Articles

Being Spike Jonze

Reel.com
by Hazel Ellis

Spike Jonze, the first-time director of the surreal comedy Being John Malkovich that stars Malkovich, John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener, seems, at first glance, to have sprung from nowhere. But if you've been entertained by such cool TV commercials as the Levi's spot featuring Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" as operating room music or Lee Jean's action-packed Buddy Lee spots, you know this 29-year-old's work. If you are an avid MTV video watcher, chances are you've also seen his fresh music videos for Sonic Youth (he starred in and shot "100%"), Weezer ("Buddy Holly"), Beastie Boys ("Sabotage"), Bjork ("It's Oh So Quiet"), and Fatboy Slim ("Praise You").

Jonze, born Adam Spiegel, has in 10 short years successfully transformed himself from an upper-middle-class suburban skater kid from Bethesda, MD into Hollywood's most surprising new directorial talent. After high school, Jonze moved to Los Angeles in the late '80s to work as a writer and photographer for a BMX magazine. When that publication went belly-up, Jonze became the editor for Dirt, the short-lived boy version of Sassy. That's where he met REM's Michael Stipe, a friend of Sassy's then-editor Jane Pratt, and one of the producers of Malkovich.

As evidenced by Malkovich, Jonze is an incredibly talented director. He's also a surprisingly good actor. He made brief appearances in pal David Fincher's The Game and in Allison Anders' Mi Vida Loca, and currently stars in Three Kings with George Clooney, Ice Cube, and Mark Wahlberg.

Renowned for NOT giving interviews, Jonze enjoys nothing more than messing with the media. If he does speak to a journalist, it's usually in monosyllables, punctuated with "ums" and ahs." Once he pretended to be his own harried assistant and taped his phone conversations as he continually canceled and rescheduled an interview with an irate journalist. For a Spin interview, he staged a faux fight with friends. He is also known to make things up about himself.

As if all this activity wasn't enough to keep him busy, Jonze recently married Sofia Coppola, daughter of Frances Ford, and a Renaissance woman in her own right, with her directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, due out this spring.

Jonze, the Chauncy Gardner of the New Millennium, is an original to be sure. What is evident in his film and video work is that he is a rare, raw uncontrolled talent who refuses to be molded or manipulated. In this interview, he proved to be surprisingly talkative, despite his reputation, happily discussing Malkovich, Three Kings, and his upcoming projects.

Q: So you're supposed to be the most difficult interview of all time. What is up with that reputation?

Spike Jonze: I don't know what that is.

Q: I heard that you had some fun with a few reporters, like pretending to be your assistant and getting pals to pick a fight with you for a Spin reporter?

SJ: Uh, yeah, I guess so. We just came up with some ideas.

Q: Sounds like you were making interview performance art.

SJ: Yeah, I don't know about that.

Q: Tell me about how you got the Being John Malkovich script, what you thought when you read it.

SJ: I read it like 3 ½ years ago and it was ... I thought it was hilarious and also it felt like it had been written by someone I had known. So when I met Charlie [Kaufman, the screenwriter] we talked for a long time and then met again and talked for like hours and hours, and the more I learned about what went into the script. It was not only funny, there were lots of different levels to it.

Q: It's a textured film. It's hilarious but it's also thought provoking.

SJ: If people came away with that feeling, that's great. But if people just think it's funny, that's good too. Hopefully it can be whatever.

Q: Was Malkovich always the center of the film?

SJ: Yeah, he was, and it was Charlie who decided that's what he wanted. And he just wrote it without thinking about it, without being analytical about it. And he — we — could never imagine anyone else doing it.

Q: I have tried to imagine other actors ...

SJ: Technically, you could do it with anybody ... but, like, it just feels right with him.

Q: There is something magic about his persona that is perfect for this film.

SJ: That as well as just technically being able to pull it off in a way that moves you past the high concept — in terms of his acting ability and how far he was willing to go and how good at comedy he is and how compelling he is.

Q: You get to see him really stretch, be characters you don't see him play. He always gets typecast as the psycho.

SJ: Yeah, I know what you mean but he's capable of anything. In Of Mice and Men, he goes pretty far away from that. I thought that was just heartbreaking.

Q: The Dance of Despair sequence in Being John Malkovich is the most hysterical thing I've seen in years.

SJ: Yeah? Oh good. That is one of the scenes I see and I just get so excited about it. I'm so desensitized to him having done the movie because I have gotten to know him and work with him and collaborate with him on the movie. But every time I see that scene I just go, I can't believe he did the movie!

Q: Was he naked in that scene?

SJ: It was never in the script one way or another. We just thought about what would be appropriate.

Q: Did he have any hesitations?

SJ: He always thought it was really funny and I think if he had hesitations it was because it's a big decision to make.

Q: What did you guys talk about when you first met?

SJ: I didn't try to talk him into doing the movie. I just talked about what I was thinking about for the movie, how I was planning on shooting it and stuff like that.

Q: Was Malkovich intimidating to work with? Did he make you feel like a first-time director?

SJ: He never treated me like a first-time director, just like the director. He comes from theater and has worked with a lot of people and he's directed before — short films — and he just accepted that I was the director and worked with me and was totally nice to me.

Q: I have heard that he hates having to waste time being lit. Is that true?

SJ: I don't know about that. But he comes from theater where it's all about the acting, and in film, because of the technical aspects, it's not. If you work ten hours a day in theater, it is on the material and on the acting, and so when he comes into a movie and there is so much less time spent on that, I think it's stressful for him.

Q: Can you talk about the technical aspects of the Dance of Despair.

SJ: What did we do? Well, I have a friend, Tony Maxwell — a musician who used to play in a band called That Dog. He can kind of do anything. Me and Tony just listened to a lot of songs at my house for a couple of nights and he picked that one. It's a Bela Bartok piece. And then we just worked from there and came up with what the dance was and then from there we storyboarded it out. We ended up shooting Malkovich first, but already knowing, already having storyboarded it out with what the puppet was going to do.

Q: Well, the performances were so poignant.

SJ: The puppeteering? Oh, good. And John Cusack helps in certain sequences with the voice-overs and imaginary conversations. He is so earnest about it that it adds a lot to the puppet performances.

Q: How did you get the idea to cast Orson Bean? How did you find him?

SJ: He's been working. He does a lot of theater here and he was on Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

Q: I didn't watch that.

SJ: No, me neither, but he would just do that during the week and then do his theater at this playhouse in Venice that he's part of. He lives there.

Q: Doesn't he have this Kennedy-like Hyannisport compound on the water there?

SJ: Yeah, it's really cool. We hung out there when we were in post-production. We had a hard time finding someone to be that character.

Q: The randy old man?

SJ: Yeah, but without making him into, like, a caricature or anything like that. We met with a lot of really funny people. Orson came in, like, a week before we shot when me and Cameron were rehearsing and he read with us and he was just so good. We had a really good cast, it was pretty amazing.

Q: I spoke with Gucci, your makeup artist, about the very different look you guys created for Cameron in the film.

SJ: Yeah. I think that people just expect Cameron to be one thing but she's a really good actress. We did a few hours of work and she totally understood the character and we just really worked well together.

Q: Gucci told me that you guys took photos of real people on the street to get the look for her character.

SJ: Yeah, we did, and then we just sat down and looked at the photos and talked about who this couple is and where they live. I always thought they would live in a basement apartment in Brooklyn. He is a struggling artist and she works at a pet shop and we just created the character from there.

Q: Is this the first time Cameron has had a character role? She is usually cast as the pretty girl.

SJ: Yeah, and I think she loved doing it for that reason. She can just do anything.

Q: This is your first film and critics are going nuts over it. Are you pleased?

SJ: Yeah, it's crazy.

Q: How was doing press in Venice?

SJ: Um, the, um, yeah ... we were only there for three days and it was just such a whirlwind but it was good. It was just after we finished the film.

Q: Who is Noodleman?

SJ: He is our security guard. Mark Noodleman. We've worked with him for a long time. He's a really good security guard.

Q: And on the film's Web site, there is a Noodle cam?

SJ: Yeah, when he's in the office, he logs on and lets everyone know what is going on.

Q: Are you and Charlie Kaufman going to do another film together?

SJ: Yeah. I mean, I like working with him. We are working together now on a project that he wrote and I am producing with a company called Good Machine and it's called Human Nature. This guy Michel Gondry is directing it. He's this really amazing video director that I have loved for a long time.

Q: Really? What videos has he done?

SJ: I'll get you a tape. He's done most of Bjork's videos and he did the new Chemical Brothers. I have been waiting for Michel to do a movie for so long and now I get to be part of it. It starts shooting in February, probably in L.A. There is a chance it might shoot in Canada.

Q: I had not seen your music videos and commercials and when I watched your reel, I was just blown away. Very cool stuff. I have to start watching MTV more.

SJ: Try MTV2.

Q: What is Human Nature about?

SJ: It's about this girl who, when she is 12, she starts to sprout hair on her body and by the time she finishes puberty, she is covered in fur, this really thick hair. So it's the humiliation and her trying to deal with that and she meets this behavioral scientist. Like all of Charlie's writing, when you describe it, it sounds absurd but when you read it, it works on so many levels. It has these concepts and really fleshes them out.

Q: Was it hard making the transition from three minute videos to full-length feature film?

SJ: There were a few other things I had worked on but I had worked on this for so long, 3 ½ years, and there were many times when I didn't know if it would get made or not. But I'm really glad it's my first movie.

Q: Another first for you is acting in Three Kings, directed by your friend David O. Russell. How did that come about? You guys are pals, right? He wrote the part just for you?

SJ: Yeah, we have known each other for a few years.

Q: You have a really big part too. Was it strange to be on the other side of the camera.

SJ: Definitely, but it was good to do it. I totally saw what it was like to be an actor. I learned a lot about acting in general from David, Mark, George, and Ice Cube. Mostly I worked with Mark Walhberg and he's a very smart actor. I also met this guy, the effects supervisor who blew up the cow, and am now working with him on a Nike commercial.

Q: What's the Nike commercial about?

SJ: Um, I don't know. It comes out in a few weeks.

Q: So how is married life?

SJ: Good.

Q: You have been married a few months?

SJ: Um, yeah.

Q: When does Sofia's first film come out?

SJ: In the spring.

Q: How would you describe your visual style?

SJ: I don't know. I try to figure out the idea of the film we are making and have the style be dictated by that.

Q: Are there any directors whose work you admire?

SJ: Lots of them. Probably 50 that I could name.

Q: Do you have a favorite film?

SJ: Again, there are so many that I can't name one. Too many to fit in.

Q: Did you watch a lot of movies growing up?

SJ: Yeah, I guess. As much as any kid. But naming one is unfair, there are so many.

Q: Does having a background in videos and commercials, which require fast production schedules, serve you well as training for features?

SJ: Being able to shoot on videos and commercials — just being on the set, with only a certain amount of time and shots and sequences to do in that amount of time, learning how to work with the crew the physical production and the limitations — is all good training for making a film. But it's also fun, to have ideas you can execute in a short amount of time.

Q: Do you have any idea what your next film will be?

SJ: No, not yet. I'm reading stuff and the next thing is Human Nature but other than that ...

Q: David O. Russell has called you a daredevil. Is that an accurate description?

SJ: Yeah. The ... uh ... yeah, I think. I'd like to be stuntman. So I better get back to work now. Bye.

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