Greta Gerwig on the unforgettable night she showed now-Oscar nominated 'Lady Bird' to family, friends

— -- Greta Gerwig is an entertainment force, known for her work on screen and off. But her latest creation, “Lady Bird,” is the stuff dreams are made of.

The film, shot in Gerwig's hometown of Sacramento, California, marks her solo directing debut and has garnered her very first Oscar nod.

Gerwig talked about what it all means to her on “Popcorn with Peter Travers.”

“We had a premiere in Sacramento, which was at the Tower Theater in Sacramento, which is where I grew up going to all the independent movies,” said Gerwig. “And it was everyone in my life. It was my entire family, my 2nd-grade teacher, people I had gone to school with since I was 6 years old. The mayor of Sacramento was there, my first crush, his dad. It was like 'It’s a Wonderful Life.'”

Download the all new "Popcorn With Peter Travers" podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Tunein, Google Play Music and Stitcher.

She added, “Sitting there with that audience before [the film] opened to the world, and getting to be there and listen to them react to their city on the screen, was the most moving thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges and Timothée Chalamet make up the primary cast of the film.

Gerwig describes it as a love story between a high school girl and her mother.

“It's about that rich, complex, loving, fraught relationship," she said. "It's about sort of how one person's coming of age is another person's letting go, and how that moment of letting go is so difficult with the end of childhood.”

Gerwig, 34, told Travers it was important for her to give the actors freedom to develop the characters.

“Because I spent so much time as an actor I really feel like one of my jobs is to create this sense of safety and freedom for the actors and allow them to take big swings and make big mistakes. Because that's the only way you can get the really great stuff, if they feel that they really own the characters, that I'm not always looking over their shoulder sort of nitpicking,” she said.

"Lady Bird" is in theaters everywhere.

Be sure to watch the full interview with Peter Travers and Greta Gerwig in the video above.