I don't consider myself bossy, but I do know what I want. You know, I have a gut feeling about a piece of material, but I've never envisioned myself as the director on top of the hill with a megaphone in my hand, screaming at 1,000 extras.
— Jason Reitman
When you're young, you want to make every kind of film: musicals, Westerns, horror. Slowly you begin to hear your own voice. I hope people receive what I do as small, personal films that are somewhat contrarian about their main characters.
I think, through comedy, sometimes we're allowed to discuss things that you'd never be able to talk about in a drama.
Humanizing good people is kind of boring and I don't really see the value in it... humanizing tricky characters is exhilarating, and making audience films out of indie subjects excites me.
Well, Toronto, I consider to be the birthplace of my films. I've made three films and this is the third one to premiere here in the same theater on the same day at the same time - they are my audience. They're the people that I think about while I'm writing, directing, and editing. I specifically make movies for them.
It's funny, I can sit through the worst horror film ever made but even a quite good romantic comedy can drive me nuts.
I used to have a group called Bad-Movie Saturday. Every Saturday, six of us would go see the worst movie that came out each weekend. It'd be noon in Burbank. It was just a running commentary. All executives - we would each talk through the movie and make jokes.
When I look at 'Napoleon Dynamite's style I'm reminded of how I spoke when I was an eight-year-old boy. It was just like capturing the essence of, 'Duh!' It was just like the stuff that I would say when I was like eight, nine, ten years old.
I grew up on movie sets, I'm comfortable on sets. A movie set is like a circus. I don't understand why moviemaking has to be such an insane environment.
When it comes to casting, I've been so lucky. I've worked with unbelievable actors who make me look better than I am and take the written word and make it honest.
I hear the way people talk about the children of famous people. They're not treated very well. The presumptions are usually quite awful. So I tried to establish myself with a couple of movies. After 'Juno' I thought: 'I think I've defined myself enough as my own director that I'd love to work with my father.'
People want to know if I have a moral standpoint that they should be picking up on, and the truth is, I don't. I don't want people to think that I'm trying to tell them to feel a certain way. I think that's cheap filmmaking.
Growing up the son of a director has made me very aware of the various turns that a directing career can take. Sometimes your films turn out exactly as you want. Sometimes they don't. I spent a lot of my childhood on sets. I think as a joke, my father gave me a line of dialogue in each of his films during the worst moments of my puberty.
What I do feel is that 'Up in the Air' is the most indicative film of 2009. It is the portrait of 2009.
It's easy to get caught up in a moment and think, 'Oh, I've been offered some giant studio film or a superhero franchise or some actor wants to meet with me about a project they want to do.' And it's easy to get caught up in a moment because it's flattering. But you can't do a movie because it's flattering.
I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.
Directing 'The Office' is kind of like someone going, 'Would you like to drive my Lamborghini?' And I'm like 'Yes, I would like to drive your Lamborghini. That sounds like fun.'
The first set I remember was 'Ghostbusters.' It was a scene in which the street erupted. I remember even at seven years old thinking, 'Wow, if you direct a movie, you can break the streets of New York.'
'Election' is a movie I'd give a leg to cross the director's name out and put mine in.
Creating a wonderful drama is an art form, while comedy is just entertainment.
I don't know why I'm drawn to anti-heroes, but I certainly am.
Yeah, I was born in Montreal and I go back to Vancouver and Toronto a lot, so I have a sense of being Canadian, and I was raised by two Canadians, and my wife is Canadian, so yeah, I feel it.
'Juno' really changed things for me and I get a lot of screenplays come in now, but I like to self-generate and I like to kind of pursue my own ideas. And I think the more personal the better.
Comedy and horror are cousins; they're related. They both come from storytellers who want to specifically affect the audience and elicit specific reactions during the movie.
My writing voice is very much like 'Thank You for Smoking.' It's a guy's voice. It's very masculine.
I have a strange fascination with the Midwest. I'm waiting to find out that my parents are actually from the Midwest. I grew up in Beverly Hills, up the street, and I just feel comfortable there. I've shot in Minneapolis, in Detroit, in St. Louis, in Omaha - they would say they're the Plains, not the Midwest - and I love it.
I've been very, very lucky in my career, in my life - from day one. When aspiring directors say, 'What's your advice?' first I say, 'Be born the son of a famous director. It's invaluable.'
I think romance is a tool, comedy is a tool and drama is a tool. I really just want to tell stories that challenge the viewer, move people, make you laugh, perhaps push an idea about being open-minded but never settle on a genre or an opinion. I hate genre. I like movies that are original in their approach.
Unlike with any other art form, filmmakers have this unique web of festivals. There are hundreds. It is a democratic system in which you submit films, and if they are good enough, they play. The only barrier to entry is the submission fee.
I'm not going to have a perfect career. It's better to be Billy Wilder and make lots of movies and have five or six great ones than to make so few movies that when you make a bad one it crushes you.
Everything I've wanted to turn into a film becomes something new and different when it becomes a movie... Each time I work with an author, I say to them, 'A book and a movie are different things.'
My high-school years were so mediocre - I moved out when I was 16 and started living with my girlfriend who was 10 years older. Apart from that, I was just a video nerd.
When characters change on screen, it makes you feel better about yourself. You think, 'Oh I change too, I'm constantly becoming a better person.'
I don't believe in director's cuts where you make things longer. The coolest thing was when the Coen brothers did a director's cut of 'Blood Simple,' and they made it shorter.
I want my audiences to be as open-minded as my characters.
I want my movies to be audience experiences. As much as I like Michael Haneke, I'm not going to make a Haneke film. That's just not in my DNA.
I remember when I was like 19 years old and I started a desk calendar company to pay for my first short film, just so I could say one day that my daddy didn't pay for my first short film. And I really established myself in the film festival world.
I am an obsessive flyer, myself.
I went to college, I went pre-med, I thought I was going to be a doctor.
I laugh a lot in horror films. If I'm scared in a horror film, I try to think about what's scaring me... particularly, if it's a bad movie, but something they're doing still works. It's the same way I look at comedy. I've always had an intellectual view of comedy, and what makes people laugh, and how does it work.
When I think of 'Nightmare on Elm Street,' there was a warmth to those teenagers that I related to. They were not aware that they were in the middle of a horror film, and I really loved those characters and I empathized with them.
I think it's a mistake for young filmmakers to just buy digital equipment and shoot a feature. Make short films first, make your mistakes and learn from them.
I always believed that you can make challenging films, but they should be fiscally responsible.
I'm not Michael Moore. I think Michael Moore wants to tell you how to think. He wants to give you answers. I make movies to raise my own personal questions and not to give answers.
Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments.
As far as writing, I like watching bad movies. Nothing stops me in my tracks more than watching a great film like 'The Godfather' or 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'The Graduate.' You watch one of those, and you never want to write again. Whereas with bad movies, it makes you think, If that counts, I certainly could write.
I've always had an underdog perspective.
If someone else made 'Up in the Air' or 'Thank You For Smoking' or 'Juno,' I would have wanted to rip their head off. I need that same sort of passion for every project I take on.
Can you design a Rorschach test that's going to make everyone feel something every time - and that looks like a Rorschach test? It's easy to show a picture of a kitten or a car accident. The question is, how abstract can you get and still get the audience to feel something when they don't know what's happening to them?
I find nice people kind of boring.
