“On the Basis of Sex” is a movie that takes place in the 1950s but, sadly, feels like it could be set yesterday or tomorrow. The early years of the now-notorious RBG are basically a superhero origin story without the flying. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) graduates at the top of her class at Columbia yet can’t get a job because she is a woman. Her husband, Marty (Armie Hammer) — and this is one of the best marriages depicted on-screen — finds her a case that will allow her to challenge laws that discriminate against women.

The movie is also a reminder that even Supreme Court Justices were at one time inexperienced, and there are some painful scenes where Ruth has to figure out how to argue a case. Those moments are inspirational. She changed the law, and she changed our world.

Women and Hollywood spoke to the film’s director, Mimi Leder, about  trailblazing women and how Jones prepared to capture the RBG of a different era.

“On the Basis of Sex” opens in wide release today, January 11.

This interview has been edited. It was transcribed by Antora Majumdar.

W&H: I was reading you were the first director for the newly created Dreamworks Studio, on “The Peacemaker,” and now you’re directing a movie about a woman who’s done a lot of firsts. What does that mean to you, in terms of how we’re still living in a world where we’re having so many firsts for women?

ML: Steven Spielberg picked me to direct the first Dreamworks movie. And I think that was very relevant in that I think he chose me because he thought my work was strong and he felt I could make this movie. He believed in me. And I’m sure everybody around him was going, “What? You can have so and so, and so and so,” and I think he was very progressive and very revolutionary in his decisions.

It’s interesting, I’ve had a lot of firsts and that was one of the great ones, directing the first Dreamworks film — a big action film. Steven called me and said, “I’ve got this huge action film,” and I told him, “Well I don’t direct action. He said, “You direct it every day on television.” So I made the transition to features.

W&H: When you first read the script for “On the Basis of Sex” what was it about it that made you say, “I want to direct this”?

ML: Well, I was so attracted to the script because I felt like this is a movie about how change happens, and I’ve experienced a lot of change in terms of how I have lived my life.

I wasn’t interested in making a biopic — it’s more of a prequel to her extraordinary life. And we all know that RBG has had an extraordinary life. It focused on a specific time in her life where her husband brought her this case that they won against all odds, and overturned 178 different laws that discriminated on the basis of sex.

I felt a real commonality with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I would never compare my accomplishments with her, but we’re both women, we’re both Jewish, and we’re both mothers. We’ve both have had long-standing marriages, so we know what a marriage means. And for me this film was very much a love story, and a story about their partnership. And it felt like a metaphor for the film, of an equal partnership, of equality. We’ve both broken the glass ceiling in our own ways, and for generations to come.

I felt like I understood what she had been through, but in my industry. So I really understood it. And I was just fascinated with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the woman. The woman who, like countless generations of women before her and since, withstood subtle slights and overt discrimination of a culture around her, and what was so mind-blowing about Ruth Bader Ginsburg is that she’s a woman who changed that culture. And she changed it for everyone in America. And I think she had an effect on the world, and is still having an effect on the world.

W&H: The film’s love story shows what a marriage could look like — it’s a kind of marriage that we rarely see in movies. Do you think that message is getting through when people are talking to you about the film? I thought it was a really important piece, that the world will change because we’re equal.

ML: Absolutely. The love story was inherent to the material. It was there. It was essential to Justice Ginsburg’s character and who she became as a woman and as a partner. It showed what love and family can bring to an individual. We all need champions and we all need love, and hers was one of the greatest loves of all time.

Marty Ginsburg was a very progressive man — he was very revolutionary. In the ‘50s, he co-parented. They were equal partners. And it’s what they gave to each other. They were very different people, but their world was the law, and family. And it was a very important time. I am so lucky I have that equal partnership with my husband and in my relationship, I’ve experienced that. I’ve felt very lucky to experience that.

W&H: You were attached to the film when Natalie Portman was also attached to it, and then she fell out of it. Did you ever get worried that the film wasn’t going to get made? How did you get Felicity Jones involved?

ML: Well, I wasn’t worried. I don’t know why I wasn’t worried — I worry about everything.

I just kept looking at pictures of Felicity Jones and comparing the young Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the young Felicity Jones. And I just think Felicity’s one of the most extraordinary actors of our time. She has great depth and understanding of people. I had seen a lot of her work and just felt that she could get deeply, deeply get into her shoes, and into her heart, and into her soul. I just had a gut feeling. And when I offered it to her on a Thursday, she replied on a Monday and said yes. And then I met her and I knew she could do it.

She did so much to leave Felicity behind and find RBG. She listened to hundreds of hours of tapes. What’s interesting about the voice tapes is that we don’t have any voice tapes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a young woman. We have her Supreme Court cases that she tried, we have her swearing in, but we don’t have any live tapes from before that era. I kept talking to Felicity about what an 85-year-old woman’s voice sounds like compared to a 25-year-old. So much changes as we grow.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, and I think as she grew older — and I haven’t asked her this — I could see her losing the Brooklyn accent. But when you compare the swearing in ceremony to sometimes how we hear her now, much less Brooklyn, and now more Brooklyn.

Anyway, we decided on a mid-Atlantic accent, and Felicity did it beautifully. She learned to walk like her, too. RBG had a particular way of walking, one foot in front of the other. And she worked hard, not just to get the physicalities, but to find the emotional landscape of her character.

W&H: This is your first feature in 18 years, and you’re now also going back to television to do the untitled morning show series with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston on Apple TV. Do you think things have changed for women in the time that you’ve been out of features, in terms of opportunities and allowances, and being successful in the film industry?

ML: Obviously so much has changed and so little has changed. In television, there’s far more opportunity for women directors. [I believe four percent of the films made between 2007 and 2018] were made by women. So the statistics tell us that not much has changed. But when you look at the year, this year there are many films made by women.

Women just have to keep making films, keep telling their stories, and keep standing up and fighting the fight. Don’t let other people tell your story, or don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t tell your story. We have to tell our own stories. Storytelling is very interesting when you really evaluate it.

I still hope one day that I’m finally called a director instead of a “female director,” because I’m still called a “female director.” And in these times when the statistics are so low, I guess we need to point that out. But I love the theory of putting a film on screen with no credits, and tell me, did a man direct it or a woman?

Women bring their female-ness, men bring their male-ness, but mostly directors bring their heart and their souls. I don’t know if I’ll be alive when that happens, when all directors are called “directors.” We have along way to go, but we have to find our voices.