Interview: Jason Reitman Takes Personal Journey With ‘Up in the Air’

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CHICAGO – Following up the massive critical and commercial success of “Juno” would be a daunting task for anyone and writer/director Jason Reitman admits that he was nervous coming off that film. Somewhat surprisingly, he’s delivered an even more confident and, overall, superior film in the excellent “Up in the Air,” starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, and Jason Bateman.

After taking our pictures for his own records and a lively discussion about why he’s not too psyched about “Avatar,” what he thought of “Final Destination 4” in German, and what went wrong with the “Saw” movies, Bateman, Peter Sobczynski of EFilmCritic.com, Lee Shoquist of N:Zone, and I got into “Up in the Air”. Bateman is very open about how each of his films reflect what he’s concerned about personally.

Up in the Air
Up in the Air
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

Reitman says, “I like my characters having small epiphanies but I don’t like them to change too much. With this film, the big thing is that I started writing it seven years ago. Over the course of the writing of the process, my entire life changed. I got married, I had a kid, I got a mortgage. It went from being a corporate satire like Thank You For Smoking to being about a man figuring out what he wants in life.”

Up in the Air
Up in the Air
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

During the course of pre-production, the state of the economy naturally changed a lot and impacted the final film, but the film is not a political one. “I guess what people find unique is that this isn’t like Capitalism: A Love Story,” Reitman explains. “I’m not going after the corporations. I really have no interest in that. There’s plenty of other directors who want to do that. It’s not a corporate agenda. By simply not commenting, it becomes a comment in itself. I guess because the majority of filmmakers are so left-wing and so anti-corporation that simply by ignoring the subject and saying that I can make a movie about corporate firing that has nothing to do with who’s guilty here, it oddly becomes a statement in itself.”

Reitman has adapted two books and worked with a script by someone else, Oscar winner Diablo Cody, on his third film. He’s clearly inspired by other people’s concepts. He explains why, “I’m not a very original guy. This is what often happens. I have questions that are bugging me. Certainly, I think all three of my films are personal for me. I end up reading a book that speaks to the questions that I have…that addresses the questions I have and has the language and the ideas to address things that I’m churning on. I can use that book as a toolbox. So, on the case of Thank You, we used a lot of it. It was a pretty literal translation even though the son’s not in the book. Here, it was more of a jumping off point. I liked the character. I liked what he did for a living. I liked his personal philosophy. Then I kind of sent him on my own plot.”

“Natalie’s not in the book. Alex is not in the book. Firing online is not in the book. The wedding is not in the book. The plot is mine but the character and philosophy come from the book. In this case, a journalist came to me and said that the book seems to be about a guy who’s losing it and the movie is about a guy who’s finding it. I think that’s kind of accurate. I’m already adapting a book now. I don’t know. Kubrick adapted all of his films. Alexander Payne. I don’t know why. Maybe one day, I’ll sit down and write a personal story but I kind of need perspective and I feel like I lose that when I try to write original stuff. I did that when I was starting out. They’re not very good. I’ve become a better writer since then but I find that my job as a director is more of a reactive job - look at a book, look at a performance, look at a costume, watch a take, watch an edit - all of it is experiencing and reacting and knowing whether it’s right or wrong and if it’s wrong how to fix it. I find that the job is more reactive.”

Up in the Air
Up in the Air
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

Reitman can’t even read fiction without picturing the movie. Jason Reitman says, “Once I realize that there’s no way that it can be a movie, I lose a little interest. I like to read non-fiction for pleasure. When it comes to fiction, if I can’t see it as a movie, I start to lose interest.”

The director had a very personal tie to Clooney’s Ryan Bingham. “This is very much about me. I’m a guy who collects air miles freakishly. I’m a guy who’s constantly thinking about the idea of living alone. I like being alone. I cherish my alone time. I love being on the road. I love being in planes. I can go days, weeks alone. And, yet, UI have a wife, kid, and I get to do what I want for a living. It’s not like I have an incomplete life. I guess this is what nags me. No matter how complete and successful my life is, I’m still very much drawn to the idea of waking up in a city where I know no one and have nothing. On this movie, I would just fly to a city and just live in a hotel for a few days. I guess that’s the part of me that’s really central to this story.”

He even takes it a step further - “I went on a mileage run a few years ago when my status was in jeopardy. I flew LAX to O’Hare, got off the airplane, went to Giordano’s, had a pizza, got back on the plane. Yes, I did get the pizza but the miles were more important. During shooting, I fell behind and I’m not on track right now. I have to do some crazy flight in December.”

Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, winner today for Best Supporting Actress from the National Board of Review, shine in supporting roles. Reitman glows when he talks about Farmiga, saying, “Honestly, there’s not a lot of other people who would work for this role, if any. I needed a tough broad. I needed a beautiful woman, not a girl, who could go toe-to-toe with Clooney and walk this line where she was being as masculine as she was feminine and she took full ownership of her sexuality and didn’t judge her character. She understood that at the end of the movie, she wasn’t the one who broke the rules. He broke the rules. She’s just a really smart, sexy woman who understood what the character was. I honestly can’t think of someone else who comes close to doing what she does. There’s no Americans, at least. There’s Australians and Brits who kind of have that same ownership of their womanhood, but amongst the Americans, there’s actually very few.”

Up in the Air
Up in the Air
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

J.K. Simmons, Jason Bateman, Sam Elliot - like a lot of great directors, Reitman is buiding a family of actors he works with again and again. “I like working with the same people - cast and crew. I like to be on set with people I know and people I trust. I like as little unknown as humanly possible. Look, when you go to make a movie, you’re doing something for the first time every time. Filmmaking is dealing with the unknown at all times. It becomes difficult to plot out. Knowing that you’re working with people you trust, you take those unknowns out. Working with a new actor, you never know if this person’s going to be a complete wack job. I’ve been really lucky. But, not every cast is great. I’d like to keep working people who are great.”

Jason wrote “Up in the Air” for nine of the cast members. “Anna, Vera, George, Galifianakis, J.K., Amy Morton, Bateman, and McBride. And Sam.” He admits that Clooney was a very easy voice to write for but he wanted to do something different with his on-screen persona.

“I wanted to show him vulnerable. I feel like we haven’t seen that until this film. I saw him fall in love in Out of Sight. That was the closest. I think that was the last time he kissed a girl on-screen. Think about it. Unless you’re gonna count Julia Roberts in Ocean’s but I’m not going to count that. Michael Clayton, Syriana - no love interest. Good German? I guess he must have kissed Cate Blanchett. I’m talking about really f**king falling in love. That’s what I wanted. And to have him out of control. Even in Out of Sight, he’s in love, but he’s in total f**king control. I wanted to see Clooney left empty, wanting something more, and it’s not if I had to pull it out of him. He came in knowing exactly what I wanted and he gave it to me.”

On the verge of several Oscar nominations, Jason Reitman is clearly in a good place. “I’m happy my career is in my control. What’s scary is when your career is in someone else’s control. I’m waiting to get hired. I’m hoping. That was scarier. Now, I can make the films I want. I’m proud of the three that I’ve made. I believe it myself as a director. I feel good. I felt more nervous coming off Juno because it became this phenomenon that I didn’t expect but this film has turned out exactly as I wanted. It makes me feel like I can make more movies that way. I’m at the first time where I’m not really reading my press. I’m kind of relaxed and I’m really enjoying it.”

‘Up in the Air’ stars George Clooney, Anna Kendrick, Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons, Jason Bateman, Amy Morton, Melanie Lynskey, Danny McBride, and Zack Galifianakis. It was written by Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner and directed by Reitman. It opens in Chicago on December 4th, 2009. It is rated R.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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