Jason Reitman
Jason Reitman
Jason Reitman is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer, best known for directing the films Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air, and Young Adult. As of February 2, 2010, he has received one Grammy award and four Academy Award nominations, two of which are for Best Director. Reitman is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. He is the son of director Ivan Reitman...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth19 October 1977
CityMontreal, Canada
CountryCanada
'Alien' asked ground-breaking questions about eco-politics and female empowerment. 'The Matrix' delved deeper into the concept of perception versus reality than perhaps any other film I know. But for some reason, we tend not to remember the significance of their writing.
All the airports kind of feel and look the same now. Some are more beautiful, some are less beautiful, but for the most part you're going to find a Starbucks in every airport. You're going to get your coffee and the 'USA Today' or 'New York Times' in every airport.
And as a director, you make 1,000 decisions a day, mostly binary decisions: yes or no, this one or that one, the red one or the blue one, faster or slower. And it's the culmination of those decisions that define the tone of the film and whether or not it moves people.
And over the course of the last six years, as I've directed more features and commercials, I've become better at articulating exactly how I want the audience to feel.
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.
From the onset of the 'Live-Read' series, we wanted to hit all the major writers and Woody Allen is simply one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. He has ability to match pathos and comedy and drama and then turn it all on a dime. If you're going to make a series based on dialogue, you can't find much better than Woody Allen.
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.
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.
Discover how little you know . . . about the people you know.
What I do feel is that 'Up in the Air' is the most indicative film of 2009. It is the portrait of 2009.
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'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.
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.'
I'm trying to figure myself out through my movies. Whether it's big stuff like what we're doing here, or little stuff like, 'Why aren't I happier?' With every film I feel like I'm apologising for something. I feel I'm most successful when I'm looking for something that embarrasses me about my character that I'd like to expose.