Greta Gerwig as Violet Photo by Sabrina Lantos, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Planet spoke to Stillman in a New York City hotel a few days before the film’s release.

Damsels in Distress is more whimsical than your previous films. Is that something you were going for?
Yeah, I really wanted it to be that way, wanted it to levitate a bit. I like the other films but I felt ready for something a little bit different this time.

Violet is such a strong character; I almost feel like I know her. How did she come about?
She started out as a version of a kind of funny character that I like, sort of the strong-willed, talkative, opinionated, smart person; sort of the Chris Eigeman characters in the other films, the Kate Beckinsale character in The Last Days of Disco. One thing I found was that the dynamic in Metropolitan appealed to people, having this extravagant person who normally would be functioning in a very critical, judgmental way, but who is actually very nice. And that’s sort of a contradiction in the character; they have all these capabilities of malice but they’re using them in a really nice way. That dynamic in Metropolitan was the Nick Smith snob character being the one who’s nicest to the timid awkward Tom Townsend character. In this case, Violet’s trying to save the whole world. It’s sincere, so you sympathize with her problems and the comeuppance she gets when her beloved, benighted Frank betrays her. She’s kind of minimized this relationship, but when he leaves her she’s devastated. And there’s a lot of truth to that, it seems to me. A person can be important to you without you having known it. She’s thrown for a loop, which leads to a tailspin.