One 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 ROACHThere’s people who actually have a whole science devoted to what makes a sticky meme and that idea of that question of why some ideas about how civilizations work catch on and others don’t.
More Jay Roach Quotes
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Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.
JAY ROACH -
I really enjoy the consolation when I’m having to cut loose stuff I love, of saying ‘Well, at least it will make it onto DVD.’ There’s a couple of scenes which I liked very much, but couldn’t fit them into the film that are on there.
JAY ROACH -
The commentary track became a lot like the movie and there are some funny, long, awkward pauses that you can tell we’re just trying to find stuff to say. None of us had gotten to really talk about the movie until that moment and they were in New York and we were in L.A.
JAY ROACH -
I’ve recently enjoyed the Paul Thomas Anderson commentaries and the David Fincher commentaries.
JAY ROACH -
I hope we’re all kind of influencing each other now to keep the quality up on those things. They seem to be getting better and better and better as there’s not only sort of a film geek audience, there’s also a general interest in the overall film consuming population.
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Dalton Trumbo was constantly criticizing the membership [in the Communist Party], and was opposite to being a loyalist.
JAY ROACH -
[ Dalton Trumbo] always said he fought so many fights, all seemingly different, but all about the concepts of fairness and justice.
JAY ROACH -
Once you’re a public figure, there’s a certain amount of privacy you do give up.
JAY ROACH -
It’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 ROACH -
This is a movie version of the play [All the Way]and when Bryan [Cranston] was on stage the bigness of the man was played to the back of the house. When we turned the cameras on that, it changed a bit with close-ups, but we got just as much power in that beautiful intimacy.
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.
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Sometimes 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 ROACH -
The success of the second ‘Austin Powers’ caught us by surprise a little bit. We had decided not to do even a second one, unless the audience wanted it and we could do something better.
JAY ROACH -
But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I won’t show something that’s embarrassing.
JAY ROACH -
[Lyndon Baines ] Johnson is a big and larger-than-life guy, we just tried to give him the dynamic range that he actually had.
JAY ROACH