Juno Diablo Cody & Jason Reitman Interview

It's expected to earn an Oscar nomination or two. Not a bad effort given it's the first feature film by screenwriter Diablo Cody and the second one for director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking). The film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and was an instant success, which is what sparked the Oscar rumours. The film stars Ellen Page (X Men: The Last Stand) as a sassy 16-year-old who becomes pregnant after her first sexual encounter and decides to seek out the perfect pair of adoptive parents (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). While the plot might sound so so, what distinguishes it, is the whip smart dialogue and the brutally honest characters. Gaynor Flynn caught up with the writer and director at Toronto, and here's what they had to say.

Gaynor Flynn: How did you find the writer director relationship?

Diablo Cody: As a writer this was an incredibly unique experience because Jason is so respectful to the material and such a generous, gracious wonderful person. I just could not have been luckier.


Jason Reitman: [laughs] It's all true.

Diablo Cody: Writers typically are not treated with that level of respect on a film and I was allowed to come to the set I was able to give input and I know that's a really rare situation so I'm really grateful.

Jason Reitman: This was a script I fell in love with but I could not even pretend to understand what was going through the mind of a pregnant 16-year-old girl and most often I'd be asking Diablo as well as Ellen (Page) what would the character really be feeling here. Why are they saying this or why are they doing this or I want her to go down this hallway and why would she do that and they brought incredible insight and I'm thrilled that Diablo is able to spend as much time as she did with us.


Gaynor Flynn: What appealed about the story particularly?

Jason Reitman: You know what I loved about it? It was similar to Thank You For Smoking, it was a tricky subject matter, it was teenage pregnancy but obviously it wasn't an after school special. This story took a very enlightened view on the subject and was a story that allowed all the characters to react in a very original way. It was a screenplay that every time a decision had to be made a line of dialogue to be said, it was unpredictable.


Gaynor Flynn: Can you talk about casting Ellen Page?

Jason Reitman: I hadn't met her before but I'd seen her in Hard Candy and like everyone fell in love with her.


Gaynor Flynn: What was it about her?

Jason Reitman: She's just honest, she's real. I mean what I look for in an actress isn't there ability to be dramatic or their ability to be funny I just want honest performances and if you look across the board everyone in this film is just very real and very honest and this is not a script that was filled with jokes it's a script that's filled with very human moments and it was going to be funny as long as the actors performed it real. And I look at Ellen and that's what separates her from every other actor of her generation is that she's just real and she brings honesty to every moment and this is beyond the fact that she's so talented and when I met her in person it was even more so it was like meeting Juno.


Gaynor Flynn: I understand you connected on the quirky music level?

Jason Reitman: Yeah I'm a big music fan but I'd never heard of the Mouldy Peaches until Ellen introduced them to me and that became the soundtrack of the film.


Gaynor Flynn: The original dialogue is one of the talking points in the film. Did you do the Cameron Crowe thing where you went undercover?

Diablo Cody: You know what I didn't. I'm notoriously lazy about research. I usually just dive into something and just hope that I don't make an ass of myself. I didn't talk to any teenagers, I always feel as an adult I've had a weird ability to be able tap into youth culture, I just think I'm immature. But I was a little nervous, I didn't know how this was going to be received by young people but the teenagers I know that have seen it thought it sounded authentic. Its obviously a little heightened you know its not verity but I think it worked out.


Gaynor Flynn: You said at the press conference that you know someone that became pregnant as a teenager. Who was that?

Diablo Cody: I had a friend when I was a teenager who got pregnant and that situation kind of inspired this in a way because I went through that experience with her and as a teenager who is unexpectedly pregnant is obviously going to react in a very different way than a woman who's in her 30's and has been trying and gets this baby shower and its this joyous occasion. For us it was this very surreal, weird experience and we acted like teenagers throughout he process and I just wanted to capture that feeling.


Gaynor Flynn: In the press notes you say you worked as a phone sex operator, was that a joke?

Diablo Cody: No it's true. (laughs) I have a very sordid past.


Gaynor Flynn: You've obviously had an interesting past.

Diablo Cody: That's very nice of you to say and I do think it's important and I'm in no way denigrating other writers here but I think if you live a sheltered experience in Los Angeles and you sit at the Coffee Bean all day and write and have development deals, I don't know how creative you can be. You have to stay in touch with reality and I was a stripper as well and I've had a lot of crazy experiences as well and it definitely helps me in terms of the creative process.


Gaynor Flynn: How did you get into writing?

Diablo Cody: I mostly wrote on line. I was pretty much an unpublished writer and working as a stripper and blogging about my adventures in the skin trade and one day I got an email from Hollywood and it's a guy who is now my manager Mason Novak who is also a producer on the film, and he said to me, you should try writing a screenplay. And I wasn't an idiot and I thought this is probably just some huckster trying to take advantage of me and so I ignored him for quite some time and then finally he got to me and I sat down and wrote Juno. And I never ever imagined would come of it, certainly not like this, its been a dream.


Gaynor Flynn: Jason, what's surprised a lot of people is that given your background you have turned out to be talented.

Jason Reitman: Its' a surprise isn't it? It is always a huge surprise. Most children of directors are just drugged out and a waste of time.


Gaynor Flynn: How influential was your upbringing with your dad and having so much film in your life growing up?

Jason Reitman: I grew up in a wonderful family with a lot of love and unlike most parents in Hollywood my parents have been together for over 30 years and really sheltered me from a lot of what I heard the movie business can be and really the only aspect of the film business they opened up to me was to become a good story teller. My parents are both directors they've taught me to be a good story teller and its funny I actually was scared of becoming a director because I thought really I don't stand a chance if I become a director I'll always be compared to my father and I'll never have any success of my own.


Gaynor Flynn: What's your relationship with your dad when you're directing?

Jason Reitman: He doesn't come to set. (laughs)


Gaynor Flynn: Was Jennifer Garner an obvious choice for you?

Jason Reitman: Not until I met her to be perfectly honest. I've always been a fan of hers but it was when her and I met each other that I realised she had many similar characteristics to Vanessa and then it was impossible to ignore. She's one of the sweetest human beings in Hollywood. I've honestly never met a nicer actor in my life and she's a very devoted mother and when we started talking about our children, we were both new parents when we met it changed everything all of a sudden it was like talking to Vanessa when she would talk about her daughter and that' what we would talk about on set.


Gaynor Flynn: What's next?

Jason Reitman: She's talking to Spielberg its much more exciting.

Diablo Cody: I have a pilot that I wrote for Steven Spielberg that just got picked up by Showtime it's a half hour comedy, a dark comedy about a mum that has multiple personalities.


Gaynor Flynn: Is it The United States of Terror, is it still being called that?

Diablo Cody: As far as I know yes.

Jason Reitman: Rain Wilson from The Office who did a cameo in this film he and I have developed a comedy that has going to star in and I'm going to direct which is basically Midnight Cowboy with a Ninja in the San Fernando Valley and he is the Ninja.