Jason Reitman Quotes

When my father was 17, he went to Montreal and found these submarine sandwich shops that were really successful, and weren't in Toronto [his home town]. So he went to my grandparents and said: "Look,...

[With comedy and wanting to make people laugh,] when you're a child, all you want is ANY kind of laugh. You get them to laugh, and great! - you've succeeded. And then it's "How FAST can I get them to...

Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mi...

Can you design a Rorschach test that's going to make everyone feel something every time - and that looks like a Rorschach test? It's easy to show a picture of a kitten or a car accident. The question...

I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'J...

I've been very, very lucky in my career, in my life - from day one. When aspiring directors say, 'What's your advice?' first I say, 'Be born the son of a famous director. It's invaluable.'

I'm not going to have a perfect career. It's better to be Billy Wilder and make lots of movies and have five or six great ones than to make so few movies that when you make a bad one it crushes you.

I want my movies to be audience experiences. As much as I like Michael Haneke, I'm not going to make a Haneke film. That's just not in my DNA.

It's funny, I can sit through the worst horror film ever made but even a quite good romantic comedy can drive me nuts.

I hear the way people talk about the children of famous people. They're not treated very well. The presumptions are usually quite awful. So I tried to establish myself with a couple of movies. After '...

There are only so many movies you can direct. And yet there are movies that I want to make sure make it to the screen in as honest a way as possible.

I'm not Michael Moore. I think Michael Moore wants to tell you how to think. He wants to give you answers. I make movies to raise my own personal questions and not to give answers.

I don't want to make films that give you the answer. If there is a message to my films - and I hope there isn't - it's to be open-minded.

I think romance is a tool, comedy is a tool and drama is a tool. I really just want to tell stories that challenge the viewer, move people, make you laugh, perhaps push an idea about being open-minded...

I really enjoy theater. I just went to see 'Death of a Salesman,' and it knocked me on my ass.

Being the son of a filmmaker, you are aware of a career as a director. You don't think of it as just movies, but as a life.

When you're young, you want to make every kind of film: musicals, Westerns, horror. Slowly you begin to hear your own voice. I hope people receive what I do as small, personal films that are somewhat...

There certainly is no secret in that there are plenty of people who don't like plenty of my movies. Each one of my films is personal each one of my films is emotionally autobiographical. And I like di...

Well, Toronto, I consider to be the birthplace of my films. I've made three films and this is the third one to premiere here in the same theater on the same day at the same time - they are my audience...

As far as writing, I like watching bad movies. Nothing stops me in my tracks more than watching a great film like 'The Godfather' or 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'The Graduate.' You watch one of those, and...