MoviesOnline caught up this week with director Jason Reitman (“Thank You for Smoking”) and screenwriter Diablo Cody (“Candy Girl”) at the Los Angeles press day for their new film, “Juno.” “Juno” stars Ellen Page as the title character, a whip-smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy by her classmate Bleeker (Michael Cera). With the help of her best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), Juno finds her unborn child a “perfect” set of parents: an affluent suburban couple, Mark and Vanessa (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), longing to adopt. Luckily, Juno has the total support of her parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) as she faces some tough decisions, flirts with adulthood and ultimately figures out where she belongs.
Jason Reitman made his feature film directing debut with the 2006 hit “Thank You for Smoking,” based on the acclaimed 1994 novel by Christopher Buckley, which Reitman adapted for the screen. “Thank You for Smoking” had its world premiere at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival, where it was acquired by Fox Searchlight. The film went on to screen at the 2006 Sundance and SXSW Film Festivals, and Reitman was ultimately nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The son of director Ivan Reitman, he spent most of his childhood on or around film sets, even appearing in cameos in many of his father’s films, surrounded by the funniest human beings on Earth.
Writer Diablo Cody penned her debut screenplay “Juno” while working as a phone sex operator/insurance adjuster in Minneapolis. She did not attend Harvard. Cody has been featured in Entertainment Weekly, Playboy, Elle and Jane, among others, and has appeared on CNN, the Fox Morning Show and Late Night with David Letterman. In 2004, she authored the infamous and critically acclaimed memoir “Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.” Most recently she wrote and co-created a half-hour series, “The United States of Tara,” to be executive produced by Steven Spielberg for Showtime. Cody is also working on her second book and various top-secret spec scripts.
Here’s what Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody had to tell us about their new movie, the meaning of ‘screw the pooch,’ and what Red Bull has in common with carbonated gummy bears:
JASON REITMAN: Hi everybody. How’s it going?
DIABLO CODY: I’m lovin’ L.A. I’m all down. It’s like I screwed the pooch. It’s like a card game.
JASON REITMAN: I’ve never heard that as a card game.
DIABLO CODY: You’ve never heard that?
JASON REITMAN: I know that expression which is a vile expression.
DIABLO CODY: You’ve never heard ‘I screwed the pooch’ in a card game setting?
JASON REITMAN: No.
DIABLO CODY: You’re just not hanging out enough in L.A. saloons.
JASON REITMAN: Apparently, but that’s again the perspective that we bring each other.
DIABLO CODY: That’s true. [notices someone drinking a Red Bull] I’m looking at that Red Bull and just salivating.
JOURNALIST: [teasing] Don’t even think about it because you’re not going to get one.
DIABLO CODY: I know. Seriously, you’d better clutch that.
JASON REITMAN: Do you know what Red Bull tastes like?
DIABLO CODY: Uh, bubblegum?
JASON REITMAN: Carbonated gummy bears.
DIABLO CODY: That’s why it’s awesome. I can think of nothing better.
MoviesOnline: Can you talk a little about the tone of this movie and how guys you kept it even keel, not too sentimental or too twee or quirky.
DIABLO CODY: I feel that I cannot take responsibility for the tonal choices made in this film. I’m not an experienced filmmaker but I am discovering that that is something the director establishes. My screenplay I think is inherently kind of quirky and twee because I was influenced by quirky, twee movies when I wrote it and then Jason came in and he is the master of tone and was able to strike a balance.
JASON REITMAN: Actually that’s part of my formal name now.
DIABLO CODY: [laughs] Master of Tone.
JASON REITMAN: You know how there’s the Masters of Horror series?
DIABLO CODY: [laughing] Master of Tone is so more interesting.
JASON REITMAN: [laughing] Me and Alexander Payne. [deep voice] Masters of Tone. Oh my God. You give me such complicated ideas and yet the tone is just so solid it’s something to eat. Masters of Tone.
DIABLO CODY: [imitating voice of movie announcer] This week the most tonally strong film you will ever see.
JASON REITMAN: [laughing uncontrollably] Oh my God, I want to do that so badly. C’mon that’s fun stuff. Total consistency.
[Laughter]
MoviesOnline: It actually makes the movie work.
DIABLO CODY: It does. He’s a really good director.
JASON REITMAN: I’m actually alright. It’s a combination of our perspectives that I think contribute to the tone that you’re talking about and that you like. One of the things that I loved originally about the screenplay, and it’s true in the finished film, is something I loved. The first time I read the book “Thank You for Smoking” is that here was a piece of work… it’s something I’m attracted to in general in material and in people oddly and I think that’s one of the reasons that Diablo and I really get along is that this was a screenplay that took a subject matter that could easily have been sensitive, tricky – teenage pregnancy. Like smoking cigarettes, it’s something that can easily become emotional, easily become politicized and here was a screenplay that didn’t do that at all. I spoke about the issue in a very frank way and a very non-judgmental, open minded way and right in there you set a tone of ‘this is the attitude that the characters are going to have on the story and subject matter’ and that’s what got me excited. And it wasn’t just one or two characters. It was every character. We had 7 strong characters throughout this film who were all very thought out, clear human beings who all had fresh perspectives on the same idea. And then what happened was you have Diablo who grew up in a very Juno MacGuff-like house and me…I grew up in a very Loring-like house. You know the white photos on the stairwell? I did that as a kid. That is my house. So because of that, I think there’s this kind of air of non-judgment to both sides. It’s not a film where Juno’s cool and oh look at these asshole Lorings and it’s not a movie from the Loring perspective where here’s like a really normal couple and who’s this weird kid. It’s a film that doesn’t judge either side because it’s coming from both sides. As a director, I do think I’m good at tone. I think every director has a gift. I think (David) Fincher can shoot the lights out and I can’t touch him. And there’s directors who do all sorts of things that I can’t touch and for whatever reason, I think I have a good gut for tone and I was raised by a director who is ruthless with tone as well and who taught me to cut things out that don’t fit. So, because of that, no matter how funny a scene is, no matter how much I like a scene, if it’s outside the rhythm of the film, if it’s outside the tone of the film, it’s gone.
DIABLO CODY: We’re actually both good at killing things.
JASON REITMAN: Yeah.
DIABLO CODY: No. I just mean there are a lot of people who are very precious about that kind of thing and it’s helpful that neither of us is because we understand, we are willing to sacrifice things for consistency, both of us.
JASON REITMAN: And that contributed to our relationship. Often there’s so much animosity between a writer and a director. I think one of the reasons this really worked was not only that we brought two perspectives but that there was no ego between us and there was nothing precious. I don’t think either of us ever called each other with some news on the film where it was ‘Oh you can’t do that.’ No. It was clearly kind of in the same attitude towards how do we… I think there was one time when the MPAA had to cut one word.
DIABLO CODY: Yeah, it was the MPAA and not you and that broke my heart.
JASON REITMAN: And they cut a word.
MoviesOnline: What was the word?
JASON REITMAN: The word was ‘balls.’ This is a PG-13 movie.
DIABLO CODY: ‘Balls’ is edgy.
JASON REITMAN: You know why? I’ll tell you why. Balls, as in ‘I have a lot of baseballs,’ no, balls can be used. The problem was that it was used in a term that visualized sexuality and I have to say I don’t want to discredit the MPAA because they actually really like this film and there’s a lot of things they let slide in this film because they thought it was an important film for teenagers to see and because of that they actually made us cut very little. There’s heartbreaking stuff but they actually really loved this film. So I’m very proud of what they did by giving us a PG-13.
MoviesOnline: What’s with these Canadian kids? Between Ellen and Michael, they’re like the breakout young performers of this year.
DIABLO CODY: I’m a convert now.
JASON REITMAN: I’m a Canadian and I think we’re gonna make Diablo a Canadian too. I don’t know. What do you think of this?
DIABLO CODY: Personally I think when I first started working in Hollywood a couple years ago I was very much this hayseed from the Midwest and I think it’s similar to the Midwestern sensibility where some people were enthusiastic to meet me just based on my origins because they said ‘Oh there’s always a good, dark comedy that comes out of the Midwest, the Coen brothers and Alexander Payne from Omaha and that kind of stuff.’ And they said we like to see that perspective as opposed to the usual L.A.-New York thing. Canada I think is a completely different story obviously.
JASON REITMAN: There’s a Second City element to Canada.
DIABLO CODY: There is. There’s a freshness there and I also feel that the young actors that I’ve seen come out of Canada are not as affected or insincere as the kids you see in L.A. where it’s just straight show biz.
JASON REITMAN: There’s something interesting about their voice. It’s a weird conflicting idea but there’s a maturity that has held onto innocence whereas the kids who grew up in LA and NY seem immature and they’ve lost all their innocence. I know that seems…
DIABLO CODY: No, that’s actually true. That’s a really fascinating paradox. You are like pulling them out today.
JASON REITMAN: Hey! L.A. junket.
DIABLO CODY: He’s just been knocking them out of the park.
MoviesOnline: What can you tell us about Ellen and Michael?
JASON REITMAN: I think what makes them truly special is they’re incapable of having dishonest moments and that’s what I look for in actors, is actors who can be honest and with dialogue like Diablo’s, it’s very easy to have a dishonest take on that dialogue and they just can’t. I mean take a great line like Ellen Page saying ‘And you do this all without trying hard at all’ and Michael Cera responds, ‘Actually I try really hard.’ That’s a very hard line to deliver because you don’t want it to sound insincere. You don’t want it to sound like he’s trying to make some sort of joke. It has to be just authentic and heartbreakingly sweet and that is very hard to do and he does it and he makes it looks so easy. He makes it look like he could’ve done that, just work up and said that line.
MoviesOnline: How many takes?
JASON REITMAN: Oh no, that’s take one. I could’ve had 3 feet of film and gotten that scene. Those two actors, no matter what they’re doing, there’s an authenticity to what they’re doing that makes the scenes feel real and makes us care.
MoviesOnline: Can you talk about working with Jason on trying to get the right balance for this character?
JASON REITMAN: That was the trickiest character to nail and Jason and I both became fathers in the year leading up to this film so we had a fresh perspective on what it’s like to have a baby, to have your life change, to kind of close a chapter of your life and open up onto a new one and that was always the thing. We don’t want him to be hate-able, we want him to be real and he’s not dirty. At the end of the day, the idea that we latched onto was that they weren’t flirting with each other as much as they were flirting with each other’s time periods, that here was a guy who was flirting with the idea of being a child and here’s a girl who was flirting with the idea of becoming an adult and like many teenage girls right now, there’s this idea that she could just make a decision and certainly she’s pregnant, she could easily become an adult the next day but that they could just become an adult like that when they’re still 16 and that is in fact what they were flirting with. So using that as a guiding line, we could do a scene like the basement which is by far the hardest scene I’ve ever had to direct and use that as a guideline so it never became about ‘oh were they flirting too heavily with each other?’ As long as it was following this interest in where the other person was in life, it could seem dangerous without seeming wrong.
MoviesOnline: Diablo, how necessary was this film in your mind to have taken place in Minnesota where you grew up? Could you have told this story anywhere else?
DIABLO CODY: Oh absolutely. Honestly, in Arizona maybe not so much because I just think of this Southwest aesthetic and I’m picturing a coyote wandering through the shot, but [laughs] I’m sorry. I guess I’m kind of like a picture book with you.
JASON REITMAN: [laughs] You know it’s like…
DIABLO CODY: …cactuses everyone.
JASON REITMAN: Yeah. [makes the sound of a bass note in western music]
[Laughter]
DIABLO CODY: …and tumbleweeds. [laughs] It was just important to me that it didn’t take place in one of the usual…that it wasn’t L.A. It wasn’t New York. And it also needed to take place in a region of the country that felt sheltered enough to me that a teenager being pregnant would be considered unusual because we see the way the gaze of Juno’s peers becomes increasingly judgmental as she becomes more pregnant whereas there are certain schools in this nation where every other girl is pregnant.
MoviesOnline: In the year 2007, you make a movie about somebody who gets pregnant and keeps the baby and almost automatically people look at it as a political statement about being pro-choice. Is that something you thought about at all?
JASON REITMAN: No, we never had a conversation about that.
DIABLO CODY: You and I never talked about it. I remember early on when I was writing it thinking to myself, hmmm. I guess now that I think about it, this could be a potentially controversial subject.
JASON REITMAN: That’s seems to be a projection. You know, it’s interesting, when we did “Thank You for Smoking,” the best compliment we ever got was that liberals thought it was their film and conservatives thought it was theirs. And Christopher Buckley used to say, you know that’s what satire is. Satire is a mirror you see yourself in. Juno is not a satire but in some ways I guess it is a mirror.
MoviesOnline: Why did you pick the name ‘Diablo’?
DIABLO CODY: I chose it randomly just as a pseudonym to use on the internet like lots of people do and I never imagined that it would wind up following me this far. I always say I would have thought a little bit harder about the old nickname if…
MoviesOnline: It wasn’t your stripper name?
DIABLO CODY: No.
MoviesOnline: What was your stripper name?
DIABLO CODY: I had a lot because I was constantly being booted from clubs.
JASON REITMAN: Brian.
[Laughter]
DIABLO CODY: [laughs] Brian would be the best stripper name ever.
MoviesOnline: Jason, you’re producing Diablo’s next script. Are you going to direct it?
JASON REITMAN: No, I’m not going to direct it.
DIABLO CODY: I wish.
JASON REITMAN: We’re gonna find someone who’s perfect for that but I think my aspiration for it is that it is to teenage horror what Juno is which is kind of a return to form, a return to warmth within teenage movies.
MoviesOnline: Is this the beginning of a partnership that’s going to go on for a number of films?
JASON REITMAN: I hope so.
DIABLO CODY: Yeah. That would be cool.
MoviesOnline: What are you going to direct next?
JASON REITMAN: I’m in the midst of writing something. I’ve got a couple of names. We’ll see. Maybe “Bonsai Shadowhands.”
DIABLO CODY: I’m just trying to derail everything that he writes.
JASON REITMAN: Right. I’m never gonna let him finish.
DIABLO CODY: It’s gonna be awesome.
“Juno” opens in theaters on December 7th.
