‘Lady Bird’ Director Greta Gerwig Shares Totally Awkward (And Totally Sweet) Letter She Wrote To Justin Timberlake

Music is a big part of our lives, with hit songs and album cuts acting as the soundtrack to our major moments. Specific songs hold a special significance to entire generations, making them perfect encapsulations of a moment and a feeling. That’s why song choice in movies is so important, as the right song can convey the exact emotion a filmmaker wants the audience to experience.

Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird is filled with song choices that will resonate with everyone born in the ’80s, as it’s a coming-of-age story set in the early ’00s. But getting those songs, as Gerwig revealed in a chat on Late Night with Seth Meyers, took some effort on her part.

As Meyers explained, filmmakers have to get permission from artists in order to use their song in a movie. Gerwig used this as an opportunity to write the musicians directly and express what the songs meant to her and why she chose them. “I had written them into the script,” said Gerwig. “They were very specifically those songs.”

Gerwig got super honest with Alanis Morissette and Dave Matthews, and then took it to another level when asking Justin Timberlake to use his song “Cry Me A River.”

“You were the soundtrack to my adolescence,” wrote Gerwig. “Your rise corresponded exactly with my very awkward puberty.” She then says, “I pretty much wouldn’t be an adult without you.” Is it awkward? Is it TMI, considering she doesn’t know Justin Timberlake? Who cares–because isn’t it totally true and relatable? However awkward this honesty is, it’s all (brace for pun) justified.

All of the songs Gerwing asked for from Morissette, Matthews, and Timberlake made their way into the movie, so these letters have a happy ending! You can read Gerwig’s complete letter to Timberlake below, and see her letters to Matthews and Morissette in the Late Night interview above.

Lady Bird is in theaters now.