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
Obviously, movies and music videos are different because they're different lengths, and in a movie, you have more time to explore an idea. But I feel like they're all the same, really.
I respect people that are die-hard film people, but I started on video. I started on Hi8 video and mini-DV, and I made skate videos. So, I love film, and I love the way it looks, but I also love the way crappy video looks, or VHS. I've always been a fan of whatever the look is that's appropriate for what the feeling is.
The best videos were the ones where I became friends with the artists first.
The Beastie Boys are guys I loved before I met them, and when I got to know them, we started a magazine together, and we started making videos together, and a lot of it came out of us just cracking ourselves up, like going to the fake mustache store and buying fake mustaches.
I started directing videos at the same time that Michel Gondry was starting to direct videos, and I watched what he'd do. They all seemed to be pushing some new visual effects idea, but never just for spectacle. They all captured a feeling.
Whenever I start writing, I try to put together songs that feed the feeling of the movie.
You get a buzz when getting texts: 'Oh, someone's thinking about me.'
Everything in L.A. is - it's just an easy place to live in. The houses are nice, the backyards are nice, you got the ocean right there and the mountains behind you; there's an idealised easiness to the way you live and the whole environment.
There are a lot of kids in the world. People seem to keep having them.
I don't know what life was like 1,000 years ago, but I imagine there was the same struggle: people trying to connect with each other.
Moms are people, too. Moms make mistakes, too.
Movies, they take years of my life, so I'm fortunate that I get to work in a lot of different mediums.
Maurice Sendak never - I remember he said something that was very striking because it's something I never thought about. I always loved his work, and he said, 'I don't really view myself as a children's book author. I just try and write about childhood as honestly as I can.'
Me and my friends had BMX magazines and skate magazines, and I was a photographer who made skate videos.