Barbie‘s Greta Gerwig addressed the uproar after she wasn’t nominated for a Best Directing Oscar at the 2024 Academy Awards.
Life is fantastic for Greta Gerwig, even without that statue.
The Barbie director Greta Gerwig spoke out for the first time since the Academy did not nominate her for the Best Directing award at the 2024 Oscars. (Instead, the organization recognized Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall, Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon, Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer, Yorgos Lanthimos for Poor Things and Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest.)
Gerwig’s inner circle quickly noticed the omission, as she told TIME for an article published Feb. 21, “A friend’s mom said to me, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t get nominated.'”
But the Little Women alum is choosing to focus on the positive, including Barbie‘s nomination for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for her and husband Noah Baumbach.
“I said, ‘But I did. I got an Oscar nomination,'” Greta Gerwig recalled telling her acquaintance. “She was like, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful for you!’ I was like, ‘I know!'”
However, the 40-year-old acknowledged there could have been more love for Barbie, considering star Margot Robbie also failed to get a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.
“Of course I wanted it for Margot,” Gerwig noted. “But I’m just happy we all get to be there together.”
It’s a sentiment that Robbie also expressed when reflecting on her Oscars snub, sharing at a SAG screening on Jan. 30, “There’s no way to feel sad when you know you’re this blessed.”
“Obviously I think Greta should be nominated as a director,” the actress continued, “because what she did is a once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime thing, what she pulled off, it really is.”
Despite Barbie being one of the year’s most successful films, two of its most important players did not find themselves among this year’s Oscars hopefuls.
Director Greta Gerwig and actress Margot Robbie were not nominated in either the Best Director or Leading Actress, despite both having earned nods at the Golden Globes in the equivalent categories.