On this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, the award-winning writer/director Noah Baumbach — who has been described by the Los Angeles Times as “one of American cinema’s most distinctive voices” and by The Guardian as “millennials’ answer to Woody Allen” — reflects on his life, career and latest film, Jay Kelly, a dramedy about a movie star (played by George Clooney) in the midst of an existential crisis, which dropped on Netflix last week.
Over the past 30 years, Baumbach has written or co-written and directed 12 narrative features, many of them semi-autobiographical, including instant classics like 2005’s The Squid and the Whale, 2013’s Frances Ha, 2019’s Marriage Story. He also has co-written several blockbusters that were directed by others, most notably 2023’s Barbie, which he penned with his frequent collaborator and wife, Greta Gerwig, and which became the highest-grossing film of that year.
On this episode, which was recorded at the L.A. offices of The Hollywood Reporter, the 56-year-old — who has been the recipient of Spirit, Gotham and Critics Choice awards, as well as four Oscar nominations, three Writers Guild Award noms, two BAFTA and Golden Globe award noms and a Producers Guild Award nom — reflects on the people and films that shaped him and his cinematic sensibility; the joy of collaborating with Gerwig; why 2022’s White Noise caused him to fall out of love with filmmaking, and why Barbie and Jay Kelly caused him to fall back in love with it; plus much more.
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