Greta Gerwig Had a Serious Crush on Leonardo DiCaprio: "I Kissed His Picture Every Night Before I Went to Bed"

Greta Gerwig is just like you. When we chatted with the indie darling (in Proenza Schouler) today—she's currently in Park City, Utah promoting her two films at the Sundance Film Festival, Maggie’s Plan and Weiner-Dog—we talked about first celebrity crushes because Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. That’s when she reminisced about being just as obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio as every other woman who grew up in the age of Growing Pains, Romeo + Juliet, and Titanic.

“When I was 13-years-old, I really thought I was going to marry him,” Gerwig, now 32, joked. “I actually carried around a folder of pictures I had printed out from the Internet of him. My brother yelled at me because I used up all the ink. I kissed his picture every night before I went to bed. I was really sure that one day we would be together.”

“Even in my fantasy, I did have this slight anxiety like, ‘What are we going to talk about? What do we have in common?’” she said. “I felt worried that we would not have enough conversation to sustain a marriage, even at 13 that’s what I thought. But I did love him. I felt like we weren’t into the same things, I was concerned, but I was sure we would figure it out.”

That’s why she believes obsessions are a real thing, like Bieber Fever. “I so understand it when teenage girls have crushes like that because it does not feel fake to you,” she said. “It feels 100 percent achy and real, and you can’t figure out how to get to them, but you’re very sure that you’re supposed to be with them. And that’s how I felt about Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Now that she’s in the same industry as The Revenant Oscar-nominated hunk, is the crush still there? “Well, I’ve been in the same room with him at least once,” she said. "And that was exciting.”