What do you think Brie has brought to the role that resonated to you as uniquely Carol?
She’s got a strategic mind. In the same way that Carol wrestles with her impulsivity and her temper and keeping her eye on the bigger picture, I think Brie does, too. Now, I have known her for all of ten minutes, so we’re not tight. I have no long relationship, I’m saying this based on very short interactions. And it may just be that she’s a hell of an actress. But that is the thing that I see that I recognize as Carol primarily. That wrestling with, “My impulse says this and I want to blow this up, but my head says think this through.” That is such a Carol moment, that is such a Carol struggle. And you can see it in her—in her career management, in the choices that she makes and her social media profile. It’s very, very Carol. And I love that woman, so I love Brie.
Was there ever anything you objected to? Like, “No, actually, Carol wouldn’t do that?”
No, I had long talks with them in the beginning. I sat down for a few hours in L.A. on a couple of occasions, talking about her as a person and her books thematically and what I thought did and didn’t work and why, and what mistakes I felt had been made with her in the past and what I felt were the strongest choices, that kind of thing. I think it would be bad form for me to get into specifics but yeah, there were a couple of things where I was like, “I don’t think that’s a great choice!” And we’d talk about it. But there were never like, dumb things. It was more, here’s why I think that’s sticky and here’s why I think that’ll end up undermining what we’re trying to do here. And they’d be like, “Oh, OK.” That’s the kind of cool thing: I really felt like I was included in a team of people who felt like they were trying to make the best thing that they could.
