The movie Lady Bird is nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actress for Saoirse Ronan and Best Supporting Actress for Laurie Metcalf. With her directing debut, Greta Gerwig is nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
The movie revolves around a high school girl who attends an all-girls Catholic high school in Sacramento. While the plot highlights her relationship with her mother, Gerwig has also said the film is a love letter to Sacramento, where it takes place. Gerwig also notes that while many aspects of the movie are pulled from her experiences growing up in Sacramento and going to an all-girls Catholic high school, the main mother-daughter relationship is not intended to be her and her mother.
However, there are many "little Easter eggs," as Connor Mickiewicz puts it, hidden throughout the movie. Mickiewicz and Gerwig have been friends for years and he shares many aspects of the movie that are based off real experiences growing up in Sacramento.
Here are the top 10 "little Easter eggs" that make Lady Bird unique and personal to Gerwig (WARNING, spoiler alerts):
- The main character, Lady Bird, attends an all-girls Catholic high school, like Gerwig.
- Lady Bird does auditions for the high school play. Gerwig was very involved with high school theatre when she was a teen.
- Many of the city shots are actually filmed in Sacramento (Tower Theater, Pasty Shack, post office, El Dorado Savings Bank, Cookie's Drive-In, Club Raven, Thrift Town, etc).
- The "big blue house" Lady Bird gawks over in the movie is a real house in the "fab 40's" in Sacramento.
- The rose garden, where Lady Bird and her high school boyfriend Danny spend time, is a place many people in Sacramento spend time with their friends and loved ones.
- The character Danny is loosely based on Gerwig's long-time friend, Connor Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz says Danny is not an exact replica, but there are similarities. In the movie, Lady Bird and Danny spend time in the rose garden and pick out a star, which Mickiewicz says actually happened.
- Gerwig asked Mickiewicz, who now works in local theatre in Sacramento, to stage the high school musical put on in the movie.
- Gerwig asked Mickiewicz's real grandmother to play the role of Danny's grandmother, which would essentially be herself.
- In the movie, Lady Bird and her friend Julie steal communion wafers and eat them while laying on the floor. Mickiewicz says Gerwig used to actually do this at her school.
- In the movie, Mr. Bruno's pregnant wife makes a brief appearance. Gerwig asked her other long-time friend, Becky, to make an acting cameo and play this role.
