Upbeat music - I always really struggled with the fact that she didn't either end up with Laurie or on her own.
- Jo and Laurie are kind of the fairytale ending, and often in life it's not like that.
- I think it's just one of those questions in your life where you're like, "What if I had done that?"
- It's timing like there's so many... - Yeah.
- Like every relationship that we've been in at a different time maybe could have worked.
- Yeah.
- You are good enough.
You've always been good enough it's just, I can't love you in the way you want me to.
- I always wanted her to end up with Laurie, and then I started filming Little Women.
And weeks went by of filming and I was like, "I don't get it.
Like why doesn't she end up with Laurie?
I don't get it.
I need to answer this question for myself, or else I'll never be able to tell this story right."
And then I figured it out.
Somewhere through filming.
- For a woman of that time to reject a man that is really great and really lovely and kind and wealthy is kind of extraordinary, and really ahead of her times, really modern, really feminist, putting herself first.
That's radical in a brilliant way, and so I think it's a really powerful moment in the book that shows how ahead of her times Louisa May Alcott was.
- I've read the book 10 times, I've done the adaptation.
I really don't think Jo and Laurie would ever have been happy.
And I think the problem we have is most girls reading the book think they are Jo and most girls reading the book are in love with Laurie, ergo every girl wants to marry Laurie and they think Jo and Laurie should be together.
- Please just be my comfortable friend.
- Professor Bhaer's a very good option - Yeah.
- for Jo.
- Yes there is an age gap, but I was very much more aware that there was a marriage of minds between them, and Jo is a woman of the mind.
She needs someone who can keep her intellect fed and satisfied.
And I really came to believe in that in the process of doing the adaptation.
- The relationship she ends up in is perfect for her.
It's so intellectually stimulating.
And it just seems totally right.
And so up until I'd seen them, - Yeah.
- I doubted it and I thought, "Why isn't Jo with Laurie?"
But actually once you see them together it makes perfect sense to me.
That's why I've made peace with it.
