Thank You For Smoking Interview

David speaks to Director Jason Reitman.

JASON REITMAN: What I wanted people to think about was political correctness. I wanted them to think about ideas of personal responsibility and personal choice.

I think cigarettes are a wonderful location for that discussion because cigarettes are something we know all the answers to. We know they're dangerous, we know they kill, we know how they kill, we understand that they are addictive. T

There are unfortunate cases of people who started smoking far before the data was out there, but at this point we understand it. And at this point, for all reasons, it should be a personal choice. I should have no say in whether you want to smoke and vice versa, and yet people get hysterical when they talk about cigarettes.

I wanted to look into this idea of why we feel the need to tell each other how to live and why we can't take personal responsibility for our own actions when we fall ill from things that we know are dangerous.

DAVID: I suppose the difference with smoking, though, is that it does affect other people in terms of passive smoking, so there is another element there. You don't agree?

JASON REITMAN: Well, again I agree, but if you're smoking, I'm not cemented to the floor. I can walk away. If we lived in cells in which smoke was, you know, fumed into our proximity, perhaps.

But, again, that argument only works if you're not allowed to leave or you have no idea that smoking is dangerous so you sit there, you know, innocently taking in the secondhand smoke.

DAVID: You know the famous line that "dying is easy comedy is hard".

JASON REITMAN: Right.

DAVID: Is comedy hard?

JASON REITMAN: Comedy is hard. I think there is this sense that drama is difficult. Creating a wonderful drama is an art form, while comedy is just entertainment.

I think, through comedy, sometimes we're allowed to discuss things that you'd never be able to talk about in a drama. Had I made a drama in which the main character was the head lobbyist for a big tobacco (company) and I heroised him, people would have thought I'd just made a crappy drama.

But in doing a satire, we can actually talk about this idea realistically. I think STRANGELOVE worked the same way and CITIZEN RUTH and ELECTION and WAG THE DOG. So not only is it difficult, but I think there is enormous importance to it besides just laughing.

DAVID: You have a lot of very interesting people in the cast of the film, like Rob Lowe and Maria Ballow and Sam Elliott and William H. Macy and so on. Were you I don't want to put this in a bad way, but since it was your first film and you got all these people, I mean do you think that's unusual, for a first time director to attract a cast like that?

JASON REITMAN: I know where you're going with this.

DAVID: Okay, so go with it.

JASON REITMAN: Just ask the question you want to ask.

DAVID: So did your father have anything to do with it?

JASON REITMAN: No, actually my father doesn't know any of those people at all. To be honest, I think if my father had called any of those people and said, "Would you do my son's movie?" the reaction of someone like Robert Duvall would be, "Are you fucking kidding me? I'm not going to do a movie because your son’s making a movie. I'm an actor. I'm a professional."

More than that, I tried to make this movie in Hollywood, I went to every studio with my screenplay and no one would make it. It was finally made completely independently, with financing from a guy from Paolo Alto. So, if nepotism works, I'm using it wrong I think.