Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze
Spike Jonzeis an American director, producer, screenwriter and actor, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. He started his feature film directing career with Being John Malkovichand Adaptation, both written by Charlie Kaufman, and then started movies with screenplays of his own with Where the Wild Things Areand Her...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth22 October 1969
CityRockville, MD
CountryUnited States of America
I'm very nervous about taking jobs. I always make sure that, if I'm going to work with somebody, that they really understand what it is that I want to do. I'd rather not take the job than be vague about how I'm going to do something and run into trouble later on. It's a hard thing to negotiate.
The thing I remember most about having a tantrum is not the rage during the tantrum, but the being freaked out afterwards, and embarrassed, and guilty. It's scary to lose control of yourself.
I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.
If you focus your energy on the camera, it takes away from the time you have to focus on the performances.
I definitely check my phone for texts a lot - like, 'Did anyone text me? Is anyone thinking about me? Does anyone love me?'
I feel like every movie, I've learned more and more about what I think of the world and what I'm trying to figure out.
I don't want to make a movie till I have an idea I have to make. I don't want to make a movie just to make a movie.
I'd love to do a musical one day - a theatre musical.
I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.
I met Arcade Fire on their first record, 'Funeral.' I loved that record, and it was a record I was listening to while I wrote 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Those songs - especially 'Wake Up' and 'Neighbourhood' - there's a lot of that record that's about childhood.
I knew I could write infinitely about relationships. That's the most beautiful, most confusing, most rewarding, most heartbreaking thing in our lives - and not just romantic relationships: that's all relationships.
I like people that define their own values. I am much more interested in somebody who has their own definition of what they value, their own definition of what success is, their own definition of what love is.
I like Kanye, and I care about him.
A great poem leaves so much room for everybody to have such a different reaction to it.