Once you’re a public figure, there’s a certain amount of privacy you do give up.
JAY ROACHOnce you’re a public figure, there’s a certain amount of privacy you do give up.
JAY ROACHSometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.
JAY ROACHI always had a respect and an admiration for people who got into politics. I certainly have always been interested in law and political science.
JAY ROACHThat’s why we had Louis C.K. portray the harder line Communist, to accuse [Dalton] Trumbo of being a hypocrite.
JAY ROACH[Lyndon Baines Johnson ] technique in negotiation would be that he’d lean into you and take away your personal space, it didn’t matter your party affiliation when he was trying to convince you of something.
JAY ROACHIt’s hard to imagine in this day and age the accent in Dalton Trumbo speaking voice, the Mid Atlantic mixture of an English and American dialect, so flowery and oratorical that it almost sounds theatrical. It would be uncool today, no one would ever speak that way.
JAY ROACHDalton Trumbo was constantly criticizing the membership [in the Communist Party], and was opposite to being a loyalist.
JAY ROACHOne of the series of decisions that the great screenwriter John McNamara made was about who to depict. [Ronald] Reagan had a role in HUAC, he was a friendly witness, but never went over-the-top about it.
JAY ROACHWhen I’m shooting, really the audience I’m thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.
JAY ROACHWhen Dalton Trumbo and his friends joined the Communist Party it was 1943, and Russia was our ally in World War II. This was connected to a very popular movement of artists and intellectuals at that time towards anti fascism, and an alliance with the union movement.
JAY ROACHJohn Wayne was never shy about that fervor, but because he was never overly zealous about his politics, and of course his status as a movie, he was embraced by both the right and the left.
JAY ROACHTo his credit John Wayne was open about it, he even portrayed a member of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in a film called ‘Big Jim McClain.’
JAY ROACHI love Dr. Evil [from Austin Powers] as a walking, talking, narcissistic manifestation of everything screwed up about human existence – his desire to take over the world, and have the world reflect his own power lust.
JAY ROACHFrom our perspective now, there is a not a huge understanding about the totalitarian Communism that Soviet Russia practiced during the 1950s – it was an atrocious system.
JAY ROACHSometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that’s really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.
JAY ROACHMini-Me was the pint sized clone that was the perpetuation of Dr. Evil’s own legacy [in Austin Powers]. That concept earned the sequel.
JAY ROACH