Two months after giving birth to her much-adored son, Vera Farmiga was on set filming Up in The Air for director Jason Reitman, starring opposite George Clooney. Life doesn’t get much more full, or exciting, than that, she notes.

“It was quite a shock to the system and I’m not going to pretend that it wasn’t tough being a new mother and going back to work like that,” she says. “But you know I wouldn’t have missed it. It was a fantastic experience.”

Farmiga was already heavily pregnant when Reitman offered her the key role of the sexy, fiercely independent businesswoman Alex in Up In The Air. Alex meets Ryan Bingham – played by Clooney – on the road. Bingham is literally a fellow traveller – a man who shares the same lifestyle, flitting from one airport to the next, in town for a meeting before moving on to the next place.

There’s an instant, mutual attraction and Bingham – a man who believes he is happy living out of a suitcase with no real human connections – begins to fall for the funny, bright and sensual Alex and senses that life just might offer more than fleeting moments of pleasure in anonymous hotels.

“Playing Alex was like walking a tightrope,” says Farmiga. “I found it challenging because what I admired about her on the one hand is that she knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it.

“It was delicious and rare to see female desire portrayed in such a libertine and shameless way. And in a way, it’s a very masculine portrayal of love and sex and so that was really cool.

“But on the other hand, the challenge for me was to portray that with femininity and make her appealing and not frightening. That’s a balancing act, let me tell you.”

It’s a balancing act that she pulls off with considerable style. Farmiga, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the best young actresses around, was hand picked for the role by Reitman, who went into production on Up In The Air fresh from his critically acclaimed, Oscar nominated triumph on Juno, a bittersweet comedy about a pregnant teenager.

“I saw Vera for the first time in Down To The Bone at Sundance,” says Reitman, “And I thought she was spectacular in that film where she played a heroin addict. And then, I saw of course The Departed and a few other things and she’s just so strong, and she’s capable of such femininity and aggression, simultaneously, and she’s just a woman. In a world of girls, she’s a woman.”

In fact, Reitman and Farmiga almost worked together on his first film. “I’d met Jason on Thank You For Smoking and it didn’t pan out,” she explains. “So I knew him and I knew his films, of course, and loved them.

“I just think that he’s a really important filmmaker who is really telling stories about social consciousness and awareness. He can take subject matters like teen pregnancy and unemployment – which is at least part of the story in Up In The Air – and throw them on the screen and break fertile ground for comedy.

“It’s very rare to see intelligent comedy of the kind that Jason is so very good at. So as you can imagine, I was delighted when he called me.”

She was also a little worried that the biggest event of her personal life – the impending birth of her first child, Finn – might rule her out of the frame.

“I think I was seven months pregnant when I first met with Jason and he offered me the role. It meant that I would have to start work two months after I gave birth to my son, Finn.

“And then my son came along and they were so accommodating and the schedule was relaxed, for me it meant shooting two, three days a week. So I found time to exercise and get my very hormonal head straight!

“But I have to say that it was tough. First of all the lack of sleep a new mother experiences is maddening. And your body is not your own – it’s the baby’s. So I think I could have had an easier time stepping into Alex’s very confident, self-possessed shoes and it was tricky at times.

“But at the same time, I felt more empowered and work will do that for you as a woman. The experience of giving birth itself made me feel more womanly and that added to the role in a way – in unexpected, wonderful ways. But it did.”

Working with Clooney was a richly rewarding experience, she says. And far from being intimidated by his fame Farmiga was eager to discover what he was like as an actor and a fellow collaborator. She wasn’t disappointed.

“You know I’m really nonplussed with actors,” she laughs. “I don’t care who they are. It’s been the same since I was a child and I’ve never understood that fanaticism or that worship of fame.

“I looked at George as a collaborator. I respected his work and everything I’d heard about him as a man and as an actor was good. And he was absolutely great. He has such a warm presence and it’s easy to bask in it when you are working with him.

“And you know I think because he has directed himself he is very concerned with the performances of the people around him. His concern was to draw the most delicious performance from me and my mission was to get the best out of him. And it worked really well.

“So I cherished collaborating with him and it wasn’t scary at all – he’s the least scary person you could meet because he’s charm on two feet. And it’s genuine. He has a sense of humour that is so attractive and the most appealing thing about him is his almost childlike zeal for work and his respect for the work and his respect for fellow actors.

“We’re all on the same level as far as George is concerned and he doesn’t pull any bullshit – none whatsoever. So it was very, very easy working with him.”

For Farmiga Reitman’s story – based on the novel by Walter Kirn – is about human connections. Bingham has lost touch with the real world and suddenly finds that the life on the road that he has lived for years is rather empty. He beings to question what the future will hold and hope that, maybe, there’s another, more fulfilling life.

“You know we live in an age where we all communicate by the most impersonal ways – via the Internet and texting and so forth. I think that our story is asking the audience to re-examine their lives, in the way that Ryan Bingham does, and choose what’s important.”

Farmiga was born and raised in New Jersey the second oldest of seven children. Hers was a big, bustling, affectionate family of Ukrainian descent and she found her way into acting via performing with a Ukrainian folk band.

“With my family if there’s any excuse for a get together we do it,” she laughs. “And the guitars are whipped out and there’s lots of singing and dancing. It’s like the wedding scene from The Deer Hunter.

“I came to acting via folk dancing. I became a professional Ukrainian folk dancer in my late teens but storytelling and folklore was always a central part of my relationship with my family, especially my grandparents.

“I actually wanted to become an eye doctor, a surgeon, and I was all set to go to college and study for that. I remember I was playing soccer and I’d been benched because my health papers hadn’t been cleared. That coincided with my heart being broken for the first time and I needed an outlet, something to focus on.

“I didn’t want to just sit there and watch my friends play ball so a friend of mine encouraged me to try out for this silly melodrama and I got the lead. It all started from there, really.”

Farmiga went on to study at Syracuse University’s School of Performing Arts and made her stage debut as the understudy in Taking Sides. Her TV debut came opposite Heath Ledger in the Australian series, Roar.

Her film credits include working with Martin Scorsese on the Oscar winning thriller, The Departed, the box office hit Orphan and the Holocaust drama The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. She won the Best Actress Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance as a drug addicted mother in Down To The Bone.

She lives with her husband, musician Renn Hawkey, and their son, Finn, in New York State.

Q and A follows:

Q: How are you?

A: I’m good. I’m knackered, I’m delirious and I’m a bit crazy at the moment (laughs). I haven’t slept in three days since I arrived here in London. Jetlag just affects me in a real visceral way, I can’t find my footing. And I have a nine month old who’s teething at the moment, so we can’t coordinate sleep schedules. But really, it’s all good.

Q: I read that you had just given birth when you started on Up In The Air. That must have been hard for you…

A: I was hired when I was six months pregnant. I had my first meeting with Jason when I was six months pregnant and I was nine months when he gave me the job, at which point I weighed as much as George (laughs). I got the job on the understanding that I would be able to shoot in two months and I was. They scheduled it so that I had a good month and a half, two months to be a mama. And they were so accommodating and the schedule was relaxed, for me it meant shooting two, three days a week. So I found time to exercise and get my very hormonal head straight! But I have to say that it was tough. First of all the lack of sleep a new mother experiences is maddening. And your body is not your own – it’s the baby’s.

Q: It’s always a tough time for a new mother going back to work. And making a film with a new baby must be quite a challenge..

A: Yes, I think I could have had an easier time stepping into Alex’s very confident, self-possessed shoes and it was tricky at times. But at the same time, I felt more empowered and work will do that for you as a woman. The experience of giving birth itself made me feel more womanly and that added to the role in a way – in unexpected, wonderful ways. But it did.

Q: I was talking to Anna Kendrick, one of your co-stars in Up In The Air, and she was telling me that at first she felt a little intimidated at the prospect of working with George Clooney. What about you?

A: You know I’m really nonplussed with actors. I don’t care who they are. It’s been the same since I was a child and I’ve never understood that fanaticism or that worship of fame. I looked at George as a collaborator. I respected his work and everything I’d heard about him as a man and as an actor was good. And he was absolutely great. He has such a warm presence and it’s easy to bask in it when you are working with him.

Q: So on set he’s just one of the guys?

A: Yes, he is. You know I think because he has directed himself he is very concerned with the performances of the people around him. His concern was to draw the most delicious performance from me and my mission was to get the best out of him. And it worked really well. So I cherished collaborating with him and it wasn’t scary at all – he’s the least scary person you could meet because he’s charm on two feet. And it’s genuine. He has a sense of humour that is so attractive and the most appealing thing about him is his almost childlike zeal for work and his respect for the work and his respect for fellow actors. We’re all on the same level as far as George is concerned and he doesn’t pull any bullshit – none whatsoever. So it was very, very easy working with him.

Q: Your character in Up In The Air is a very self possessed, confident woman who knows what she wants. You might even say that she behaves more in the way that we’ve traditionally expected male characters to behave. Was she easy to play?

A: Playing Alex was like walking a tightrope. I found it challenged because what I admired about her on the one hand is that she knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it. It was delicious and rare to see female desire portrayed in such a libertine and shameless way. And in a way, it’s a very masculine portrayal of love and sex and so that was really cool. But the challenge for me was to portray that with femininity and make her appealing and not frightening. That’s a balancing act, let me tell you.

Q: Without wishing to give any of the plot away, your character does spring a huge surprise in the story…

A: (laughs) She does, but it was clearly defined from the beginning. I can’t really say anymore about that!

Q: OK, I take your point. But what did you see as the central theme of the story? Is it about isolation?

A: You know we live in an age where we all communicate by the most impersonal ways – via the Internet and texting and so forth. I think that our story is asking the audience to re-examine their lives, in the way that Ryan Bingham does, and choose what’s important.

Q: What would it be for you?

A: My family every time. My family anchors me – and by that I mean my husband and my child and my larger family. And the nucleus of my family is everything. It’s what motivates me, it’s my reason for being, it’s my inspiration.

Q: You come from quite a large family yourself don’t you?

A: Yeah, so does my husband – there are seven children in his family, massive family, my son has twelve aunts and uncles. And that’s not even counting my first cousins, who are like brothers and sisters to me, who are also additional uncles and aunts to fit in – so it’s wonderful madness.

Q: Do you all get together?

A: All the time. With my family if there’s any excuse for a get together we do it and the guitars are whipped out and there’s lots of singing and dancing. It’s like the wedding scene from The Deer Hunter.

Q: Is your husband from a similar background?

A: No, he’s not Ukrainian, he’s American, but from such a tactile family, what’s wonderful about his family is that the way that they love each other and how they show their love, and they’re just so affectionate with each other. It’s so beautiful to see and to be part of them.

Q: How did you guys meet may I ask?

A: We laid eyes on each other and we were zonked, it was love at first sigh (laughs) It was immediate. It happened five years ago and we met on a set – he was visiting a director friend who was executive producing a television show I was doing in Vancouver, and I knew my life would change.

Q: Where do you live now, you East Coast or West Coast?

A: I’m East Coast, I’m in New York, but I’m in the countryside, I’m two hours north of the city. That’s home base.

Q: Work wise, things are going very well for you. Have you finished The Vintner’s Luck?

A: Yes, and I have seen it and I love it. Niki Caro is a great director and it’s an incredibly ambitious story about a Vintner who meets his guardian angel once a year. And I’m going to be directing a little independent film, which I will shoot on a very low budget and use lots of non actors. It’s based on a novel by Carolyn Briggs called This Dark World and it’s a portrait of a woman grappling with her faith, her Christianity.

Q: Will you act in that as well as direct?

A: I will, for now I will. It’s still in development, and we are casting now. I have a great cinematographer by my side and we’ll see if his eye through that camera is enough.

Q: Is it just this film that you want to direct or will you direct more in the future?

A: Just this one, I think. I feel the need to have creative control with this. It’s not my great ambition to be a director but I really would like to tell this story and I would like to be behind it.

Q: So why this story, why does it touch you so much?

A: It’s very personal to me and my experience with Christianity and faith. And that’s why I want to make it accurate.

Q: Where did the desire to act come from with you?

A: Folk dancing. I became a professional Ukrainian folk dancer in my late teens, but, storytelling, folklore, was always a central part of my relationship with my family, especially my grandparents…

Q: They would tell stories about where they came from?

A: Stories, and I belonged to a dance company called Syzokryli, and it was based out of New York, and it was storytelling with dance, it was music, singing, dancing, and expression. That stuff was always there and a part of life for me. So it’s not farfetched that I would end up doing this.

Q: But was there a specific thing that led you in?

A: There was. I wanted to be an eye doctor, a surgeon, I was all set to go to college to study optometry and I was playing soccer and I had been benched, because my health papers hadn’t cleared and I just didn’t have the patience and it coincided with my heart being broken for the first time, and I needed an outlet. I just didn’t want to sit there and watch my colleagues play ball. So a friend of mine encouraged me to try out for this silly melodrama and I got the lead role and from there I was encouraged to continue. And here I am.

Q: Was that first role on stage?

A: On stage, in like a high school theatrical production…

Q: Funny how these things change lives.

A: Yeah. I had no notions of the stage or the screen whatsoever; I didn’t even grow up watching films. But with acting, I loved how people were affected by it. And I loved that I could move someone and I could have empathy for a character.

Q: OK. Back to Up In The Air. We’ve talked about George being a great collaborator. What about Jason?

A: I’d met Jason on Thank You For Smoking and it didn’t pan out. So I knew him and I knew his films, of course, and loved them. I just think that he’s a really important filming who is really telling stories about social consciousness and awareness. He can take subject matters like teen pregnancy and unemployment – which is at least part of the story in Up In The Air – and throw them on the screen and break fertile ground for comedy. It’s very rare to see intelligent comedy of the kind that Jason is so very good at. So as you can imagine, I was delighted when he called me.

Q: With such a great part too..

A: Absolutely. What attracted me most about her was that it’s a portrait of female desire in a libertine and unapologetic and shameless way. I thought that was really cool to see it portrayed that way. And like I said, the challenge was walking that fine line, honouring that power, and yet not frightening off the audience (laughs). It was a wonderful tightrope to walk. But you know, Jason was inspiring to work with and the script was hilarious and the dialogue was incredible. And your dance partner makes all the difference – and George was a great partner.

When Jason Reitman was writing the screenplay for Up In The Air he would live life the same as his main character, played by George Clooney, a man who is constantly on the move, passing through one of America’s airports almost every single day of the year.

Reitman would check into an anonymous airport hotel, fire up his laptop and pound away at the keyboard, safe in the knowledge that distractions were kept to a minimum and confident that his surroundings, however bland, would feed into his story.

And whilst it wasn’t exactly the most enjoyable part of making Up In The Air – that came later directing Clooney and the rest of his cast – it was productive and completely appropriate to the poignant tale of a man who is constantly on the move and has lost touch with the important things in life.

“I wish I had a better system,” he says. “But it worked. I ended up doing a lot of this screenplay in Palm Springs. I hate it there, to be honest, but that’s why it was the perfect place for me to write because there were no distractions.

“I’m not going to go out because there’s nothing there that interests me – it’s hot and I hate golf. I didn’t want to do anything in that place except get my script done and go.

“But the thing is it took forever and so I found myself writing in other places, too. I would often write in airport hotels. I would check in to a hotel in a random city and just write. I would go down to the lobby of an airport hotel and just kind of watch people and see how business travellers interacted and then just go back to the screenplay.”

Reitman’s quest to bring Up In The Air to the screen started some eight years ago when he first read Walter Kirn’s novel. The story, of a businessman, Ryan Bingham who moves from one city to the next living out of a suitcase, immediately spoke to him.

He set out to adapt the book for cinema but was side tracked into making two other films, as Thank You For Smoking and Juno, jumped to the head of his personal queue.

“I read Walter’s book back in 2001,” he recalls. “And I just thought it was fantastic. At the time I was struggling to get Thank You For Smoking made and I thought ‘OK, I’ll give this a shot..’

“And then Thank You For Smoking came back into the frame because we got the finance and then Juno came into my life and then finally, after Juno, I was able to complete the screenplay for Up In The Air.”

It’s a huge relief, he admits, to finally get the film out there into the cinema. “Oh you have no idea what it’s like to write a joke and then wait seven, eight years to hear people laugh at it,” he smiles.

Ryan Bingham’s nomadic life takes him from one company to the next doing the dirty work that local executives would rather avoid – delivering the devastating bad news to an employee that he or she is no longer needed. The events of the last year or so, with a recession biting hard in the US and the west, make that a timely, painful theme.

“But I never thought I was making a movie about job loss,” says Reitman. “I always thought this was kind of a back drop to a bigger story about human connection.

“I always thought that Up In The Air would be an infinitely relatable film but it’s not a Michael Moore film and it doesn’t spend a lot of time on the woes of the recession. It’s more about this one man’s journey.”

Right from the start Reitman had Clooney in mind as the perfect Ryan Bingham and set off to the actor’s home near Lake Como in Italy to convince him to take the role.

Clooney’s charisma, on screen and off, was perfect for Bingham a man who has a horrible job – arriving at struggling companies to fire people – but does it with humanity and a degree of charm.

Bingham has insulated himself from the real world by living a vacuum-sealed life of top class but functional hotels, business class air travel and an obsession with frequent flyer miles.

Clooney, says his director, also has a pitch perfect sense of comedic timing, which was also crucial for the film. Arriving at the actor’s Italian home, clutching his script, he had no idea if Clooney would take up the challenge. It was a surreal couple of days, he admits, but securing Clooney was the first vital piece in place in the casting jigsaw.

“I needed to know who Ryan Bingham was before anybody else,” he explains. “So I went out to Lake Como and gave George the screenplay. It was a strange experience. I was kind of floored by the fact that I was staying there and waiting for him to read it. I think both of us were uncomfortable

“A couple of days later he’d read it and said ‘this is a great screenplay, I’m in..’ As you can imagine, that was a big moment for me. What surprised me with George is that as for a movie star, he’s such a non movie star.

“He wants to put people at ease. He’s a lovely guy and the comfort level of a set starts from the top down and he just makes a set feel like family. He never leaves and he loves being on set.

“And the thing is with George is that he’s a great actor and he’s an actor who thinks like a director, which makes my job easier. But on a personal level, he’s good to people and the things that people say about him are true – he’s just a good guy, he does right by the crew and he makes the set a great place to be.”

Another key collaborator was Reitman’s father, filmmaker Ivan Reitman, who serves as a producer on Up In The Air. It’s the first time they have worked together although Reitman the younger proudly names his father as the biggest single influence on his carer.

Indeed, one of his earliest memories is visiting the set of Ghostbusters when his father was directing Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in what would go on to be rightly regarded as a comedy classic.

“I spent my entire childhood on sets but Ghostbusters is the first one that I really remember and it was a lot of fun as you can imagine.”

Although he toyed with the idea of becoming a doctor, Reitman realised when he was 19 that filmmaking held an abiding fascination for him and that he was destined to follow his father and become a director.

“I was always fascinated by it but it wasn’t until I was 19 that I wanted to be a director myself,” he says. “I went to college – I actually went to pre-Med (school) and I thought I was going to be a doctor.

“And then my father came to me and said ‘why are you doing this?’ And I said ‘I’m scared of being a director..’ He said ‘why?’ And I said ‘I don’t want to have failure on a very public level. I don’t want to be lost in your shadow..’ And he said ‘you’re a storyteller, you have to follow your heart..’”

Reitman started his film making commercials and made his feature debut with the critically acclaimed Thank You For Smoking. His second film, the bittersweet, acutely observed comedy about a pregnant teenager, Juno, earned him an Academy Award nomination.

Those years spent honing his craft, on commercials were the perfect preparation for directing films, he says now. “I did do a commercial once about a guy packing,” he laughs. “So that kind of played into Up In The Air.

“But really, it’s a great place to make mistakes. I think as a director you have to learn by making lots of visual mistakes. So it’s a place where you can figure things out. And I had a great six, seven year process of directing commercials where I learned from fucking up.”

Sharing the credits with his father on Up In The Air was a proud moment for both father and son. “I’ve always used my father as a sounding board,” he says. “Going back to when I was doing my homework.

“And he certainly reads all the screenplays I write. But I wanted to establish myself as a director before I made a movie with him, before we shared the screen, and after Juno, I felt like ‘OK, I think I’m a director in my own right at this point..’ Nothing made me more proud than to have a credit with him.”

The Oscar nomination for Juno was confirmation that Reitman had indeed arrived as a filmmaker in his own right. It also led to a host of unsolicited offers to direct numerous screenplays.

“Juno really changed things for me and I get a lot of screenplays come in now,” he says. “But I like to self generate and I like to kind of pursue my own ideas.  And I think the more personal the better.”

Indeed, his own life fed into the script for Up In The Air and he admits that the story changed as a result. “I related to this character more than a few ways and when I started writing I was thinking of it more as a corporate satire and over the six years or so it took me to write it, my life really evolved.

“I went from being a single guy living in an apartment to a married guy with a daughter, a professional director living in a house with a mortgage. And my perspective just changed and inevitably I had to write the character (of Bingham) differently and start discussing the things that are important in life. For me that’s one of the questions that the film asks, ‘what’s important in life?’”

Reitman’s film resists the temptation to tie everything up in neat little bows in the way that a more traditional romantic comedy would. Instead, it asks the audience questions and makes them think about Bingham’s life and whether he will change.

“I don’t even watch those films anymore,” he smiles. “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 remember my wife used to drag me to them and the way I got not to see them anymore was when one of the jokes came up I would go like (loud voice) ‘ah hah! Oh my God! He thinks that she doesn’t know!’ I’d do that in the movie theatre and she stopped taking me…”

Reitman was born in Canada but raised in Los Angeles where he currently lives with his wife, writer Michele Lee.

Q and A follows:

Q: I read that your personal life kind of influenced the final script. In what way?

A: I related to this character more than in a few ways and when I started writing this screenplay, I was writing more as corporate satire, and over the six years it took me to write it, my life really evolved, I went from a single guy living in an apartment to a married guy with a daughter, a professional director living in a house with a mortgage, and my perspective just changed and inevitably, I had to write the character differently and start discussing the things that are important in life.

Q:  Such as?

A:  Well I don’t know what’s important in life. I’m just begging the question of actually what is?

Q:  But did you re-write scenes as a result?

A:  Oh yeah. When I went back and re-read the script five years in, having not read any of the scenes up until then, it was like watching myself grow up.  I think, I looked at the writer at the age I was when I wrote Thank You For Smoking, I think it was just kind of less sophisticated.

Q:  You said it was written with George Clooney in mind, did he take much persuading for a role like this?

A:  You know, I thought there would have been more to be honest, but he read the script and his response was, ‘I just read it, it’s great.  I’m in.’ That was the conversation.

Q:  Was George the first piece in the sort of casting puzzle for you?  Did you get him first and then cast around him?

A: Oh yeah. I needed to know who Ryan Bingham was before anybody else. So I went out to Lake Como and gave George the screenplay. It was a strange experience. I was kind of floored by the fact that I was staying there and waiting for him to read it. I think both of us were uncomfortable A couple of days later he’d read it and said ‘this is a great screenplay, I’m in..’ As you can imagine, that was a big moment for me.

Q: The film seems very timely now with the recession and job losses happening all over the US….

A: But you know, I never thought I was making a movie about job loss. I always thought this was kind of a backdrop to a bigger story about human connection.  It’s funny because I thought about doing a couple of movies about Iraq and there were a couple of screenplays that I loved but I never did them because I thought ‘why do I want to add one more movie to the stack on Iraq?’ I always thought that Up In The Air would be an infinitely relatable film but it’s not a Michael Moore film and it doesn’t spend a lot of time on the woes of the recession. It’s more about this one man’s journey.

Q: Were you worried that because of Bingham’s job people wouldn’t relate to him as a character?

A:  You know, I only get interested in a movie when I think that there’s going to be an amazing stumbling block of how to empathize with a main character.  I like humanizing really tricky, normally unlike able characters.

Q: Why did you decided to use non-actors to play the people who are being fired? I believe some of them are people who had actually lost their jobs quite recently..

JR:  Well look, I wanted to treat that authentically and while what I wrote originally was more corporate satire, it was funny, but by the time I came to shooting, I just thought ‘there’s nothing that I can write that’ll be authentic enough.’  And I thought ‘this is just the best way to do the scenes..’ And I was right.  These non-actors came in and said things that I would never have come up with and they said it in a way that I would never have known how to direct them to do.  So it was exciting.  I think there’s actually something very cool about that kind of mix of blending actors and non actors, and I see why (Steven) Soderbergh does it and I’d be intrigued by doing it more.

Q:  Did you just give them free rein?

A:  No, they would come in, they would sit down at the table, we’d interview each one for about ten minutes on how did you lose your job, what was it like, who did you tell first, how has it impacted your life. And after about ten minutes of that, we’d say, ‘and now, we’d like to fire you on camera.  And we’d like you to either respond the way you did the day you lost your job, or if you prefer, the way you wish you had.’ And each one would turn into an improve scene, where they would either get angry, or they would get sad, sometimes they were funny, and they would just start asking about things, from their severance (pay), to why me? They would ask all these questions and our interviewer had to be very quick on his toes, because they went with it in a way that I never imagined they would – and none of them had acting experience.

Q: How did Up In The Air start for you? Did you read Walter Kirn’s novel first?

A: Yeah, I read Walter’s book back in 2001,” he recalls. “And I just thought it was fantastic. At the time I was struggling to get Thank You For Smoking made and I thought ‘OK, I’ll give this a shot..’  And then Thank You For Smoking came back into the frame because we got the finance and then Juno came into my life and then finally, after Juno, I was able to complete the screenplay for Up In The Air

Q:  So that’s been a sort of seven or eight year journey?  It must be really nice to finally get it out there.

A:  Oh yeah, you have no idea.  I mean, you have no idea what it’s like to write a joke and then wait six years to hear people laugh at it.

Q:  Where do you write? Do you need to go somewhere to get into the mood for a particular story?

A: With this it was all over the place. I wish I had a better system. But it worked. I ended up doing a lot of this screenplay in Palm Springs. I hate it there, to be honest, but that’s why it was the perfect place for me to write because there were no distractions. I’m not going to go out because there’s nothing there that interests me – it’s hot and I hate golf. I didn’t want to do anything in that place except get my script done and go.
But the thing is it took forever and so I found myself writing in other places, too. I would often write in airport hotels. I would check in to a hotel in a random city and just write. I would go down to the lobby of an airport hotel and just kind of watch people and see how business travellers interacted and then just go back to the screenplay

Q:  How did, your father is a producer on this. Do you use him as a sounding board on all your projects?

A: I’ve always used my father as a sounding board. Going back to when I was doing my homework. And he certainly read the screenplays I wrote. I wanted to establish myself as a director before I made a movie with him, before we shared the screen, and after Juno, I felt like ‘OK, I think I’m a director in my own right at this point..’ Nothing made me more proud than to have a credit with him.

Q:  Did you visit a lot of sets when you were growing up?

A: I spent my entire childhood on sets but Ghostbusters is the first one that I really remember and it was a lot of fun as you can imagine. I was about six.

Q: When did you start to think that you would like to make films yourself?

A:  You know, I was always fascinated by it, but it wasn’t until I was nineteen that I wanted to be a director myself.

Q:  Did you think about another career?

A:  I went to college, I went Pre-Med, I thought I was going to be a doctor.

Q:  So what changed your mind?

A:  My father came to me and said why are you doing this?  And I said ‘I’m scared of being a director.’  He said why?  And I said, ‘I don’t want to have failure on a very public level, I don’t want to be lost in your shadow…’  And he said, ‘you’re a storyteller, you have to follow your heart…’

A:  Well now I’ve got to write for another six years.  No, I’ve got two scripts I’m working on. One is a Jenny Lumet script that she’s writing, that I would direct and another is an adaptation I’m going to write, of a Joyce Maynard book.

Q: You started your career as a director making commercials. What did you learn?

A:  I did do a commercial once about a guy packing so that kind of played into the movie, but really, it’s a great place to make mistakes.  I think as a director, you have to learn by making lots of visual mistakes, where you figure it out.  And I had a great six, seven-year process of directing commercials where I learned from fucking up.

Q: It seems an obvious thing to say but not all directors are as interested in characters as you are. And you seem to be particularly good at writing female characters. Is that fair?

A:  Yeah, I like character based work. And I like writing for women.  I think that most of the men stories have been told, it’s easy to be original when you are telling women stories, because so few of them have been told. And I like writing strong, smart women – those are always the women I’ve been attracted to in general.

Q: And so casting those roles is key to the success of a film. In Up In The Air you’ve chosen actresses who are doing great work but not as well known as some others…

A: Well, I saw Vera (Farmiga) for the first time in Down To The Bone at Sundance, I thought she was spectacular, she played a heroin addict, and then, I saw of course The Departed and a few other things and she’s just so strong, and she’s capable of such femininity and aggression, simultaneously and she’s just a woman.  In a world of girls, she’s a woman. And I had seen Anna (Kendrick) in Rocket Science and was just blown away by her.  I just think she has such a unique voice, similar to Ellen Page, just a voice of her own amongst a generation and I needed somebody who can be witty and fast, and really sharp and go toe to toe with George Clooney, and giving him shit the entire film. And there was no one that came close to Anna.

Q:  Since the Oscar nomination, do you get a lot of unsolicited screenplays?

A:  Well, Juno really changed things for me and I get a lot of screenplays come in now, but I like to self generate, I like to kind of pursue my own ideas.  And I think the more personal the better.

Q: You grew up in LA but your family is from Canada, do you still have a strong affinity with the country?

A:  Yeah, I was born in Montreal and I go back to Vancouver and Toronto a lot, so I have a sense of being Canadian, and I was raised by two Canadians, and my wife is Canadian, so yeah, I feel it.

Q:  Hockey too?

A:  Yeah, play and watch.  I’m a Canucks fan.

Q:  But do you still play?

A:  Yeah, I only learned to play eight years ago, my wife taught me to play.

Q: It’s taken you a while to get Up In The Air to the screen? Are you constantly thinking of your next project or do you take a while to decompress when you’ve finished a film?

A:  I spent about so long promoting the film, that usually by the time the promotion period is done, I am so ready to write again.

Q: Music plays a crucial part in your films and Up In The Air is no exception. Do you think about the music you will use when you are still filming?

A:  On this one is a lot of my own music, I also worked with a great couple of music supervisors named Randall Poster and Rick Clark, but a lot of this is personal. I have an I-Tunes collection going by the time I write one word of the screenplay. It starts very early. By the time I finish writing, I’ve got hundreds of songs and they all go into the mix, so my editor can start cutting to them.

Q:  What do you think was the best piece of advice that your father gave you?

A:  Your barometer for comedy is nowhere as good as your barometer for honesty.  When you are directing a scene, don’t worry if it’s funny, just worry if it’s truthful.

Q:  That’s a great piece of advice.

A:  Yeah. (laughs) It is…

What attracted you to the movie?
I was attracted to the story because I love the notion that we can live life vicariously through these surrogate robots. It is a metaphor for living in this digital age. Any time you sit down at a computer and communicate with somebody via email or a chat room or read their blog or whatever, you’re not really experiencing them. There’s some layer of technology that’s inserted between you and another person – and this movie speaks directly to that.

What is at the core of the movie?
The core idea of ‘Surrogates’ is how we retain our humanity in this increasingly, relentlessly technological world that we live in. Technology is great. The fantasy of technology is that it frees us to be creative, productive and to do all these wonderful things. The flip side to that is that we wind up being servants to it in a certain way. We’re tethered to our cell phones. It’s great to have email, but when you spend hours a day returning emails, it becomes an obligation. So these new opportunities and possibilities in life also restrain us in certain ways.

What’s the story about?
This movie is a mystery and a detective story. Bruce Willis stars as an FBI agent whose investigation into the mysterious murder of a surrogate finds the hero confronting a conspiracy that calls into question the very definition of humanity. Bruce Willis’ character is caught in this existential dilemma. He walks through life as everybody else does in this world, doing their job day to day – except he does his through his surrogate, so he’s really just staying at home. In the course of the movie, he begins to realize that he’s not happy. He can’t even articulate why he’s not happy, but he knows he’s not happy. And the circumstances of the story cause him to lose his surrogate halfway through the movie and he has to now go out in this surrogate world as a real person. It would sort of be the same as if you said, “You know what, I’m not going to use a telephone or email or faxing or any kind of electronics. I’m just going to exist as people existed 100 years ago. How would I feel and how would that change my life?” And, in so doing, he comes to realize that all this technology that’s supposedly made life better, more perfect, safer and more enhanced isn’t actually making anybody happier.

What’s it like to work with Bruce Willis?
A great movie actor is the actor that can make you believe you know what they’re thinking without a single word of dialogue. It’s about how they move. It’s about really specific nuanced things in their behavior. And I believe Bruce is at the absolute top of his profession in that regard. I think he’s one of the truly great cinematic actors of all time.

Is the movie set in the present day or the future?
Rather than try to do the future – as a lot of filmmakers do – I decided to set it in the present day. I feel that there is something non-authentic about Hollywood visions of the future always, so I decided to consider the era like cell phone technology. Cell phone technology started twenty years ago and it just took off. Now, everybody’s got one. How would our lives be if everything was exactly the same as it is now except this new surrogate technology existed. It’s a really interesting, different spin on doing a science fiction movie that has a futuristic premise. In our movie, everything is from the present day, including regular telephones and present day cars. The only difference that we have in our movie is that everybody’s sitting at home in their “stim” chair operating a robot.

How has the story of the movie evolved?
Well, the initial concept for the “stim” chair in the script was this very comfortable seat where you were attached to wires and electrodes. We didn’t want something that felt claustrophobic, so I came up with the idea that essentially you are in something like a massage chair, which already creates a sense of relaxation. And there are lasers reading your skin temperature and reading your body movements and neural impulses. The only thing you have to wear is a very light headset that’s modeled on something like a Bluetooth. The idea was to create something one wouldn’t mind sitting in for 16 hours a day.

What do these surrogates look like?
Your surrogate can look like whatever you desire. For the sake of psychological continuity, most users choose surrogates that resemble their real selves in some way, albeit trimmer and better looking. The more adventurous may opt for completely different bodies – a new race or gender. Those with less money to spend can operate generic surrogates, which lack the facial detail and expressiveness of more expensive units.

How real is the technology of the surrogates?
In some elements, the essential breakthrough elements have been accomplished already. It’s technologically possible to read someone’s brainwaves and translate that into physical movements. For example, there are people with total paralysis who can type by simply thinking about the letters they want to type. The computer recognizes this. And then there are the monkeys… In the film, we actually have footage of a monkey with electrodes inserted into his brain. He is able to operate a mechanical arm that feeds itself with his thoughts. Literally, you watch the mechanical arm pick up food and put it in the mouth of the monkey – and the monkey is controlling the arm only with his thoughts.

That sounds amazing.
It is. That core research has already been done, although it’s still in its early stages. In terms of robotics, that’s an explosive field. There are constant advances every day. It feels like these two things will merge soon and that this technology will be possible. As with all things, I’m sure the first use will be in the military for battlefield application and then for things like mining or diffusing bombs. It doesn’t make sense to send men down mines when you can send a surrogate. Eventually, like all things, I’m sure it will become commercially available at some point as the production cost decreases.

How close are we to this technology now?
I’m not a scientist, but I would think we would see this possible in 20 or 30 years. Maybe sooner. Technology has an exponential curve of progress, so it’s impossible to predict. What is relevant about the movie is the question it asks, which is: What does this do to us if we can live vicariously and we never have to leave our home? That’s already here now. I can stay in touch with my friends, do my shopping and get my news and even do work all at home. I never have to leave the house. I don’t have to ever deal with anybody. What happens to people when they don’t have to deal with others?

You famously directed Terminator 3 and now you’re releasing another sci-fi film, Surrogates… What is the appeal of the genre?
Science fiction has always has a cool, gee-whiz factor. First and foremost, you think, ‘Wow, It would be so cool to do a movie with all these good-looking robots.’ That’s the escapist, entertainment part of it. But then you find the idea is really compelling because it makes you think about all the time you spend in front of the computer and on the internet and all these things. It makes you think, ‘Wow… That’s a lot of time. What did I use to do with this time before I had this technology at my fingertips?’ It makes you think about all that stuff. That’s what drew me into making this particular film.

SURROGATES is Available on Blu-ray & DVD January 26th!

Why did you sign up for Samantha Who?
JEAN SMART: After working on 24 for a year, I thought it would be fun to get back to a comedy for a while. I thought that Samantha Who? was so cleverly written and I was a fan of Christina Applegate, so it seemed like the ideal project for me.

How would you describe your character in the show?
JEAN SMART: I play Samantha’s mother and she is a wonderfully self-obsessed character. It’s so fun to play someone who does not live the Zen of life at all. It’s very interesting because you meet people like her sometimes and they just don’t think in the same way as other people. They don’t examine themselves at all. They don’t question their motives ever – and it’s almost like there’s something missing from them. They don’t mean to be selfish; that’s just the way they are. That’s just the way they’re wired.

What kind of mother is Regina?
JEAN SMART: Well, my character has been given this great second chance to be the mother that she thinks she should be. She’s having a second go in trying to wipe the slate clean from her past and she’s trying to be the mother of the year. She’s just a little hammer-handed.

Do you believe in second chances?
JEAN SMART: I do – and I think that’s one reason why the show appeals to people. We all fantasize about a relationship we’d like to do over or something we’d like to change about our past. I think there are a lot more opportunities for second chances in our lives than we think.

What makes you say that?
JEAN SMART: I think that people get to a certain point in their life and they think that nothing can change. They think, ‘Well, this is the way my life is. I don’t particularly like it, but I can’t do anything about it.’ Personally, I think life offers us the opportunity to take chances and make changes all the time. These chances scare us and people think, ‘I can’t do that.’ Or they think, ‘My life is too settled and that would be too disruptive.’ But everyone’s got the opportunity to make these changes. I’m not talking about dumping your wife and running off with an 18-year-old. No, I’m not saying anything like that – but I don’t think it’s too late to change certain things in your life, such as your career and your relationships.

Is there anything you’d like a second chance with?
JEAN SMART: I was thinking about this the other day. My husband and I don’t eat dinner together with my son very much anymore. We used to eat together all the time – especially when my son was little – and it was very important to me because that’s the way I grew up. I always used to enjoy the evening meal where I could listen to my parents talk about something they’d read in the papers or hear about anything from their day. So last night, I forced my husband and my son to sit down and have dinner – and it was nice. I just thought to myself, ‘Darn it, we’re just going to do that again.’ It’s a tiny thing, but people get stuck in their ways and they think that’s just the way it is. They think that nothing can change, but things can always change.

How does your outlook on motherhood compare with your character’s?
JEAN SMART: I hope it’s not too similar to Regina’s past mothering skills. I have a wonderful relationship with my son. When he was little, he liked to cook with me and he would go to antique stores with me – but now he’s 19 years old and he doesn’t want to do any of that. It breaks my heart. He was 11 or 12 the first time he said he didn’t want to go to the store with me and I remember feeling so crushed. A daughter would probably say yes, but not a son. He still holds my hand sometimes – when nobody is looking. We have little arguments every now and then, but we have a great relationship. It’s funny. He’s 6’3″ now, so I have to look up at him if I want to yell at him. He’s still very cuddly, which is nice.

How does it feel to have a daughter on screen?
JEAN SMART: It’s very nice. I feel very maternal towards Christina, which is lovely for me. In fact, I called her ‘mini-me’ one time.

How did she feel about being called ‘mini-me’?
JEAN SMART: I’m not sure. I’ll have to try it one more time and see what she does. It’s funny because Christina and I are very, very different in a lot of ways, but we have some very similar things in our life experiences that we share.

Does Christina ask you for advice?
JEAN SMART: She does. For example, the other day she asked me for advice about a business thing. I hope I give her good advice. I’m always there with advice for her if she needs it.

How does the mother-daughter relationship change in the second season of the show?
JEAN SMART: We start to work together, which is a lot of fun. This season, I wanted to make sure that our relationship doesn’t get too healthy too soon. I had to keep nudging the writers on that one. It was like when my character on 24 went off her pills. I started to say to the writers, “She’s not as much fun off the pills.” They said, “You’re right. Let’s get her back on the meds.” It sometimes works when you nudge them lightly.

Do you enjoy playing characters with addictions? Your character in Samantha Who? boozes a lot and in 24 you were popping pills…
JEAN SMART: It can be a lot of fun to play these roles, but I certainly hope I don’t get typecast in this way. That would be rather limiting. But yes, it’s always fun to have these props. And I do like a glass of wine every now and then.

Before we go, can we ask what it’s like to work with Tim Russ [who plays Frank in the show]?
JEAN SMART: Tim Russ is hilarious. I actually did a movie with him years ago, but I hadn’t seen him in 20 years so it was really fun to get together again. We did a movie with Virginia Madison called Fire With Fire where I played a nun and Tim played the local deputy – and we got along really well.

What do you think of his character, Frank the doorman?
JEAN SMART: I pitched an idea to the producers of Samantha Who?, which we might see happen towards the end of the second season. I want to see Regina look at Frank as a bit of a challenge, but a good source of information about her daughter – so I think she should always be trying to wheedle stuff out of him. I hope to see her come by the apartment building and bring him treats or try to trick him into telling her something, but constantly being foiled because he’s so inscrutable. I hope it makes it into the show.

The DVD is available as of August 25, 2009.

Here, the actress reveals her thoughts on the second season of the show and her character. She also talks about being an inspiration to women around the world after her battle with breast cancer…

Is it fun to play a mean girl like Samantha Newly?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: It definitely is fun to play a mean girl. Samantha gets away with so much because of her confidence and the way she looks. I get very exhausted playing her because she has so many different sides to her character, but it’s also very fun. I really enjoy working on the show.

How are things changing for Samantha in the second season?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: The first season explored the idea of someone trying to find out who she really was. We take our past, our history and our experiences with us wherever we go, but this character didn’t know anything about her life before the accident. She had a lot of exploring to do in the first season – but now she’s two years old. She’s had enough experiences to see what her interests are on the surface level, but we delve a little deeper in season two.

What does Samantha discover in season two?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: We look into how she feels about love. We also look into what kind of friendships and career she wants. There are also parts of her that are now becoming a little jaded, too. It’s a very interesting and fun season.

What happens to Samantha’s love life?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: During the second season, her love life is going in many different directions – but that’s part of her trying to figure out who she is. She is trying to work out which person she wants and not which person is best for her because of what someone else says. Who’s that person? I don’t know. Todd is always there. There’s so much comfort in her relationship with Todd, but I guess we’ll have to see what happens.

Is there any time for improvisation on set or do you always stick to the script?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: This depends on the writer of the episode we’re working on and how finicky they are. There’s a lot more freedom to improvise when [creator and writer] Don Todd is there. Not that the others don’t let you improvise – but you don’t want to step on their toes because that’s their work. We usually stick to the script for a couple of takes and then they allow us to do what we want to do. But in the end edit, some of our improvisations make it in, but some just don’t work.

The show is very funny… How often do you crack up and laugh in the middle of a scene?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: I try not to laugh. I try to stay as professional as I possibly can – but sometimes you can’t help it. Melissa McCarthy [who plays Dena on the show] is a very funny person and there are things that she does that tickle me, so I’ve definitely been known to lose it and ruin her takes. I try not to, though.

Do you have a favorite episode?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: The show that was the most enjoyable for me was the episode where everything was told in a flashback. We got to see that Samantha’s not all bad, which was interesting. There was part of her that was deeply hurt and that’s why she’s been so mean to Todd. A lot was revealed in that episode, which is why it was one of my favorites.

Are you envious of the way Samantha can reinvent herself?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: Definitely. You get to say, “I wasn’t there.” You get away with a lot. Who wouldn’t be envious of that?

Do you think viewers of the show would like the chance to reinvent themselves?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: Definitely – and I honestly think you can do it if you want to do it. Scientists say that you shed your skin every day, so you are literally brand new every morning. You have the opportunity to change your life right now because the past is gone and every day is a new day. The future doesn’t exist and it’s only what we have right now that’s tangible. Saying that, I don’t think I’d want to be someone with retrograde amnesia because that’s very frightening. It’s a very scary place to be.

Is it your philosophy in life to live every day as it comes?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: I strive for that; although the past creeps its ugly head every once in a while. There’s nothing we can really do about it. It defines who we are, but I try not to live from that or because of it.

You are an inspiration to many women because you are a fighter – especially when it comes to the problems you’ve faced in your private life. How does it feel to inspire other women around the world?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: Well, sometimes I have to be the inspirer for myself, too, which can be hard – but sometimes things happen like this. I don’t believe that things happen for a reason. I don’t believe in a God that would punish you and then make you have to deal with that. I think that you make reasons out of the things that happen and there were two choices that I could make in what happened to me.

What were those two choices?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: I could either fall and succumb to it or I could help people – and I chose the latter. We needed a younger face to a disease that is mostly connected with mothers and grandmothers – and that’s not the case. Around 25 per cent of women under the age of 45 have breast cancer. The statistic is quite high.

How important has your relationship with your mother – another survivor of breast cancer – been during this time?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: She’s been wonderful. I don’t want to talk about this too much, but when you go through something like this, the people that you need around you the most are the ones who have been through it. As much as everybody else in my life has been fantastic, they’ll never get what it feels like. They will never fully understand that.

We talk about Samantha always learning things about herself, but what have you personally learned about yourself in the last year?
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE: I’ve always been a ‘push-through’ kind of person and this has become more apparent to me recently. It’s in my nature. I broke my foot a couple years on Broadway and I pushed through. I never think anything is going to take me down, so it was natural for me to push through and continue working and doing what I love to do when I faced this new challenge. I’m happy I’m a ‘push-through’ kind of person – and I’ll continue to push through.

The DVD is available as of August 25, 2009.

Q: What was it about Adventureland that appealed to you?

Jesse Eisenberg: I think that Kristen and I were just saying the characters are so well rounded. It’s rare that a movie like this that can come out in many theaters and be a movie that a lot of people go to, with characters that are so richly drawn and so honestly put together.

Q: Neither of you will have memories from the ’80s. Was it fun to go back and explore the era?

JE: Yeah, it was interesting to see. I was born in 1983 and so the ’80s were done by the time I grew up a little. But I did have this like romanticized notion of what the ’80s were. I mean, they weren’t romantic for me, but I had this notion of a simpler time. I guess also it was a selfish time, right? It was called the Me generation or the Me decade or something. I do have like some vivid memories of what the aesthetic was of the ’80s, so it was interesting to see that from the perspective of an adult. And I really liked it. I did actually like two other movies that take place in the same year – or ’86 or ’87, and so yeah, I kind of I do like the period. It’s nice also there were no cell phones!

Kristen Stewart: And who knows if the story actually could have taken place without that, because at least my aspect of the story is reliant on the fact that she can be a different person depending on who she’s with, and she can’t always be contacted. She’s not doing a Facebook depicting every emotion that she is going through. So she can get from people what she needs and she can sort of reinvent herself, which people do naturally. It’s not like she is being fake, it’s just that she has different aspects that she can show different people. I feel like nowadays everyone perceives you the same way. You can’t even have a private life away from your family; it’s like everything is very hands-on!

Q: Is this school of comedy something that really appeals to both?

JE: Yeah I haven’t really seen a lot of them but whenever they’re making something that’s funny, if it’s derived from the characters rather than just from something happening to the characters. I guess that’s the ideal version of what a comedy is.

KS: You feel for the person telling the joke and you’re not just watching a comedian arbitrarily be funny. The characters are actually more like people that you’ve gotten to know and that you care about and now they’re being funny. You just laugh harder at your friends.

Q: Jesse, knowing that you are playing the director in his younger life, does that put extra responsibility on you? You did something similar in The Squid and the Whale…

JE: In Adventureland, the story is fictionalized a little bit. But no, if anything, it was really nice and wonderful to have Greg there to discuss all of the situations. It just meant that the script had a more personal quality to it. You could just tell by reading it once that it came from something more real than most scripts that you read. It felt more authentic. All the characters did.

Q: Does Greg have mannerisms that you were trying to pick up on?

JE: Yeah, Greg is extremely, extremely earnest. He’s extremely careful about what he says. It’s all in the script. It’s all self-explanatory; if you just read the script, you’d probably know something about him, even before you met him. But that’s all that all comes from him, this over explaining, this very sincere quality.

Q: Kristen, did Greg tell you about any of the people your character was based on?

KS: I think she was based on a compilation of girlfriends of his from the past. Like a melding of a couple of different people – failed relationships with girls that were kind of damaged, but not a specific person. So it wasn’t like one relationship that he had. This was just the movie.

Q: Did you meet anyone like that that when you were growing up and did you have any similar experience?

KS: No, I never met a terribly introverted damaged girl at a theme park in the ’80s [laughs]. But I related to her because I like characters that are written, that are whole, that don’t feel it’s easy to tell what would be right and wrong and how they would feel about something. I’m not like the girl in the movie; she’s a real person. So her – I got all my inspiration from her. I could imagine what it would be like to not like yourself very much and not have a mom and not have a dad to reassure you and sort of be kicking it alone. Also to feel like you’re sort of smarter than everybody but no one gets it. I get all that, and then the masochistic aspects girls are good at. I can relate on that level.

Q: But that was more of a rebellious thing with that character…

KS: Yeah, I think that was more about like her dad getting to know that she was actually a real person and not just like a little girl — that your little girl is going to grow up into a woman that does things on her own, who makes her own personal choices that wouldn’t necessarily coincide with his. It was as if she’s a grown up now, and that’s hard for a dad to deal with.

Q: The music is so important to the film, but was that just ancient history to you?

JE: Lou Reed is still very still popular now. I don’t know if anybody else in the movie is still kind of popular now, but I loved Lou Reed for a while. I was so happy to see that he would be included in the movie – he was even in the script obviously because it’s part of the plot. I didn’t really know that much of the music, but Greg had made us like some mixed CDs of the songs from the movie. I loved all the ones that the characters are supposed to love.

KS: I really like Lou Reed. I like a lot of the sort of alternative music. I’m not to into like Rock Me, Amadeus, though [laughs].

Q: So what’s the worst summer job that you ever had?

KS: I’ve never had one. I’ve done sort of funky movies over summers. And once I didn’t like a production designer, if that counts as a bad job! [laughs]

JE: Yeah, I’ve never worked during the summer. I take summers off. [laughs]

Q: What was the most enjoyable scene that the two of you shot together?

JE: I was going to say the bumper cars, but actually, it wasn’t fun at all. It just seemed like something you could say in an interview! Actually, acting in bumper cars is terrible, because the really only way to film it and get a close up is to literally mount the camera – this heavy thing on the car and it’s just the worst because you can’t act at all with a thing on the car.

Q: Was there anything fun about shooting on the actual theme park?

JE: No, I think the insurance didn’t cover us. We didn’t go on any of the rides until the shoot ended, for fear of us dying!

KS: Yeah, we weren’t allowed to go on the rides until the end, and then they stuck us on the most dangerous rickety wooden old ride that they had at the park. That was the one ride that we got to ride. And we did it like 15 times. It’s especially funny though to see Jesse on a ride because his enthusiasm is very restrained. He’s like, ‘Oh yes, that was very fun’ [laughs].

JE: [Laughing] I agree, that was enjoyable!

Q: Kristen, what are you looking forward to in the next movie in the Twilight series, New Moon?

KS: I’m looking forward to all aspects of the movie. A lot more is introduced, like the world of the werewolves comes alive, and the second movie is much more quaint. Edward leaves her, which is interesting, considering the first movie is based entirely on their devotion to each other. So to see them cope without each other and to see this character, Jacob, who is supposed to represent light and warmth. He pulls her out of a rut that’s seemingly impossible. And it’s really tragic. There is actually a lot more to work with. The first one was good because it was ultimate love and abandon, and that’s good, but it’s also kind of one note. Now it’s a different story.

Q: Has life changed drastically? Are you just aware of being watched all the time?

KS: Not on a day-to-day basis, it’s only like at press junkets and things like this that you have to watch what you say. But really people don’t really recognize me often. I think I just look different in person or something. I’m also not very approachable, and maybe they’re just like ‘Ooohhh, she’s scary!’ [laughs]

Q: Has that film changed your life?

KS: I don’t have a grand plan. I don’t scope things out. I don’t look at a project and how it relates to others. It’s not like, ‘Oh this is the next step and this is probably smart for me.’ Adventureland, for example, was something that I wanted to do because the characters were easy to invest in. It’s just there to be played. They played like real people – you feel responsible for someone that you feel will die right on the page unless you bring them to life. Whenever you feel that, it is something worthwhile. But with regard to Twilight, it’s made it easier to do things that I really like, things that like an independent movie that nobody would normally see. Now it’s like, ‘Oh let’s go see Bella in this stripper movie; it’ll be crazy!’ [Laughs]

Q. Presumably you’re referring to Welcome to the Rileys…

KS: Yeah, with James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo, who is just incredible. It was the most fruitful life-changing experience on a movie that I’ve ever had. It was just the hardest subject matter I’ve ever had to deal with. I play a very broken young girl who is a runaway. She’s a street kid. She’s working in a strip club and James Gandolfini’s character is just as sort of dead inside and they wake each other up. It’s really good.

Q. Jesse, what are you working on next?

JE: I’m doing a movie in Georgia. I play a very broken young girl who is a runaway [laughs]. No, it’s called Zombieland. So look out for it. I am not a zombie in the film though — I’m running from them!

ADVENTURELAND is available on Blu-ray & DVD August 25th!

Q: With a movie that comes from a personal place as this did for you, where do you let go of your own very specific memories and let it turn into a movie?

Greg Mottola: Once you cast people and they have their own specific qualities that aren’t mine, like Jesse is playing a version of my younger self, it was fairly easy to see it as a fictional story, except for those moments where something would flash back to me. That was so horrifying, so deeply embarrassing, some realization about myself that would make me just cower. I think this is the most painful thing I’ve ever done. I’m thin skinned, I guess, and I thought I could never write about my youth for the longest time. It took getting to my forties before I could even look back on it. It’s kind of cringy to me.

Q: So what made you change your mind and write about your embarrassing experiences?

GM: When I got to a certain age, I was working on a TV show, Undeclared that Martin did an episode of — that’s where we first met – and I first had the idea of writing about young love and trying to do it in a more slice of life, not slick Hollywood, way. It was about the first messy relationship, the first girlfriend, making the decision to face up to love is actually really complicated and requires you dealing with your fears and accepting a person for their flaws. I wanted to write that kind of story and one day I was telling stories on set of the show — we were all getting drunk and I was telling stories about working in an amusement park. We were all comparing worst job stories. And then, I had the Eureka moment of putting them together. But, I think it was also because I was working around young people. All these guys are so young. Seth Rogen was probably 18 when we did Undeclared.

Q: Could you talk about the difference between the story you wanted to tell and the traditional Hollywood studio summer comedy?

GM: Let me put it this way. When I showed a lot of people the script, especially post Superbad, they would say they just wanted it to be more of a comedy. They didn’t want the characters to be as flawed. People would’ve preferred that it have a more clear relief. It’s going to be an indie movie. It still should have more of a wish-fulfilment ending as opposed to a ‘what’s going to happen next’ ending. I just felt like there’s a place for a slightly different tone. I feel like I’m in kind of a strange place of really existing between indie films and Hollywood films, because it’s a little of both. I think that it makes it a little hard to market it and describe it. I feel like it’s partially the times we live in. The Holy Grail audience are young people and, at the end of the day, that’s who gets courted. In a strange way, the fact that it’s about young people is something that I didn’t realize would kind of hijack the marketing to some extent. When people passed on the film, they’d always say, ‘We would have made it if you were willing to make it contemporary because the fact that it’s an ’80s film means young people are going to say it’s not my generation and old people are going to say it’s about young people.’ I’m hoping that people who actually lived during the ’80s will hear about it and find it later.

Q: Martin, how did you get to the project and were you based on anyone in particular from Greg’s life?

Martin Starr: I always answer that question. Greg?
GM: Martin’s character was based on various people I’ve known in my life, who I’ve always thought ‘That person’s smarter than me, more talented than me, why are they so stuck? Why are they not moving ahead?’ Some people I knew in film school, at art school, people who had real intelligence, something to offer, they just had some fatal fear of life that was holding them back. Essentially, Jesse’s character is supposed to be surrounded by people who are stuck and limited by their own psychology, like Ryan’s character and his parents’, and he has to make up his mind. Do I continue to be the floundering, fearful person I am or try and take a step in the right direction? I have a real affection for those people. Those are people who’ve taught me a lot over the years. Those are people who turned me on to music and books. Martin likes to say in interviews that he gave a terrible audition but literally everyone else who came in and read for the part, and I had some very talented people, were even worse. [laughs] So, by attrition, Martin got the part.
MS: I didn’t want to sound arrogant and say that I was smarter than Greg so I let him tell that whole story.

Q: What made the part difficult to read for initially?

MS: There were a lot of words. [Laughs] I don’t know. I don’t know if I fully got it during my audition and I think that’s what made it difficult and that’s why I felt so bad afterwards, because I didn’t know if I was even remotely on the path of what Greg was looking for. But I guess it was at least on the right track because I got cast in the movie.

Q: How much did you have to explain of the ’80s to the young cast, so that they understood the background to the story?

MS: There was a giant Bible.
GM: There was a giant Bible. [laughs] No, there wasn’t.
MS: There was. You gave all of us all this big folder…
GM: Oh that’s true. We did have a research Bible of the highlights.
MS: It was massive.
GM: We researched the incredibly boring…
MS: …like who was the President and what happened. What happened in recent months before this or years before this?
GM: Yeah, we did make some poor assistant put that together.
MS: It was great. I still have it.
GM: [whispering] It’s like, ‘Who’s Margaret Thatcher?’

Q: Do you guys each have a particular favorite movie or music from the ’80s?

GM: I have so many and I’ve obviously crammed them into the film. For me, a lot of it is the music that Jesse’s character and Kristen’s character are listening to. A lot of it is the music that kept me sane in college. I have alopecia. My hair fell out when I was in college and I didn’t take it so well. Back then, people weren’t shaving their head when they were young. I set the trend [laughs]. So I had my self-pitying moments listening to The Smiths. When you’re a young person, the solace one can get from popular music is something I just have tremendous nostalgia for, affection for. I still have it. I even thought of the movie as a pop love song and I would play music while we were doing scenes. I’m nostalgic for how one would hear music. It was different listening to college radio in the middle of the night. I grew up on Long Island and I would listen for Fordham University’s radio station — I could only get it in the middle of the night — and hear bands coming out of Minneapolis and things that wasn’t the classic rock that I heard elsewhere. And, culturally speaking, I was also the nerd who was going to see Zelig on the opening day. The ’80s were Full Metal Jacket and Zelig to me as much as it was Pretty in Pink.
MS: There was a level of nostalgia for me, only because when I did Freaks and Geeks, that was based in a similar world so a lot of the culture was the same; Culturally and also musically. I started listening to the music that was put into that I got into a lot of other things of that era…
GM: Mostly Angel Dust [laughs]!
MS: Yes, mostly I started in drugs of the era.
GM: The defunct drugs of the ’80s!

Q: Martin, are you surprised that Freaks and Geeks is so popular now?

MS: I’m not amazed. I guess it’s amazing. Sure. It was something that I always thought I would be proud of but no one would ever know about. And that’s not the case anymore.

Q: You started out doing a film that a lot of critics loved, Daytrippers, and then you did Superbad. Were concerned that film might stereotype you away from where you wanted to go?

GM: Yes. I did a low-budget indie purposely trying to build a fantasy career, being able to do low-budget indie stuff and mainstream studio stuff. Luckily for me, Judd Apatow became so successful he could kind of let me make an indie film at a studio level. Superbad” was by design kind of rough and tumble and we wanted to not be slick. But I’ve aspired to do other kinds of movies and I made a rule to myself, I’m going to stay away from movies with people all under the age of 21 for a little bit just, so I’m not in the young adult section of Netflix for the rest of my life! There was a long period of floundering that probably informed my writing of Adventureland. Part of it was coming to realize that I’m my own worst enemy. I’m the person that had fantasies of being an auteur: I’d only write and direct my own stuff. But I’m not a fast enough writer. I find filmmaking a little more intuitively. It makes sense to me working with actors, the collaborative process. Writing alone in a room is really, really scary. Obviously I owe a lot to Judd but it surprised my agents when I called them up and said, after all those scripts they’d sent me that I passed on, that Superbad was the one I actually really wanted to make. It’s a sincere movie. It’s not corporate teenage product #731. Those guys started it when they were teenagers. It has a real authentic feeling to it.

Q: You used the word ‘floundering’ for those years, but you did some really great television…

GM: Well, before the TV, I was floundering for a while and saying, ‘I don’t want to direct TV, I only want to make features.’ I didn’t want to give up the dream, but then realized that it’s stupid. I’m really turning away from great opportunities to learn and grow and sure enough, once I said yes to it, it’s paid incredible dividends. I’m enormously lucky to have hooked up with someone like Judd who’s so loyal and supportive and has taught me so much. So doing television was the best thing I could have possibly done.

Q: When you direct something like Adventureland or Superbad, is it tough to capture that authentic tone?

GM:  Yeah. I try not to over-think it to the point of putting myself today, for instance, in Jesse’s character and really trying to let him make it his performance but also live through the cringy moments. Okay, maybe there’s a little bit of artistic license by casting someone as beautiful as Kristen Stewart as the love interest. She didn’t work in the amusement park when I was there in 1985 [laughs]! It’s trying to let it be, using just your internal bullshit detector. I learned a lot from the way Judd works. I remember very distinctly on Undeclared, we’d do table reads, there’d be really funny jokes and Judd would cut them out of the script and he would say, ‘No, that’s stepping on the emotion and we can’t. We have to protect what’s authentic. We’ll try to be as funny as we can but we need to also get to the heart of that.’ You know, he’s kind of the comedy Cassavetes. He really loves actors so much. At some point, you do cast them and let them do what they do.

Q: Can you talk about the evolution of Apatow’s group? It seems like slowly but surely everybody has kind of found their way to success…

GM: In Judd’s case, with the casting, he has an amazing eye for talent and so all those people have just continued to work, because they’ve got something. It’s an unlikely and amazing thing to me. I was just saying in another interview, it feels like being part of a theater company.
MS: Apatown.
GM: [laughs] Yeah, Apatown. Because you get to come back and work with your friends again. It’s sort of what I imagine it would be like to work with a theater company and say, okay, we’re putting up The Seagul this year, start picking your parts.

Q: Why did you cast Kristen Stewart?

GM: Kristen was one of the few people I cast without auditioning, and my only hesitation was she’s obviously younger than the character she plays. She’s supposed to be about 19 or so in the movie. But she’s got a quality. I personally find her very fascinating to watch. She’s someone who makes thinking dramatic. There’s a lot going on. And it was important to give the movie some dramatic ballast, to make her somebody who’s in the throes of some tragedy and hasn’t processed it yet. Hence, that makes her a scary person to fall in love with. One of my favorite scenes is when she tells this awful story about how her mother is dying and her dad’s having an affair with the woman who is now her stepmother and she tells it in this very matter of fact ‘here’s this screwed up thing that happened.’ She instinctively knew that someone who hasn’t processed those feelings yet wouldn’t know how to talk about them. Other people auditioned for that role and made that into the most melodramatic monologue I’ve ever heard, which sort of makes sense because it’s such a sad tale she’s telling, but Kristen knew that, no, that person’s not at that point yet. They’re so far away from knowing how to express those feelings that they’re cut off. And I wanted the character to be flawed that way, because I think that we’ve all got our baggage. We’ve all got the pain we carry around.

Q: And Ryan Reynolds

GM: Ryan, I’m very lucky he agreed to do it. He gives a very dry, kind of quiet performance in an archetypal character of the stud-like bad boy. But he does his own thing with it and I really like that he got inside the guy’s psychology enough to make him feel like someone you’d meet and not just like the villain of the movie.

Q: Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are both very flamboyant in the movie, offering the more obvious comic moments. Was it hard to find balance in those characters in particular?

GM: Interestingly, particularly in Kristen Wiig’s case, the character was different in the original script. Their relationship was more troubled. They were a troubled married couple. And Kristen said, ‘You know, I’ve just played characters sort of similar to this. I want to do the movie, but the way it’s written, it’s kind of similar to the last few things I’ve done and what if they actually get along well? What if they’re a good couple?’ And it really got me thinking. I found it amusing that the best example of a relationship in the movie is pair of ridiculous people. I also liked the idea of shooting them in the same frame all the time. Kristen has an amazing timing and a great way of playing a quietly insane person. It was always a question — is this a different movie or not? — but I think those guys can really pitch it at a very nice level. We meet crazy people in life and maybe I just love them so much. But it was hard. We shot stuff that I ended up not using — again, it’s the Apatow rule. It’ll be on the DVD, of course. I am looking forward to doing some really dramatic stuff with those two. I optioned a book for Bill to star in. It’s a book called The Dog of the South, which was written by Charles Portes who wrote True Grit (which the Coen Brothers are remaking incidentally), and it’s a great 1970s weird road movie for Bill. It’s a very funny character, but it’s not a comedy per se.

Q: Was it difficult to get the rights for Rock Me, Amadeus?

GM: Falco is no longer with us so we had to ask his estate and they’re clearly very cool people with a sense of humor. That was the first song I thought of as from that era. It’s also one of those songs that if you were there, you remember it. It hasn’t quite been canonized like other ’80s songs. I remember being tormented by it though!

ADVENTURELAND is available on Blu-ray & DVD August 25th!

The irony of the story lies in the fact that this profligate young woman (who longs to work for a fashion magazine) becomes a financial journalist, dishing out financial advice to her readers, with surprising success. She writes a column telling people how they should organize their finances; yet she keeps the horrific state of her own finances a secret. Hugh Dancy stars as her ambitious boss. He is the perfect antidote to Becky’s frivolous and chaotic charms. He is grounded and serious – at least to start with – before he falls under Becky’s charms. The chemistry between the two lead characters is palpable.

The hugely talented director, P.J. Hogan, brings heart, comedy and flair to this delightful film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It is full of broad physical humor and emotional moments too. Visually, the film is stunning, which is partly due to the style and ingenuity of award winning costume designer, Patricia Field. Field was the creative force behind the costumes for SEX AND THE CITY (the movie and episodes of the TV series) as well as THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.

The talented cast includes Krysten Ritter, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, John Lithgow, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lynn Redgrave. It is based on the best selling novels by Sophie Kinsella.

Australian director P.J.Hogan’s first film was MURIEL’S WEDDING in 1994, which he also wrote. His other films include MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and PETER PAN.

The director sat down in New York for the following interview.

Q: Why did you cast Isla Fisher in the leading role?

A: “I read the books by Sophie Kinsella – all five of them – and I thought the main character of Rebecca Bloomwood was a marvelous comic creation and there was so much physical comedy in the books and so many dramatic turns. Also though, I knew this was a character who hurts a lot of people she is close to, as well as being endearing and likeable. So I asked myself: who could play this role? Who could handle the physical demands, the comedy and the dramatic side of the film? The first person I actually thought of was Lucille Ball. I thought ‘I am looking for the second coming of Lucy here’ and I didn’t know who Isla was at that point. I had not seen her movies. I didn’t even know she was Australian. People think I am making that up, but it is true, I really did not know. Then the casting director said I should see Isla in WEDDING CRASHERS. So I saw it and actually thought Isla was American because her accent was so good. Anyway I loved her performance and then I met her and discovered she was an Aussie and that we had worked with many of the same people. We got on well and at the end of the meeting I thought: ‘she is Becky’. What really sealed the deal for me was when she told me that part of her training as an actor had involved attending Clown School in France and I thought ‘that’s it’. I knew she would be able to do the physical comedy as well the drama. Then soon after that, I found out that she could also carry the whole movie in the leading role.”

Q: Did you consider any bigger stars?
A: “I did not see any big established stars who were right for the role. Isla seemed to me to be the perfect Rebecca Bloomwood and the producer, Jerry Bruckheimer also loved Isla, so she had his support from the start.”

Q: What does Isla bring to the character?

A: “I think she brings a great deal of energy and joy. Isla loves to act and she loves to do comedy, she is not afraid of comedy. I think the genuine confidence and joy in her work spills over into the film. She is also extremely likeable which is very important for this character. I am very drawn to films with main characters who are not saints and Rebecca is not a saint. She is a shopaholic, she lives beyond her means and spends most of the film deceiving people and yet we really like her and personally I indentified with her, despite her flaws or maybe because of her flaws. Isla has that power I think, she is intensely likeable. Luckily I have worked with two actresses in the past who had that appeal, Julia Roberts (MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING) and Toni Collette (MURIEL’S WEDDING).”

Q: How exactly do you identify with Rebecca?

A: “I have definitely had my own ‘credit card moments’, particularly when I was younger, I got into a lot of trouble with credit cards. I ‘maxed’ many of them out and couldn’t pay them off. So I really did identify with her. At one time I actually paid my rent with my credit card, which you should never do. Also I would go out to dinner a lot, getting meals I couldn’t afford.”

Q: Can you discuss the upbeat, fun look of the film?

A: “My influences as a filmmaker are Vincente Minnelli and Bernardo Bertolucci, I like bright colors and a big lyrical look. I try to work with people who can give me that. I think for me, the film reminds me in some ways of my movie PETER PAN which was a complete fantasy. There is a fantasy element in this film too. The original title in England was The Secret Dream world of a Shopaholic. I thought ‘dream world’ was especially important and significant and I think that is reflected in the look and style of the movie.”

Q: Do you see Isla as a future superstar?

A: “I certainly hope she is because just as a member of the audience, I would love to see Isla Fisher in more films. I do think studios are always searching for the next Julia Roberts; they are always searching for a female star who audiences will pay good money to watch. I think Isla Fisher is immensely talented.”

Q: Why are Australian actors so popular just now do you think? There seem to be a lot in Hollywood?

A: “I think they are just so good and I don’t know why. They really are great.”

Q: Why did you pick Hugh Dancy?

A: “Once I had Isla in place as Rebecca, I knew what I was looking for in Luke Brandon. Isla brought a dangerous element to the movie because Rebecca is completely out of control and so I knew that I needed someone very centered as Luke, to contrast with this person who had no control. She needed someone to have too much self-control as a balance. The characters both help each other, he centers her, but also teaches her something about responsibility and credibility and she loosens him up. He really needs that because life is passing him by and Hugh was perfect in the role. He is good looking and very talented.”

Q: Did you have an instinct that they would have great chemistry?

A: “I hoped they would, they certainly seemed good together when they first met. I always put the main actors in the same room just to make sure that they get on and bring out the best in each other, that’s important, or they could be opposites, that’s important as well. In this case Hugh and Isla were great together from the start.”

Q: What were your favorite parts of the film to direct?

A: “I love doing the physical comedy because Isla is so good at it. And as the film progressed I tried to do more and more physical comedy and find opportunities for Isla to do what she does best. One great sequence involves the scene in which Hugh and Isla’s relationship moves from a professional relationship to a personal romance. It is the moment when he falls in love with her and I knew it had to be funny, I think it is more romantic when it is funny. This what happened: Isla said to me at one point: ‘this may not mean anything to you P.J., but Sacha (her partner Sacha Baron Cohen) told me that when I dance I am really funny.’ That is all she had to tell me. When I heard that, I thought a dance sequence in Miami, where the scene was to take place, might be good. Then Sophie Kinsella the author did some research and came up with the idea of Isla doing the ‘danzon’ a dance that involves the use of a fan’. Well give Isla a fan and that is all you need to do. So it evolved and ended up being a very funny scene in the film.”

Q: Can you discuss the theme of the film?

A: “It is all about shopping and of course shopping can be great fun, if you can afford what you are buying. I think that Sophie Kinsella was really onto something interesting when she wrote these books and created this character. She created a character who was living in a fantasy world and living beyond her means on credit and in complete denial. She is very happy with the life she has built herself, despite the fact that it is built on sand. I think that the world has woken up to find that we were all (or many of us) living in a fantasy world. We were living a life that we could not afford, especially in America. And I think that the brilliance of Sophie’s books is that they follow the story of that character and we find out how she can extricate herself from her problems. There is a lesson that Rebecca learns in the movie.”

Q: But it is also fun escapism isn’t it?

A: “Yes and it was very important for me to make an escapist film because at the time I got involved, I was going a difficult time in my life and I wanted to make a film that was very funny and that I would enjoy making and watching. But I knew that the message would always be there because that was in the DNA of the material. But first of all I wanted it to be a lot of fun.”

Q: Do you think it is good, perhaps therapeutic to have a sense of humor about the economy?

A: “Of course, what else can we do? Just cry about it? I know it is serious and everyone is terrified, but we are all entitled to forget our problems for a while, that is what I like to do when I go to the movies. Hopefully people will be able to do that at least for two hours when they watch this film. We are in the midst of tough times but there is humor to be found and hope to be had.”

Q: Do you have to stick closely to the book in a film like this?

A: “I don’t think so at all. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA was a great film and bore little relation to the book. It depends on the book and film. We had an advantage because we were drawing from two books and our other major advantage was that Sophie Kinsella was on the set. So the things that were invented were often invented by Sophie and Isla and me all working together, so it was all authentic.”

Q: You have made some great romantic comedies. What is your approach would you say?

A: “Well my films are called romantic comedies, but when I think about them, they aren’t really. In MURIEL’S WEDDING there is no guy, she wants to get married but the romance is all in her head. It is a romance with the idea of a wedding. With MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING the main character thinks she is in love, but she’s not. And with this one, the character falls in love with a guy who she is betraying in every possible way. I think I am drawn to romantic comedies where the romance is not really the main essence of the film, or the romance is in constant danger, threatened by the actions of the main character.”

Q: Do you think you have some intrinsic, natural gift for comedy?

A: “I hope so because if I don’t I am in big trouble (laughs). I love comedy; I find life intrinsically funny, especially when it is the most trying and difficult. Some of the funniest moments in my own life have also been the worst, you know, those times when you think to yourself: what can you do but laugh?”

Q: What are your favorite comedies?

A: “I have so many, I love THE RULES OF THE GAME and more recently TOOTSIE. I love the Marx Brothers comedies and Billy Wilder comedies are dark but extremely funny. I think he is a master. And I love Preston Sturges.”

Q: Who would you like to work with – anyone specifically?

A: “I think there are many actors who are incredibly funny who just don’t work enough. I worked with Kristin Scott Thomas on this movie and she has had an amazing resurgence in the last year or so in drama, but she is also really brilliant at comedy, she is very funny and has not made enough movies in general or done enough comedy in my opinion. She was hilarious in GOSFORD PARK.’

Q: What does she bring to her role as the fashion magazine editor in this film?

A: “She brings everything – that character is mostly her creation. We are dealing with someone who is a fashion icon and we wanted to make sure that she was not at all like Meryl Streep’s character from THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. And Kristin said to me: ‘I live in France and I know a woman who is completely ‘gaga’ but absolutely brilliant and I would like to make my character French.’ I thought that was a fantastic idea. So she based the character on someone she knew and that character is almost entirely her creation and is so funny.”

Q: How difficult is the whole process of making a film?

A: “It all takes a long time. My friends know how long it takes, they know that for every film I make there are another three I try to get made and can’t. I think that is true for all filmmakers with the exception of Steven Spielberg who can make anything he wants to make. It is really difficult. I think every filmmaker has pet projects he really wants to make and can’t. I am lucky though, because I have never made a film I did not want to make. I have felt passionate about every film I have made.”

Q: Is there anything on the horizon?

A: “I always have something on the horizon but I have no idea whether it will happen or not. There is a project I am working on with my wife that I would love to make and then very often things turn up when you least expect them. I love my work and I love the surprises.”

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC is on Blu-ray and DVD June 23rd!