bump in view.
"I went to an event recently, and I wore something, and I thought everyone would be so interested that I was having another child, and nobody cared," she said jokingly. "It didn't get reported on. Turns out nobody's paying attention."
When asked how Harold felt about having a sibling, Gerwig said, "It's hard to know what a 3-year-old makes of things that aren't existent yet in front of him … He's beautifully sophisticated in some ways and then in other ways, he asks, 'What language do they speak in New Jersey?' "
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