Earlier this month, screenwriter and director Kelly Fremon Craig was driving around West Los Angeles looking for something specific. A billboard, in fact. And not just any billboard, but the one for the Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the highly-anticipated theatrical release adapted from Judy Blume’s acclaimed book of the same name.
Fremon Craig’s name is not on the billboard, but the billboard—and the movie—exists because of her. For nearly 50 years, after Blume’s 1970 story about a young girl’s honest and relatable journey through adolescence and puberty became a beloved classic, the 84-year-old icon (and 2004 Glamour Woman of the Year) turned down offers to adapt Margaret. It was too personal, too important for anyone to get other than absolutely right. And even when Blume considered the possibility of adapting her work for the big screen all those years later, Margaret was the one property off the table.
Of course, that would all change when Fremon Craig—best known for writing and directing the 2016 critically-acclaimed film, The Edge of Seventeen, starring Hailee Steinfeld—reached out to the beloved author, passionately outlining why she was the best person to take on such a project. Blume eventually said yes, and as of Friday, April 28, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is in theaters.
But on this early April day, the Orange County, California native is in search of a billboard. A billboard that represents more than just a film advertisement; a billboard that represents one young girl’s hopes and dreams.
“There’s certain things that you have in your mind [of achieving] when you start out, like your name on your own parking space, or an office with a view. It’s different for everyone,” Fremon Craig says over Zoom. “But I had always been like, ‘maybe one day I’ll make a movie that has a billboard.’ That was a very specific dream in my heart for 20 years.”
Except Fremon Craig was too afraid to say it out loud, embarassed by how out-of-reach it sounded. And now? “I looked like a lunatic, taking some 300 selfies in front of it. But that was a dream. That was a very specific dream.”
Of course, the above makes it sound easy—write Judy Blume a note, make a movie, get a billboard!—but after two decades in the business, Fremon Craig knows just how hard it is to get a film made, let alone one that feels like its your vision from start to finish. She’s been incredibly lucky, yes, but she’s also put in the work and then some. “Sometimes it’s so overwhelming that my brain short circuits and I can’t process it all,” she says of the journey.
But for now, there’s a billboard to relish in, new dreams to uncover. “I’m like, ‘I have to come up with a new list, which is an incredibly wonderful problem to have,” she says with a laugh. “I’m trying to process them as they come and stay inside myself, instead of some part of me that wants to leave my body.”
