Jon Favreau
Jon Favreau
Jonathan Kolia "Jon" Favreauis an American actor, filmmaker and comedian. As an actor, he is known for roles in films such as Rudy, Swingers, Very Bad Things, The Break-Up, and Chef. He has also directed the films Elf, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens, and The Jungle Book, and served as an executive producer on The Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Favreau appeared as Pete Becker, Monica Geller's boyfriend during season three of the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth19 October 1966
CountryUnited States of America
'King Kong,' especially the first two acts of it, is a really good example of the use of miniatures mixed with digital characters and how convincing it was.
People look at Marvel movies as epic in scope, but if you look back at the comics, you realise that Marvel heroes were often a reaction to the square-jawed DC characters like Superman, who were flawless and beyond reproach.
Once you buy into a television show, there doesn't have to be resolution from week to week. You can develop characters and storylines and react to the audience, so you get more of a serialized version of storytelling where you can go much deeper into each character. It's more like a novel.
I know that when I watch TV, I want to be transformed and transported, not just by the characters that I grow to love over the hours and seasons of watching but also the world that it plants me into.
The key to writing real characters is not to treat everybody like a real person and give everybody a good side and a bad.
I think what's fun about the Western genre is the character arcs are very strong and, arguably, more interesting and exciting than the action that is metaphorically representational of those arcs.
I think what is nice about 'Elf,' and why it doesn't play as one long sketch, is that the character actually grows up during the course of the film. It's not just a character that you can keep checking in on and keep doing sketches about. It's a story. I'm pretty proud of how we told it.
When you're going for a big studio comedy, the joke tally better be pretty high, and you better have some big comedy set pieces. That was one of the issues when I was trying to get 'Swingers' made for the first time, which is that there weren't any broad comedy set pieces.
You have to find something that you have to obsess over if you're making a movie about it. As a director, you have to be able to pick something that excites you enough that you can breathe it every day.
When it comes to celebrities and tabloids, to me that is a bummer. That's a little disappointing. And it is amazing how things really get made. I always used to think that where there is smoke there is fire, and now I see stories pop up out of nowhere with no basis in reality.
Thankfully, I have a background as an actor, and you learn how to live in that world of not knowing what's going to happen next.
I was the worst extra, I was 'that' guy. I was the guy on the phone trying to get the Oscar for best extra - for best background performance.
When Ron Howard does 'Rush,' he has to learn and steep himself in F1 culture and European racing culture, and that's part of the fun of the gig. You learn to learn. Your real skill as a director is being a learner and an observer. You're constantly learning another thing in context.
When Iron Man's flying, we'd send real planes up to do the choreography so that we'd get the camerawork to really look like a cameraman was following from another plane. It gives it that 'Top Gun' look.