TALK about awkward moments. One of Greta Ger wig’s co-stars in the indie comedy “Hannah Takes the Stairs” is Mark Duplass, whom she ad mits “having a crush on.”
And in their very first scene together – the film’s opening minutes, in fact – both have to get naked in the shower.
“It was [shot] the day he arrived on the set,” Gerwig recalls during a visit to The Post. ” ‘This is Mark,’ the director said. ” ‘Get in the shower with him.’ And that broke the ice.”
Gerwig gets naked a few more times before the closing credits, and isn’t nervous about exposing her body on the big screen.
“It’s not that uncomfortable for me – at all,” she says. “I just don’t have any hang-up about it.”
Gerwig, who turned 24 this month, plays Hannah, a pixie-haired TV writer in Chicago, who in the course of the movie goes through three boyfriends.
The director is Joe Swanberg, who helmed two indie films before “Hannah.” One, “LOL,” also features Gerwig.
Acting isn’t her only gig. She’s also a screenwriter (she co-wrote “Hannah” with Swanberg) and a stage writer and actress. And she has a magna-cum-laude degree in English and philosophy from Barnard College.
Any similarities between Hannah and Greta?
“Yea, I think so,” she admits after a pause. “There’s like parts of me that are like that. I would say less so now, but definitely at the time it matched up perfectly with what I was experiencing in my life.”
The next time Gerwig sits down to write a script, she might want to make it about her living arrangement.
She shares a Brooklyn railroad flat with five other women, all Barnard grads.
“We don’t have any heat or air-conditioning,” she says with a chuckle.
“We had to call the Board of Health on our landlord. Inspectors came at 3 in the morning to take the temperature. None of our radiators worked, then they all started magically working in June, which is not when we needed it.”
“Hannah Takes the Stairs” opens Wednesday at the IFC Center in the West Village.
* It’s time once again for the New York Korean Film Festival (Tuesday through Sept. 2).
This year’s edition is especially ambitious, with films unreeling at three spots: the Cinema Village and IFC Center in the West Village and BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn.
The fest includes two night of horror flicks that I had the honor of helping choose.
Among them: “A Tale of Two Sisters” (2003), “Red Shoes” (2005), “Whispering Corridors” (1998) and “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” (2002).
I was hoping to include Kim Ki-duk’s “The Isle” (2000) and “The Bow” (2005), but prints weren’t available. Details:
koreanfilmfestival.org
V.A Musetto is film editor of The Post; vam@nypost.com