Jason Reitman Quotes

My favorite Broadway show day-to-day, just for the experience, was 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.' The people were so much fun. It was a great show.

I love bad movies, whereas going to the theater for me is a painful experience. I think it's really hard to sit and watch actors do something live and have it not go well.

I've been a screenwriter for twenty-five years. Every one of my books have been optioned for movies and I have written a few of those screenplays.

As far as directors, I'm a big fan of any kind of Billy Wilder stuff. Anything he does.

There's no doubt that some of the greatest films ever made have come from the theater. It's all a matter of finding a way to make the theater experience watchable on film.

I had one well known director who kept saying, "Now Clint, this is what ...." And I'd say, "I know. I read the script. I'm the one who cast you as the director. Let me show you and you'll correct me if I'm wrong."

What happens often is the script is written and once the director comes on board you have lots of conversations and it mutates again.

I find reading screenplays difficult, as they're only a roadmap for what a movie might end up being.

I did so much theater, where everybody I worked with was so much better than me, that I just sort of learned.

Also a good director and good dialogue. That's very important because you're bringing the words to life. So it's very important for an actor to have good dialogue.

When I got the script for Thelma & Louise, when I met with the director, Ridley Scott, I said, "I don't want to do a revenge film. I'm not interested in doing that moment in the script after they shoot the truck, where it says they jump up and down and they're real happy about it".

This sounds so bogus, but I would love to, at some point when my kids are in college, is just go do a whole season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and do a year of plays. Most actors miss the days of live theater.

Something like the alleyway scene, where it's like a mini one-act play and you run the whole 18 pages of it, it's so much easier to get lost in it. That's why actors love doing theater so much, I guarantee you. It's refreshing to be able to do something where you don't have to be stopped every two seconds, and you can just play it out and it's done.

I get psyched about coming onto a Broadway stage every night. it's very exciting. You develop a kind of gratefulness for it when you spend months trying to get a job.

I've been in this business 25 years. I've been eking out a living doing Broadway, off-Broadway... I've seen the unemployment line a lot.

There's something nice about making a night of the theater rather than sitting in front of your TV.

We've all got a lot of catching up to do. I'm still learning how to act, for god's sake. When I see these old-timers on the Turner Classic Movies, I still get ideas, you know. That's where you really learn acting. If you really see some of these old boys working it and you say to yourself, "My God, if I could really do that that would be wonderful."

The theater itself is so archaic and old fashioned, that it doesn't really matter to me whether it's on Avenue D or at the Helen Hayes Theater. What's the difference? It's still a very nostalgic form. Also, it means you're knowingly walking into a room where there's actors. I feel it's very embarrassing. Because, you know, they're right there. You always think like, they can see you, and I think it's mortifying, frankly, and I hate to sit near the front, where you feel they actually might see you. It's too ... it's too live.

Almost all movie scripts contain material that cannot be filmed.

I'm kind of happy to know there may be some kid or teenager now who might never have had the chance to see my Broadway performance, but gets a taste for what it might have been like now, because they can see Clint Eastwood's film."

Working with Joe [Kosinski], definitely. I loved working with Joe. For a guy who doesn't really come from the fiction world - he comes from advertising and architecture - he's extremely easy-going and very calm. He's extremely detailed, but a very generous and fun director to work with. He really encouraged me to find the fun in the part and to have fun with it.

Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.

It's a roll of the dice when you're a first time director so I prefer to work with people that know more than I do, but that happens less and less as you get older.

You have different people who come into your life and they affect you in a way and leave an impact on you. Whether it's projects or friends or directors, it's just an opportunity that people give me.

Sometimes you have to say the words exactly how they are on the page, but sometimes when you improv, it only helps to get across what's on the page, and I just love working with directors who allow that.