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A Timeline of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s Relationship
by
amanda prahl
Getty / Stefania D'Alessandro
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach are definitely one of Hollywood’s most influential and successful power couples. The duo’s most recent achievement is the blockbuster movie “Barbie,” which they cowrote before it made history by earning more than a billion dollars at the box office this summer. But “Barbie” was far from the first time this multitalented duo worked on a successful project together. In fact, they’ve been collaborating professionally for a very long time.
Gerwig and Baumbach have also been together for more than a decade, and they share two children – a 4-year-old son and a baby boy who was born several months before “Barbie” was released. Despite all of this, the pair seem to prefer to keep many details of their romance under wraps. But they don’t exactly hide, either; they’re just the sort of people who prefer the focus to be on their work, not their relationship. Due to the WGA strike, Baumbach didn’t appear at any events on the “Barbie” press tour until an October screening, where he finally reflected on the process of creating the hit movie with his partner.
Over the years, the pair have chosen to let the public in on a few aspects of their life together, particularly the films they’ve collaborated on. Ahead, we take a look back at what we do know about Gerwig and Baumbach’s relationship.
Getty / John Macdougall
2010: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach Meet Working on "Greenberg"
The duo first met in a professional capacity on the film “Greenberg,” which Baumbach directed and Gerwig starred in. At the time, their relationship was not a romantic one, just professional.
Getty / Dimitrios Kambouris
November 2010: Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh Split
Baumbach had been married to actor Jennifer Jason Leigh since 2005, but in November 2010, Leigh filed for divorce soon after their son Rohmer was born.
Getty / Stephen Lovekin
2011: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Reportedly Begin Dating
A 2012 Los Angeles Times article called the creative collaborators “a real life couple.” Most reports seem to agree that they began dating sometime in 2011, although they kept things very private.
Getty / Alberto E. Rodriguez
2013: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's "Frances Ha" Is Released
Baumbach and Gerwig cowrote “Frances Ha,” an indie fave from 2013. Gerwig also starred in the movie, while Baumbach once again directed.
Getty / C Flanigan
2015: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Collaborate on "Mistress America"
The pair cowrote the 2015 film and coproduced it as well. It’s no surprise that Gerwig acted in it and Baumbach directed once again.
Getty / Taylor Hill / Christopher Polk/NBC
January 2018: Greta Gerwig Wins a Golden Globe Award and Forgets Noah Baumbach in Her Speech
In January 2018, Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” took home the trophy for best comedy or musical at the Golden Globe Awards – and then she accidentally left Baumbach out of her acceptance speech!
“I had an entire speech that I was going to give and I got up there . . . I looked at Oprah and I was like, ‘It’s gone!'” Gerwig said in a later interview on “The View.” “But I had a whole thing about him. He’s my favorite writer and my favorite first reader.”
Getty / Neilson Barnard
February 2018: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Show Rare PDA at the Oscars
Even though they were publicly acknowledging their couple-dom at this point, the duo typically refrained from any sort of affectionate public gestures. However, they made an exception at the 2018 Oscars, where cameras snapped them holding hands as they worked the red carpet.
Getty / Taylor Hill
2019: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Welcome Their First Child (and Release 2 Films!)
The year 2019 was a massive one for the couple. First, their reps confirmed to Page Six in March that they were officially parents to a son, Harold. Then their two major films – Gerwig’s “Little Women” and Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” – shaped up to be two of the biggest offerings for awards that year, making them the first couple to be serious contenders and competitors for the same awards in the same year.
Getty / Gareth Cattermole
2022: Baumbach and Gerwig Collaborate on "White Noise"
The pair’s next major creative collaboration was “White Noise,” an adaptation of a book of the same name that Baumbach wrote and directed. Gerwig starred alongside Adam Driver in the eerily prescient story. Apparently, Gerwig’s encouragement helped bring the story into being. “I set out to do it almost to occupy my mind. Then I started showing pages to Greta and she was encouraging,” Baumbach said during a press conference ahead of the movie’s release. “I got deeper into it and I felt, ‘Well, let’s try this.'”
Getty / Gotham
2023: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Welcome Their Second Child
In a July interview with Elle UK, Gerwig revealed she and Baumbach had privately welcomed their second child sometime in the early spring of 2023.
Getty / Eric Charbonneau
2023: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Collaborate on "Barbie"
Baumbach and Gerwig hatched their biggest collaboration yet when they worked on the script for the “Barbie” movie, which was released on July 21. Apparently, though, Baumbach wasn’t keen on joining the project at first.
“I thought it was a terrible idea and Greta signed me up for it,” Baumbach said at a “Barbie” screening on Oct. 27, per Variety. “I was just like, ‘I don’t see how this is going to be good at all.’ I kind of blocked it for a while and every time she’d bring it up, I’d be like, ‘You’ve gotta get us out of this.’ And then the pandemic happened . . .”
Everything changed when he saw Gerwig’s early ideas about the story, though. “It was Barbie waking up in her Dreamhouse and coming out to her backyard and meeting somebody who was sick and dying,” Baumbach said. “I read these pages and I thought, ‘I understand now what this is.’ . . . The movie is about embracing your mortality and about the mess of it all, so it was exciting.”
The project wound up being a bonding experience for the couple, who would attempt to “amuse each other and one up each other,” Baumbach added. “Then it was the most fun I think either of us have ever had, right? And then at a certain point, I was like, ‘I think this is the best thing we’ve ever written,'” he continued. “I know enough always just to follow what Greta says, so even in my bellyaching and revolting, I kind of knew, ‘Well if she really believes it, then there’s something there.'”