Jay Roach
Jay Roach
Matthew Jay Roachis an American film director, producer and screenwriter, best known for directing the Austin Powers films and Meet the Parents. He also directed the comedy film Dinner for Schmucks, the HBO political dramas Recount, Game Changeand All the Way, and the political comedy The Campaign. His twelfth film, the biographical drama Trumbo, was released on November 6, 2015...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth14 June 1957
CityAlbuquerque, NM
CountryUnited States of America
We collaborate on everything. I'm involved in the writing and pre-production. There's a whole bunch of people who keep in touch at every step about everything.
There is an energy in the USA that will have to be dealt with, will have to be acknowledged and coped with. There are people who feel that they've lost ground, lost access to government - people whose quality of life has been affected.
I always had a respect and an admiration for people who got into politics. I certainly have always been interested in law and political science.
You can make an idea spread for good but you can also make an idea spread for bad and the power to make an idea spread, memetics, you know which now people talk about memes.
There's people who actually have a whole science devoted to what makes a sticky meme and that idea of that question of why some ideas about how civilizations work catch on and others don't.
You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain.
People have an actual bias against there being some kind of popularity for political films, and when they get acknowledged, it helps keep the conversation going.
People are willing to throw our civilization under the bus to discredit the existing system, without any proposed solution to the problems that they're willing to pointing at.
I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.
The minute somebody starts trying to market that stuff, I think it would actually really be a harmful thing for the process of film making.
Because I actually find the next take after they've controlled it a little bit and repressed the laughter is actually a really interesting take, because that's still going on underneath the surface. That struggle to maintain composure becomes part of the joy of the scene.
I was very interested in politics in college and was heading to be a lawyer. I have a degree in economics and I was interested in it. I hadn't really gotten super serious about it and I'd done a lot of student politics in high school. I really think it would be interesting and fun and challenging to go into politics.
I'm pretty opinionated sometimes although my political views change all the time, too. So I'm not very zealous.
Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.