Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talks with NPR’s Nina Totenberg at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. | Photo by Tiffany Roohani
Virginia Yapp
On Friday, news broke of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, who over the course of her lengthy career was a key figure in advancing women’s rights and gender equality. At the time of her death from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer, Ginsburg—who was was the second woman ever to serve on the nation’s highest court—had held her post for 27 years.
The fiery yet soft-spoken jurist’s life and legacy were chronicled in Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s Oscar-nominated documentary, RBG, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Currently streaming on Hulu, the project weaves together intimate interviews, a rare glimpse into Ginsburg’s personal life, and, in one particularly memorable scene, footage of a then-84-year-old Ginsburg performing her regular push-up workouts.
Surely the smartest and toughest person I’ll ever have the privilege to know. Rest in Peace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. pic.twitter.com/TV7DpPQCk0
— Julie Cohen (@FilmmakerJulie) September 19, 2020
During the Festival, Ginsburg appeared on the Cinema Café stage for an in-depth conversation with her longtime friend, NPR’s Nina Totenberg. “I for one am delighted to be here with Justice Ginsburg. She is perhaps the most recognizable justice on the Supreme Court, though she underweighs them all—even the women—probably by about 40 pounds,” mused Totenberg, who first met Ginsburg in 1971. “Even before she became the second woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, Ruth Ginsburg quite simply changed the way the world is for American women.”
Over the course of the hour-long talk, Ginsburg discusses everything from her own experiences battling sexual harassment in academia to her relationship to her thoughts on her portrayal by Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live. Watch the full interview below, which begins at the 13:45 mark:
RIP, RBG.
