Street: Do you have a director’s playlist that you listen to for each movie that you do? Jason Reitman: Usually I have one song that gets me in the mood to write each film and strangely enough in all three of my movies that song has never [shown up]. For Thank You for Smoking, it was the song, “I’m a Man” by Steve Winwood. On Juno, it was Yo La Tengo’s “You Can Have It All” and for Up in the Air, it was Hank Williams’s “Ramblin’ Man.”
Street: You've cast J.K. Simmons and Jeff Witzke in three or more movies each. What makes these actors so appealing? JR: Jeff Witzke is my lucky charm, and J.K. Simmons is my muse.
Street: In a recent interview you mentioned that you had been on 10 flights in 10 days. What do you enjoy the most about jetsetting all over the place? JR: I started enjoying flights for the same reason I enjoyed going to movie theaters. It’s a chance to unplug from your normal life and a chance to be surrounded by strangers. You know when you’re up in the plane, your cell phone doesn’t work and your closest friend is this person in 17J. You can have the kind of conversation with them that you would never have with someone you knew well.
Street: Is there a question you've been asked about this movie or your work that you would like to address? JR: The best question I’ve been asked recently was whether I am a window or an aisle. And I thought it seems like such a simple question, but it actually speaks so strongly to flyers. I mean, whether you’re a window or an aisle really says a lot about a human being. And I am an aisle, and my wife is a window. I don’t think our marriage would work otherwise.
Street: You started writing Up in the Air in 2002. How did the writing of the movie change over those seven years? JR: Two major things happened. One, the economy took a turn and two, I grew up. You know when I first started writing this, I was a guy living in an apartment in my 20s, I was single, and by the time I finished, I’d met my wife. I’d become a father, had a mortgage. In one sense, the story changed as I grew up so did Ryan Bingham [protagonist of Up in the Air], and what I found in life he began to look for.
Street: Like Thank You for Smoking, Up in the Air features a character who essentially isolates himself from the real world. Why do these types of characters interest you and what do you think they say about society today? JR: Obviously I’m attracted, whether I know it or not, to characters who live in kind of a polarized world. Usually why I like these characters is that they have a very open-minded point of view on something that is traditionally polarizing. They give me an opportunity to take a fresh look at a subject that is usually kind of talked out in one way.
