Young Adult is definitely going to surprise a lot of people when it hits theaters in early December. Both Melissa and I had the pleasure of not only seeing it, but also hearing director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) talk about the film at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York. Reitman, who has already amassed an impressive resume of films, talked about the casting choices, working with writer Diablo Cody (who Reitman also worked with on Juno), whether or not he’d direct a Broadway play, and how he portrays women in his films. It was a great opportunity to pick the brain of one of the most talent directors working today.
MODERATOR: Okay first question – – right in front.
PRESS: Hi, can you talk about the casting process? Did you have Charlize and Patton in mind?
JASON REITMAN: I was only going to make this movie if I could make it with Charlize. I had read the script and I thought it was phenomenal, but I knew how tricky this character was and I knew how easily it would be to misinterpret this character. You know on the page she was written perfectly. She was nuanced and complicated and she wasn’t just some mean girl. She was a woman with deep wounds that like anybody wanted to be loved and was searching for her place in life who really only knew how to find it by going back to high school to the last moment where things kind of made sense to her, but she was looking for an on road, you know, an on ramp to the highway. And it’s one of those things that in the hands of the wrong actress would just be a mean girl. Sure her character would just be a sin and I knew Charlize would never judge the character, would make her emotionally complicated, would turn into a complete human being. And on top of that Charlize has this great talent that only a few actors have and I’ve been able to work with a few actors have and I’ve been able to work with a few actors who have this where they can change their nature without dialogue. They can change their nature without physicality. It’s as if she can dim the light bulb from within and George knows how to do that and Ellen knows how to do that. And watching that happen as a director is like magic. And this character could never be done without that great talent. It’s easy to look at the final product and go oh yeah I kind of see what she’s doing, but the amount of kind of pitch perfect acting and pure raw talent that’s required to make this character say and do the things that she does and still be vulnerable and human and broken is a very, very rare thing. And there was no reason for me to attempt this movie without her. Sorry that’s a very long answer. And really after that I just needed Patton Oswald. I needed someone who was going to be the accessibility point to this movie and I think this movie works because of Patton Oswald. I think the audience strangely sees the movie through Patton Oswald. He says the things that everyone in the audience wants to say and his
rare combination of like brilliant comedy, but also his pathos, his ability to go to these really sad places makes the whole thing work.
MODERATOR: Great, next question, Steven.
PRESS: Sure, Patton talked about doing table reads before Charlize came into the movie at your house. And that you have, is it a Sunday night movie night where you invite people over and watch movies?
JASON REITMAN: I love when actors talk about my personal life. That’s great – –
PRESS: Well, [INDISCERNIBLE] your work as a film maker. We’ve just been talking about Hugo where we’ve heard so much about how Scorsese gives sort of a set of films and homework to his cast to get into the movie. Were there other films that you had your cast sort of see or reference with this film?
JASON REITMAN: This is so embarrassing.
PRESS: And did Patton get the movie because he’d been around from the very beginning?
JASON REITMAN: [LAUGH] I loved that Scorsese probably screens these great Italian films for his cast and the only thing I ever sent Charlize was season’s one of The Hills of Laguna Beach. [LAUGH] Oh yes. Following in the footsteps of giants. [LAUGH] I have a movie night at my house every Sunday night and it really came out of my own embarrassment of the amount of films that I had not seen and I presumed that if there were a lot of films that I had not seen that my friends perhaps had not seen them either. So what I did was every Sunday night I show a classic movie that you’re supposed to have seen that I have not seen and I just invite my friends and say hey here’s a moment for us all to stop being embarrassed and start seeing these films. And it started a couple of years ago and we watch films like and now I’m going to embarrass myself for all of you. Cool Hand Luke which I had never seen, Patton I had never seen, Say Anything I had never seen. I know, that’s always the shocker. [LAUGH] I had never seen Being There until two years ago. I told you. It’s humiliating. There are so many great films and I watched all of Michael Richey’s films. I hadn’t seen Downhill Racer or Smile or Prime Cut or The Candidate. So it’s a wonderful, I know it’s a wonderful evening for me to kind of share with my friends where we all get to see those films for the first time as adults and then we get to talk about them and Patton has been a regular at that. When I went to do the table read for this film I called on friends at first and Patton is a friend and I said hey would you read this role? And watching him do it was just so – – he was so perfect and then when he read it with Charlize they had this unbelievable chemistry. It was actually the moment I realized this was a romance was watching the two of them together and a heartbreaking romance. It’s like a Romeo and Juliet because it’s a romance that cannot be. But anyhow yeah, that’s – – that was the research and that’s how I know Patton.
MODERATOR: Next question.
PRESS: Standard practice is that once the cameras roll the writer is out of the picture. How is it different between you and Diablo? And also have you agreed to help Diablo explore all the phases of her life?
JASON REITMAN: [LAUGH] I have the rights to Diablo’s life. [LAUGH] In a deal that really benefits me more than her. [LAUGH] I always feel and I’m not sure if directors or writers will get more upset at me for saying this, but I feel like they’re all part of the same thing. I see my job as storytelling and that starts with simply an idea, a feeling I want the audience to have and it travels through writing, directing, shooting, cutting, post, doing this to the whole thing. And so if I don’t write the script I get to personally skip one part of the process. And with Diablo, I don’t know, we get along so well and we trust each other so much, there’s never been a question of whether or not she was going to be on set. So when she could be on set it’s great. I put her to work, you know. I say, you know, I need this, I need a line, I need a scene and she does it. But there’s also enough trust that if she’s not there, she knows I’m not going to screw up her script. And I’m a writer myself and I strangely feel as a writer on set the job is to be a tailor. It’s to, you know, and I know Sorkin would be pissed if I said this, but if an actor can’t say the lines, in my opinion it’s not the actor’s fault. If you put on a pair of clothes that don’t fit, it’s not your fault, it’s the clothes fault. And the clothes should be tailored and that’s how I feel about dialogue. If I’m with an actor and they’re struggling with the words, then I tailor the words for the actor. Very rarely would I say this is the line, you need to say the line. You know a line in this movie that I would not change is oh Sandra you’re good here. Would not change those words. [LAUGH] But most of the time yeah you find it.
MODERATOR: Next question.
PRESS: With the possible exception of Juno, a lot of your leading characters are well skilled in the art of self deception and none more so than Charlize’s character here in that she has a moment of clarity and then retreats back to the self deception at the end. I wonder what attracts you to that kind of character in your work.
JASON REITMAN: [LAUGH] I would give you a proper answer, but I’ve deceived myself into a different, [LAUGH] – – think about that. I think everyone deceives themselves. I guess and I’m sorry if I’m not answering your question correctly, but I like characters that don’t change because I don’t think people change or they very rarely do or they do by a tiny percent. I think people have revelatory moments and they learn things, but most often they don’t change off of those things or they change for five days. The number of times you’ve gone on a diet for five days or become a Vegan for five days or become more conscientious about some thing or gone to temple or whatever it is. We have moments where we think oh I should be doing that more. I should call my mother more and you call your mother for five days, you know. But we generally don’t make giant – – I remember I told my therapist, I’m in therapy, [LAUGH] I’m Jewish. I said I’m worried that if this works I won’t be a good writer anymore and he said don’t worry, you’re only capable of about five or 10% improvement. [LAUGH] And I think that’s true for people so that’s why Up in the Air ends the way it does and that’s why this movie ends the way it does. They end with people learning things and very well not changing.
MODERATOR: Fred.
PRESS: In light of like your use of dialogue, your brilliant use of dialogue, do you find yourself ever thinking of theater as the medium that you’re going to explore further and do you see yourself involved with that whole process, directing it as well?
JASON REITMAN: You know I spent last year in New York making this film from start to finish, including post. And it was a great moment for me ‘cause for the first time in my life I had seen most of the shows that were playing and it was really exciting to be able to get into a conversation and actually know what I was talking about for a very brief nano second and certainly looking at great plays made me want to try to direct a play. That said I know nothing about theater so it’s a little presumptuous of me to think I could do it. But yeah, although on the other hand what I love about directing movies is I have the final say, you know. I get to cut the performance and the idea that you just hand off the play to your actors, that seems insane. [LAUGH] I mean I would literally be on stage. Let’s do that again. You know let’s just hold on audience and it would be a ten hour play of just me all right one more time, all right that was great, continue the scene from there. That would be like me directing. It would be a boring play.
MODERATOR: Joe
PRESS: This year we’ve seen [INDISCERNIBL] Bride’s Maids and Bad Teacher and now this movie. It seems like it’s a lot of women behaving badly. I wonder is that something in the zeitgeist do you think or and also do you think it’s a sign of progress or is it a step backward, what’s your take on it?
JASON REITMAN: I don’t know. Women behaving badly is, excuse me, I’m not trying to be rude, I think is just kind off a cheap term and look, I’ve always been interested in making movies about women. They interest me far more than men. And I’m interested in honesty in filmmaking and I think the darker moments are far more interesting than the cheerful ones. And I guess that’s my approach and I don’t know why they made Bride’s Maids and I don’t know why they made Bad Teacher. That’s certainly why I made this movie.
MODERATOR: Stephanie.
PRESS: I had another question about women in this. What was really your message to women? She seems like as a writer, as a single woman she’s sort of not part of the normal society. Society doesn’t really accept imaginative women on their own who, you know, the square of society and I was just trying to picture a man in this role and going back to find an old girlfriend. He’d probably be seen as romantic, right? But a woman is sort of pathetic. And I really wondered if that was sort of like a message to empower women to try to say, you know, this is what the reality is of, you know, a woman’s life and this is how, you know, we’re seen in sort of a way.
JASON REITMAN: Wow, there’s a lot in that question. That’s a great question. I guess I have a few different answers so excuse me if I’m all over the road for a moment. First and foremost I don’t have a message in any of my movies. You know if I have a message and hopefully there’s a continuity of that in all my films it’s think for yourself and come up with your own opinions and I certainly don’t want to tell you what to think. That is the core theme of Thank You for Smoking and since then hopefully people draw their own conclusions and that’s always been kind of the case. On Juno pro life people thought it was their movie, pro choice thought it was there’s and I’ve certainly got a variance of opinions of where George Clooney goes at the end of Up in the Air and that makes me happy. That lets me know I’m doing my job. I really just want to – – I’d rather inspire the conversation than tell you what to think. So on this movie I’m certainly not saying this is my message to women. And as far as how we treat her life, I thought it was a fairly true and, you know, I’m speaking to a room of writers, point view on what it’s like to write, which is it’s a really lonely existence, man or woman. Often it feels like a trip to Office Depot, makes me feel as though I accomplished something today. I did something and it’s the only – – and you do it for the pure reason of if I didn’t do this it really would feel like I did nothing, but I had an adventure. I picked up toner. [LAUGH] And being a writer is tricky in that your sense of accomplishment is always so varied. Is it by page count? Is it by that you wrote something special? Will anyone ever read this? Will anyone ever see this? And I don’t think that changes no matter how much success you have. Every time I write I feel like this is awful, no one will ever see this or if they do they’ll think it’s, you know, they’ll never hire me again. So I think you really capture the truth of a writer’s life in those first eight pages, which became the first eight minutes of this movie and that got me excited because I never, I don’t believe I’ve seen it portrayed quite that way, which is alone. It’s the sound of the whistling of the wind, you know. It’s falling asleep on your sofa in the middle of the day and waking up and thinking that you’re never going to amount to anything. I think it was kind of perfect so that’s why the opening is the way it is.
MODERATOR: Pat.
PRESS: Hi, I have a quick question about, in talking to people who have seen the movie, speaking of being open to interpretation, one of the things that’s kind of open to interpretation is the relationship that Charlize Theron’s character has with her parents and we see a little, some clues for instance, you know, they still left her room in the same way when she’s a teenager. The wedding picture was still on the wall even though she was divorced. So can you talk a little bit about what you and/or Diablo may have done to sort of explain or any back story regarding the parents and how she ended up this way, how they may have affected her behavior in the movie that we see.
JASON REITMAN: It’s funny, Diablo and I are almost the exact same age and I think we just are both at that moment in our mid 30’s where, you know, for the first time instead of blaming our parents we’re realizing that we were both probably really difficult to be parents of and you start to go oh god that’s a tough gig being a parent and we’re both also new parents ourselves. So you start thinking oh man that’s a tough gig and, you know, maybe they were just trying has hard as they could and I look at Mavis’ parents and I kind of see the same. They’re trying to understand their daughter. They have a difficult, very complicated daughter and that scene at the dinner table between the three of them I really love. And I think it’s just so well acted across the board. But it is kind of you throw your hands up at a certain point. I don’t know who to blame at that dinner table and I kind of like it that way.
PRESS: But the parents are also kind of focusing on only the good accomplishments of the past too aren’t they? Like you just mentioned the photo on the wall and the room the way it is, kind of like keep her.
JASON REITMAN: Yeah, I guess there’s two interpretations. One is that had they kept her in her childhood the way, you know, the child of a beauty pageant kid would be or they really just want her to be happy and they’re like trying to focus on the positive and their poor daughter is just, you know, just constantly negative. I don’t know, I look at the parents and I kind of see both sides of them. I see them as really trying hard with a really difficult child. And yet I know what you mean. And my favorite line in that scene is with Charlize saying mom I think I’m an alcoholic. You’re so funny. [LAUGH]
MODERATOR: Chris.
PRESS: Diablo said that you haven’t made a film that was less than great, which was a nice compliment.
JASON REITMAN: That’s certainly nice of her.
PRESS: And I think that one of the things that I appreciate about your films that stands out is your ability to navigate a really fun comedy about all these great laughs that a comedy has, but you have like this heart felt deep dramatic soul of a story and characters and my question really is as a director how do you mesh those things together, like how do you find the right tone, the right connection between those things? Is this something that, well I’ll just let you answer?
JASON REITMAN: Okay. First of all thank you for saying those really kind things. That means a lot to me. That’s nice to hear. Sorry, I just, you know, I just did an interview earlier. I was just talking about how I became a director and I just remember a moment where I thought I’ll be lucky if I ever get to direct a commercial and that’s a really cool thing to hear. Thank you for saying that. I think (a) I’ve been really lucky. I’ve worked with great writers, whether they be authors or screenwriters and I’ve worked with brilliant actors and all of them make me look far more talented than I am. And when it comes to tone, look I think there’s certainly things I’m good at and there’s certain things I’m not so good at. And I think I have pretty good pitch. And when I think of a story the second I read it, it appears to me as a – – it’s in a key like a song would be in, you know, the key of C. And I have a pretty good sense when I’m watching a performance or reading words or even looking at a location or a piece of wardrobe, does that feel like ‘cause it’s in the key of C or is that off, is it a C minor or is it oh my god that’s an A, we gotta do something about that. And what I’ve tried to develop over the films is an ability to convince people to get back into C. I don’t know. I hope that didn’t seem like a cheap answer, but it’s like anything when you’re doing it, you’re just doing it. It’s only in times like this that you look back and try to figure out all right what was I doing when I wrote this or directed this and I guess that’s the way I make sense out of it right now. It’s about pitch and that doesn’t apply to comedy or drama because that work is already done in the writing. It’s not the job on set to be funny. It’s not your job in editing to be funny. Funny happens, drama happens in the writing. After that it’s about tonal control. It’s about how you manipulate the audience to feel the thing you want them to feel.
MODERATOR: Next question.
PRESS: Speaking about tone, was there ever, obviously this character is quote/unquote ugly or dark, was there ever any point in thinking or hesitation about tone and dialing it, like dialing it forward, dialing back? Is she ever too, is this too ugly? Do we need to; you know what I mean, like about the increments of like where we’re taking this character and how far we go?
JASON REITMAN: Right. Well yeah there were a couple times we’re on set she would say something that was so mean that we just had to cut the line of dialogue. It was just, at that point it wasn’t even interesting anymore, it was just that’s really bitchy. I mean you can’t, you know, the audience is just going to hate her for no reason and it all of a sudden is actually out of character and dishonest because it’s just so mean. It’s mean for no reason. All of this always goes back to a piece of advice that my father gave me and he literally gave it to me the night before I started shooting Thank You for Smoking. And he said always remember it’s not your job to be funny. Your barometer for comedy is nowhere as good as your barometer for truth. And the only thing you’re trying to achieve on set is honesty. You look at a performance, you look at anything the way people interact, the location, the way you’re shooting it, does it feel truthful because you’re not going to be able to tell if it’s funny. Ever once in a while it’s okay that’s hilarious, but you always know when it feels like bullshit or not. Even with people you know when they’re being truthful with you and so it’s the greatest piece of directing advice I’ve ever gotten and it plays, it feeds everything and if I’m ever unsure I can always go back to that and think about what my father told me and say all right does this feel honest. And that plays into is this too mean because if it’s so mean that it feels other worldly then it’s not right.
MODERATOR: Wilson.
PRESS: Both this movie and Juno is set in Minnesota and also I think in the Midwest. Why those towns as opposed to L.A. or the big cities?
JASON REITMAN: I don’t know why, look I grew up in Beverly Hills, but for some reason I feel very comfortable in the Midwest. I can’t explain it. I mean maybe my parents need to tell me something, I don’t know. But I love the Midwest. I love being in Minnesota. I love being in St. Louis. I love being in Detroit. I love being in Omaha although that’s technically the plains. [LAUGH] And they’re specific about that. But yeah I really like shooting there. I like the people there. I feel very at home there and I enjoy the fact that three of my four movies are set there. And I hope to make more movies there.
MODERATOR: Ed.
PRESS: Hey Jason how are you?
JASON REITMAN: Hey.
PRESS: Teenage Fan Club, I don’t know them. I love the song I think. Talk about the music in the film please.
JASON REITMAN: You know one of the great parts about working with Diablo is that she’s so specific in her writing; the production design, wardrobe, specific as her dialogue seems, the description work is even stronger and the songs are there. And so the only question there is then, you know, do I agree with him or not and I usually agree with him. And on this movie even though we love the same music and we come from the same era, there’s a few songs that I’m not a huge fan of including the Teenage Fan Club song. But I knew it was right for the movie so that’s kind of all that mattered.
PRESS: What’s the name of that song?
JASON REITMAN: The Concept.
MODERATOR: We have time for two more questions.
PRESS: In a story like this I think we’re always sort of waiting for the inevitable public melt down scene. And I was struck in watching it by how you go to that beat, but it seemed to me push past it and go for a scene that is much more sort of raw and honest and emotional than the sort of constructions might lead us to and I just wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that particular scene? If that’s something that like came out in the first draft the way that is or if it’s something you and Diablo worked a lot on?
JASON REITMAN: That scene and the two scenes that follow it, the scene, the sex scene with Charlize and Patton and then the breakfast table scene with Charlize and Collette Wolf are the three scenes that made me want to make this movie. I think if you had just showed me the first two acts of the screenplay I would have been like [SOUND EFFECT] this seems like a great script. But what you realize when you get to the third act of this movie is that the first two acts are really there to set you up for those three scenes like a magic trick. And you are set to believe she is a certain type of character with a certain type of past, that you are in a certain type of tonal experience and a certain type of movie and then you hit these three scenes and they blindside you. And that’s how I felt when I read the script and that’s how I wanted the audience to feel when they saw the movie. I wanted them to be uncomfortable. I wanted people to cringe. I wanted – – to do something that I hadn’t done in my other films. And I think as a director I try to grow with each film. I try to do something different to the audience. In the first movie I just wanted to make people law. Second film, I wanted them to feel romance. In the third film I wanted them to feel lonely. And on this one I wanted people to feel uncomfortable. I wanted them to look at the screen and be so in the moment that they felt like t hey were standing there on the lawn watching Charlize break down right in front of them and they don’t know what to say because you feel sorry for her, you’re not sure if you’re part of the cause of this. It’s just so uncomfortable and the writing was so good and the acting was so good that we did it in two takes. I remember just watching the monitor with, you know, everyone else and it’s one long shot. It’s all hand held. We just applauded at the end. I remember I went to Charlize after and I said all right you got it and she goes oh come on, really, two takes? She said you made me do six takes of opening a door last week. You’re really only going to two takes of this? [LAUGH] I don’t know what you want, you got it. It’s done. The way she did the nice sweater line, it’s just; I don’t know where that came from. It was just perfect, but that was always the intention. The intention was to set the audience up for two acts and then to hit them with that scene. And then do another reversal. And just the same way that you said you’re not ready for that scene; you don’t expect it to reach that level of dark honesty and pathos. The Sander scene is just as much of a surprise. She sits down for breakfast. You think okay this is a scene where she learns things, she claims to be a better person, she gets in the car, she’s going to go do something. She’s going to go work for the Red Cross or something. I don’t know. And Sander says you can’t change and Kim advises her not to and the movie ends. I remember reading the script and thinking what a spectacular ending. If we can do this, this would be phenomenal. And that’s why I did it.
MODERATOR: Okay, last question.
PRESS: One of the things that I like so much about the film was how ordinary people are portrayed. They’re not idiots. They’re worthwhile, they’re worth knowing and they’re happy for the most part. I just was wondering what your observations are of rich like successful people and their altercations or, you know, just their meeting of ordinary people, like are they, do they feel sorry for them because they don’t live the glamorous life or do they wish they could have some of these values or experiences?
JASON REITMAN: God, I have, I don’t think I know how to answer that question. I think every person is different. And I’ve seen rich people be complete assholes and I’ve known rich people who are some of the loveliest and compassionate people I’ve ever met. So as much as one would think that wealth and circumstance turns you into a good or bad person, it seems to be a combination of other things. And I’ve had people on both sides of the spectrum treat me in both ways at both extremes. I know with my films I don’t want to judge anybody. I don’t want to judge any of the characters. It’s very important to me. If the audience feels as though they know how I – – my judgment of a character that I considered, then I think I failed. I think my job at the end of the day is to create honesty and truth and real moments that instead of telling you to think, just push you to think about something. And nothing gets me more excited than an audience arguing over what I was trying to say or having a thoughtful conversation about the film rather than walking out. I would be much more disappointed by someone walking out of my film and thinking and now I believe this because that strangely isn’t my job.
PRESS: And how do you stay grounded with all your success?
JASON REITMAN: Who says I’m grounded. [LAUGH] That’s really kind of you and I suppose my parents did a really good job.
MODERATOR: Great, thank you.
JASON REITMAN: Thanks.
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