TIME has raised the curtain on its prestigious ‘Women of the Year’ list, and filmmaker Greta Gerwig graces the roundup as the cover star.

Comprising 12 trailblazing women from various fields, the 2024 TIME Women of the Year list features “extraordinary leaders [who] are working toward a more equal world,” the outlet said.

The list also includes co-founder and leader of Women Wage Peace Yael Admi, actor and entrepreneur Taraji P. Henson, artist Andra Day, medical scientist and Professor of Research on hyperemesis gravidarum Marlena Fejzo, tennis player Coco Gauff, Global CEO of Chanel Leena Nair, founder and director of Women of the Sun Reem Hajajreh, President and Chairwoman of nonprofit Nadia’s Initiative Nadia Murad, founder and executive director of The Chisholm Legacy Project Jacqui Patterson, economic historian and labor economist Claudia Goldin and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

Greta Gerwig is in Time’s Women Of The Year list with other trailblazers like Taraji P. Henson, Andra Day, and Yael Admi

Image credits: Image credit: TIME

Greta, featured as the cover star, spoke to TIME about the big year she had and the remarkable success that came with Barbie, the movie she co-wrote and directed. The film was crowned the biggest movie of the year and the highest-grossing film ever directed by a woman after it grossed more than $1.4 billion at the box office.

The commercial success of her films can partially be attributed to how her stories resonate with women and their ambitions, but Greta insists her movies go beyond gender-specific boundaries.

“I always think about the intuitive way you love a song or a movie,” she told TIME. “You love something, and you just love it. You don’t think to yourself, ‘I have to love this because it’s by a woman, for a woman.’ That’s part of it. But it’s not why you love it.”

“You love it because it’s great,” the filmmaker added.

Greta Gerwig spoke about her heroes while speaking with TIME

 

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When asked about whether female directors feel an added pressure to prove themselves in the industry, Greta replied, “I don’t know if it’s gendered. But I know I want to be able to make a body of work that feels like it’s undeniable in terms of the work itself. I don’t want there to be an asterisk next to my name. Do I have more of that than male filmmakers? I don’t know! I know plenty of deeply insecure male filmmakers who are plagued in their own ways.”

Next in store for Greta is the new adaptation of the first book in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series.

Greta told the outlet that she enjoys the “euphorically dreamlike” feel that the Narnia series comes with.

“It’s connected to the folklore and fairy stories of England, but it’s a combination of different traditions,” she said.“As a child, you accept the whole thing—that you’re in this land of Narnia, there [are] fauns, and then Father Christmas shows up. It doesn’t even occur to you that it’s not schematic. I’m interested in embracing the paradox of the worlds that Lewis created because that’s what’s so compelling about them.”

Greta Gerwig is now working on a new adaptation of the first of the Chronicles of Narnia books

“I want to make it feel like magic.”

Greta Gerwig talks about adapting Narnia, Barbie, and what she’s learned from the actors she’s worked with https://t.co/9HZXP18b9r pic.twitter.com/8dppljK1j2

— TIME (@TIME) February 21, 2024