Over the last few years Ruth Bader Ginsburg has blossomed into a hugely popular figure amongst millennials.
Not just because of Ginsburg’s commendable antics on the Supreme Court, but also thanks to Kate McKinnon’s repeated performances as her on “Saturday Night Live.”
In fact, these constant deferences to the Associate Justice were one of the reasons why directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West were interested in making “RBG,” their documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The duo were given the chance to interview Ginsburg as part of the film. During this time they showed Ginsburg clips of McKinnon’s performance as her, as well as footage of Ginsburg with her late husband Martin, who she was married to for 56 years, but died in 2010.
Cohen recently told me that Ginsburg’s reaction to the footage of her with Marty was particularly moving.
“Seeing her watch the scenes with her beloved late husband Marty was really moving. Just seeing the emotion that comes over her face when she sees images of him.”
“There’s that really loving spontaneous moment in the film when she sees him as a teenager and says, ‘Oh, he is so young.’ Just how much she enjoyed watching that was moving.”
Cohen then discussed watching the scenes of McKinnon as Ginsburg, insisting that the Associate Justice giggled throughout them all.
“Then on the other end of the spectrum we see her watching the Kate McKinnon impression of herself on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ We hoped that she would be amused by it, but how amused and how hilarious she found it kind of exceeded what we had expected.”
“We could have stayed there all day with her. There are a lot of those skits, I think ‘Saturday Night Live’ have done about 15 of them. I wished we had had the time to walk her through the sequences.”
“Because she really seemed to enjoy watching it. She was pretty much laughing her head off. That was fun and not what people think of when they picture a serious high court Justice, in her robes.”
“This was another side to her, a human side, which obviously is what we are trying to pull out in a documentary.”
“RBG” is now in cinemas.
