Felicity Jones is covering this month’s Vanity Fair. She’s promoting her film about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, On the Basis of Sex. It doesn’t open until Christmas but they must be getting a jump on Oscar promotion. The movie starts in the 1950s, while RBG is in Harvard Law, and spans into the ‘70s, which explains the looks featured in the editorial. And I am here for it. Not only would I wear the cape-coat suit, I think I owned the outfit on the cover when I was in high school, including the brooch.

The trailer is below, I think it looks good. I know Justice Ginsberg’s work on the Supreme Court but I do not know her backstory, so I’m looking forward to this. Daniel Stieplemann, who is RBG’s nephew, wrote the screenplay so I assume it’s accurate and more importantly, is the story RBG wants told. Both Felicity and RBG are featured in the article, albeit not together. I’m focusing on Felicity’s quotes here, but you should read the article for a taste of RBG’s commitment to equality and how much she loved her late husband Marty. But the funniest part is that RBG was most concerned that Felicity nailed her Brooklyn accent.

On using wardrobe and props to become Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “I like to find things physically.”

On how RBG gave her confidence: ”I feel like sometimes there’s an emphasis now on instant gratification—fast, now or never and I really admire in Ruth the carefulness with which she has gone through her life and career. She’s taken her time, and that really gave me a lot of confidence. That it’s O.K. to think like that, and to be judicious.”

She likens her relationship with husband Charles Guard to the Ginsbergs: ”We’re both very, very passionate about what we do. Our work bonds us. The Ginsburgs’ marriage was how relationships, in my mind, should be. It was an incredibly modern dynamic. It was 50-50—that’s what was so unusual.”

On her confidence in her career: “It’s fantastic to feel like you’re in your stride and in your profession, and to be able to enjoy it. You’ve had so long trying to get there, and the next challenge is to then take pride in it, own up to it. To accept that it’s O.K. to feel proud of yourself.”

RBG after meeting Felicity the fist time: “(She’s) great, but can she do the Brooklyn accent?”

[From Vanity Fair]

RBG’s reaction after seeing the film was “Felicity Jones speaks the Queen’s English. Yet in the film, she managed to sound very much like me, a girl born and bred in Brooklyn, NYC.” That’s the only review I need on it. Felicity described how she practiced RBG’s walk by placing one foot in front of the other, ‘as if on a tightrope—like “a sort of ladylike dancer, steady and careful.” Later she admits, “I have studied the way (RBG) walks. I have watched hours of footage.” It occurs to me that capturing RBG physically might even be more important than sounding like her. Because that’s the thing about Justice Ginsburg, she is not bombastic in any way, but she is powerful in how she speaks and carries herself.

By the way, if anyone is wondering about the importance of this movie about Justice Ginsburg’s fight to make it in a man’s world: When I typed in the title of this movie to IMDB, the drop-down menu names listed are Armie Hammer and Justin Theroux. And in the cast list, Oscar-nominated and Star Wars headliner Felicity’s name is number three. Honestly, I think the person who would object to his name being first the most is Marty himself.

Photo credit: Mark Seliger/Vanity Fair, WENN Photos and YouTube