Jason Reitman Interview, Up in the Air

In his first two feature films, Oscar-nominated director Jason Reitman established himself as an original, smart and funny storyteller known for his pitch-perfect commentaries on society. Reitman has a distinctive talent for taking provocative anti-heroes – a tobacco lobbyist in “Thank You for Smoking” and a pregnant teenager in the Oscar-winning “Juno” – and telling deeply human, funny and appealing stories in which these tricky characters defy expectations.

Reitman continues in this vein with his newest film, “Up in the Air,” the well-timed tale of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a corporate downsizer and consummate modern business traveler who, after years of staying happily airborne, suddenly finds himself ready to make a real connection.  Based on the novel by Walter Kirn, the film also stars Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick and Danny McBride.

MoviesOnline sat down recently with Jason Reitman at the Los Angeles press day for “Up in the Air.” He talked to us about what it was like working with his dad professionally, directing such a timely film and assembling an incredible cast. He also described some of his upcoming projects. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: Is this the first time you’ve worked with your dad professionally where he’s produced something of yours?

JR: Officially, yes. I’ve been obviously showing my work to my father my entire life, starting with my math homework all the way down to my short films and everything I’ve done. So I’ve always relied on his advice on these things and that he’s the greatest storyteller I know and he’s obviously read all my screenplays. I started showing him all of my screenplays and he’s given me advice on everything -- those first five horrible original screenplays that I wrote that taught me how to be a writer and then the actual stuff that I made into movies. By the time we were doing “Up in the Air,” it’s like we knew how to do the job together. It’s not as though it was like, “Okay, how do we figure out how to work together?” In your producer, you want someone you trust in and I don’t trust anyone more than my father.

Q: Were those people who did the short scenes about losing their jobs real people who really lost their jobs?

JR: Yes, they were real people. I started writing this movie seven years ago. When I started writing it, we were in an economic boom and, by the time I finished writing it, we were in one of the worst recessions on record. The biggest change I made in approaching actually directing the movie was that I realized the scenes I’d written were not adequate. They weren’t authentic. In location scouting in St. Louis and Detroit, I’m walking into empty building after empty building. I realized that I was surrounded by the realities of this recession and that it was important to reach out and see if we could actually find some people who had lost their jobs to talk about their stories on camera.

Q: Did you draw on your own personal experience in the airport security line when you wrote that line of dialogue about getting in line behind Asians or was that from the book?

JR: No, that’s me. That’s very much me. I’m an obsessive flyer. I choreographed every second, every frame of how George packed, how he went through security, how he chose a line. The idea that it’s good to get behind Asians in the security line isn’t altogether true because Asian men tend to wear belts and belts are just time killers. They’re time killers when you’re going through security. In general, I would avoid anyone wearing a belt when you’re going through security. But, they are an efficient race.

Q: Were you worried about the film coming out at this time because of the economics now with so many people losing their jobs or scared of losing them?

JR: No, it doesn’t, for a couple reasons. One, this is not a movie about job loss. It never has been. The reason why this was just as an appropriate movie in 2002 when I started writing it as it is now is that it’s a movie about human connections. It’s about a guy trying to figure out who and what he wants in his life, who has a philosophy about living alone, that is challenged by his family, by a woman romantically, by a young upstart girl who is biting away at his ankles the entire film. That’s what this movie is about. The location is in the world of corporate termination, which happens to be very relevant right now, and because that adds weight to the movie, but it’s just not what it’s about. If you watch the trailer, that’s not what the trailer is about and certainly that’s not what the majority of the film [is about]. I would say less than 10% of the film takes place in the world of corporate termination. Secondly, for the people who have lost their jobs -- at least let’s call it the people who are in the film who lost their jobs who have now seen the movie – [they] love the movie, are proud of the film, found the experience to come in on camera to be cathartic. I found that the people that came in and interviewed for us, all 60 of them, only 22 are in the movie, but 60 people came in – 30 in Detroit, 30 in St. Louis – almost every single one would say “You know, I haven’t really had a chance to talk about this to anyone. This is not the kind of thing that we talk about here in the Midwest and you can feel so alone because you’ve lost your community.” You’re not going into an office where you see the same 50 people you see all the time. You’re at home alone a lot looking on the internet trying to find an opportunity. So, to come to a place where there were 29 other people who had experienced something similar, realizing you’re not alone, it seemed to help and hopefully the film will do the same thing.

Q: It also adds a sense of humanity to a film where the main character is very disconnected.

JR: Right. They act as a metaphor. You have a guy who’s searching for purpose in his life and for a living he is cutting people off from what matters most – their livelihood – and pushing them into a world in which they are searching for a purpose themselves.

Q: Could you talk about casting Anna because she brings something really spicy and spunky to this film?

JR: Spicy and spunky? I look forward to telling her that. She’s like a tortilla soup. I saw Anna in “Rocket Science” and I was just knocked out by her and the role of Natalie grew from there. It was seeing her, hearing her, the rapidity with which she spoke, her sense of wit and timing. She reminds me of Veronica Lake in “Sullivan’s Travels.” I mean, she’s just from another era and she’s different from every girl of her generation. People always like to tell me that “Oh, you couldn’t have cast this with any other actor. George Clooney had to be Ryan Bingham.” But the truth is, I could have never done this movie without Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga. They were almost harder to replace than George Clooney.

Q: Can you talk about George Clooney and how you guys struck up a bond for the first time and what it was like directing him?

JR: The first way we struck up a bond was him kicking my ass in basketball after which he read my script and he said to me, “I just read your script. It’s great. I’m in.” Those were the words he said. That’s how he came into the project. What’s wonderful about George is that, unlike a lot of actors who create barriers between you and them to make sure there’s never intimacy, George breaks those barriers down. The second that you are in a working relationship with him and he trusts you, there are no barriers and he’s very trusting. I can’t think of a single thing that I asked him to do that he said no to. He creates a very lovely set environment.

Q: Do you think it’s true that you could not have made a movie with anybody else in that role except George?

JR: It’s hard to imagine the film having the kind of weight and poignancy without him. There’s something about his opening up in this film. There’s something about his show of vulnerability that I at least have been waiting for watching him his entire career that makes this film really work when he becomes vulnerable to Vera Farmiga. It really means something.

Q: Did you create Natalie and Alex’s characters?

JR: Yes.

Q: Were they in the original book?

JR: No. There was this series of women in the original book and there was a woman named Alex, but I liked the name. That’s about the only resemblance and Walter Kirn would tell you the same. He has sex with a lot of women in the book. So does Nick Naylor in the book “Thank You for Smoking.” I’m apparently attracted to authors who send their characters on national sex tours. But no, Alex is very much my creation and so is Natalie. They’re the same character. Alex and Natalie are the same woman 15 years apart and they come from a series of women that I have always loved including my wife who are kind of an interesting response to the feminist movement. Women who are always sort of the smartest person in the room, who are almost frustrated by their own brilliance, who have been told they can have everything, that they can do anything they want with their lives, they can achieve anything and they can have it all – except no one can have it all is the truth. Everyone has to sacrifice in life. I find it’s these sacrifices that lead to mid-life crisis, both in men and in women. I’ve seen it explored a fair amount on screen with men, but I really haven’t in women and that’s why I created those two characters. It was to explore something that I actually really see my wife going through as she became my wife and a mother and simultaneously as a career woman and feels conflicted by her identity.

Q: Vera is incredible in this movie and that’s such a complicated part. Did you see her in something?

JR: I saw her in “Down to the Bone” and thought she was fearless in that. I saw her in “The Departed” and knew that she could really go toe to toe with some charismatic men. But it was really in meeting her and I went wow, this girl is really something. You know, it’s funny, she was pregnant through prep. She had a baby right before we started making the movie and I remember going to her and saying “You can’t do this.” I just went to her and said, “Look, I don’t see how this is humanly possible,” and she came back so confident. It was like, “No, no, no, don’t worry about it.” Not like a conversation, like just “No, it’s fine. No, don’t worry about it. You’re not even going to know.” And I’m like, “Really, I don’t think you can do this. I just had a baby. I’m not trying to be sexist. I’m just aware of what goes on.” And she’s like, “Nope.” She refused to even entertain the conversation. It was one of those moments where I realized wow, this woman really is Alex. She’s like so cocksure and so fearless and such a gamer. Yeah, it was just perfect.

Q: George Clooney is a prankster. Did he pull any pranks during production?

JR: No pranks. There were no pranks. We had no pranks. We had a prankless set. I feel like I give the worst Q&A’s because everyone wants to know about these pranks and I have nothing. All I can say about the pranks is that he seems to prank the people who deserve it and I guess no one on our set deserved it.

Q: Is some of the real George Clooney in his character? He refused to get married again or settle down. Do you think you changed his point of view on his life?

JR: Do I think I helped change his own point of view on his own life? Absolutely not. The only time he ever spoke about this was literally the second thing he said. The first thing he said is, “I’m in.” The second thing he said was, “I know people are going to draw comparisons between this character and my persona and I’m ready to stare them straight in the eyes.” I loved that. I just thought what a brave, self-aware thing to say and then to do. It didn’t require further conversation. We both understood and that was kind of it. We went and made the movie.

Q: The ending is not nicely tied in which I appreciate very much. Was that your original ending?

JR: Yes. That was always my ending. I did not want to make a movie that explored the importance of companionship through romance. There’s plenty of those films. I wanted a movie that explored the importance of companionship through loss -- that it’s not when you see them dancing together at the wedding that you realize that this man is in love and in fact maybe you want something too. It’s right after he finds out the truth and he’s sitting alone in his hotel room and you go, “Oh, this guy wants something more and maybe so do I.” Hopefully, the actual physical impact of feeling that makes the audience think perhaps they want something more. The movie is not about a man making a decision. It’s a man coming to an epiphany and we leave him before his moment of decision in the purpose of pushing the audience to think about it for themselves rather than think about what the character’s decision is.

Q: Do you see parallels between the people who have lost their job and him losing his chance with that connection? Did the studios try to change that?

JR: Never, not for a second. I attribute that to the success of “Juno” giving me a fair amount of power and to George Clooney. People don’t fuck with you when you’ve got George Clooney on your side.

Q: Do you know what your next projects are going to be?

JR: My next projects are I’m adapting Joyce Maynard’s new book, “Labor Day,” and I’m working with Jenny Lumet, who wrote “Rachel Getting Married,” on a screenplay.

“Up in the Air” opens in theaters on December 4th.