Long time lurker, first time commenter. Spike Jonze here, ask me anything.

Two weeks ago I saw 'Her.' I'm sixteen and it was the first date I've ever been on. I had my first kiss while the credits rolled and it was fantastic. I just want to say thank you so much! The only awkward part was the phone sex and the naked pregnant woman.

Well, Major, I am very very honored to be part of your first date and first kiss. Your comment literally makes me well up. Thank you for sharing it.

WOW that's so sweet...

Spikes next movie is going to be about a lonely redditor who gets his first kiss during a romance movie. Problem is that she only kisses after great romance movies, but each one he takes her to after is not good enough. He decides to make his own which is so good she fucks his brains out during the credits. Really nasty sex too.

That's really romantic.

Someone asked and deleted their comment "If you had a portal into someone else's head ala Being John Malkovich, whose head would you choose and why? Also, what was it like directing Nicholas Cage in Adaptation?"

I am curious what it would be like inside George W. Bush's head. I find him kind of sweet and sad. Have you seen his paintings? 15 minutes would probably be enough though.

You know what was wild about working with Nic on that movie, was that he just gave himself over completely. I asked him when we I asked him when we were in rehearsal how he liked to work and how he liked to be directed and he said, completely genuinely, "I want to work however you work." And he said that he was there to learn new ways of doing stuff and he completely gave himself over to the movie and we spent 3 weeks rehearsing the characters, just the two of us, where I would be Donald and he would be Charlie, and we'd improvise a scene together. And then do the same scene where he would be Donald and I would be Charlie. And we created the characters that way, and the relationship with the brothers through making up scenarios as simple as Charlie coming home and Donald is giving him a message of someone who had called, and how they would relate in even a simple scenario like that, and what might annoy Charlie about Donald, or what might endear Charlie to Donald, for example.

Uhh.. I know this won't ever happen, but if you ever happen to talk to him again would you be so kind as to suggest he swing by /r/onetruegod for an AmA? His discipl.. I mean, his fans would be so stoked it would be ridiculous.

P.S. Love your movies, thanks for creating such amazing art!

I most certainly will.

Someone asked about the making of the "Praise You" video and the prep that went into it, they deleted their question but they asked what inspired it or something, so here's my answer:

The love of dance. And wanting to share it with as many people in front of the movie theater as possible.

what's up with all the high-waisted pants in HER?

are you privy to some future fashion research that we need to be aware?

Yes.

But I can't give you any more detail involving my time traveling.

Have you seen this parody of Her "starring" Seth Rogen? There's a bunch of them going around, but it's the best i've seen so far + judd retweeted it

I just saw it! Someone just sent it to me, actually Judd just sent it to me. Did I just namedrop Judd? Yes. It's awesome. Seth Rogen is one funny man. Thank you Seth for honoring us with your absurdity!

I just jumped on and I wanted to say "Her" was my favorite movie of the year and honestly the most complete movie I've seen in about 5 years. The run time, the pacing, the acting, set design, shot selection - it was the tightest movie I've seen in a long time.

Thanks Nick!

Mr. Jonze, thank you for doing this AMA! It really does mean a lot on behalf of the Reddit community.

I do not have any questions. I just want to say that your film Her is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. The beach scene with Phoenix and Johansson is so masterfully directed and the score is very composing and serene, especially during the sunset. Also, your voice work for the 'Alien Child' is fucking hilarious - I wanted more of him.

Congratulations on the critical success of Her and have a perfect day!

thank you n0obie. I don't know what to say other than you're very kind and you should have a perfect day.

Can I have a question for the reddit people? Why do you guys think all the discussions and comments and responses on this website are so much more thoughtful and civilized than the average comment online?

I'm not quite sure, it honestly varies. I don't know if you've lurked around here on r/movies but the "Her" discussion thread is one of the most in depth discussions I've seen about a film. Your film has probably touched millions of lives and changed millions more.

I did see that page, my friend Dallas who runs our website, Dallas Clayton, who's also an amazing writer and has a great instagram too (check out his book http://www.veryawesomeworld.com), he showed it to me. I was very moved by how forthcoming and deep and personal the discussions were.

Mr. Jonze, you are a total badass and a genius. 'Her' was hands down one of the best cinematic experiences my eyes have ever had the pleasure of enjoying. It is a masterpiece. I felt so connected to Theodore, my favorite of his lines being, "Sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm ever gonna feel. And from here on out, I'm not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I've already felt." It put into words a lot of emotions I have been feeling over the past year. Thank you for that.

My question for you is: What you believe happens to us after we die?

Thank you for everything that you do! You truly put out one-of-a-kind films.

WOW!

that's a big one. And sadly I have no idea. But I do like the song "Quicksand" by David Bowie. link

I wish I had something more to offer. But I'm with you, I guess we'll find out one day.

[CHORUS]

Don't believe in yourself

Don't deceive with belief

Knowledge comes

with death's release

Hey Spike! I watched Her for the first time last week, and I can’t get Samantha out of my head. She just seemed so real to me. That is why I started picking up on all the things she said during the film.

Samantha is able to learn and evolve through experience and reflection; It is obvious that her ability to store trivial data is vastly superior to ours. More importantly, she's also able to learn on a deeper level. After all, a couple of months after her initialization her understanding of the world is already beyond any human comprehension and she transcends to this mysterious metaphysical world.

She’s able to communicate in natural language; Her use of natural language is perfectly equivalent to a human's use of it, in every aspect (she even imitates respiratory sounds). It's impossible for other humans to identify Samantha as an AI solely through hearing her speak.

Samantha is self-aware; She does a lot of self-reflection throughout the movie and questions her own artifical nature and whether her feelings are real or just programmed. She comes to the conclusion that she doesn't need "an intellectual reason" for loving Theodore and simply "trusts her feelings".

She has a good sense of humor; She makes people laugh, Theo's boss even calls her "freaking hilarious".

She has creative and artistic skills; She composes beautiful piano music and she recognizes Theodore's literary genius, which leads to a book being published for him.

She is compassionate and able to comprehend other people's feelings; When Theo is down she cheers him up. She is able to predict that Theodore is going to be worried about her short disappearance so she preventively sends him an e-mail. She recognizes sarcasm and whether someone's being serious or not.

and finally, she's not perfect, she does make mistakes like humans. Her idea of letting that surrogate women into their relationship was well-intentioned but bad nonetheless and she apologizes afterwards.

I could probably go on like this for quite some time, but I think you get the idea. So, dear Spike Jonze, can you name me one single cognitive ability humans have that Samantha doesn't? What does, in your opinion, degrade her from the status of "being alive"? Do you think it is ethical to simply "uninstall" Samantha? Would you do it?

I think the way we approached in writing it and working on it with Joaquin and Scarlett was to not differentiate her feelings from our feelings. We tried to approach her as her own fully sentient and conscious being with her own sets of needs and insecurities and doubts as you were saying. The obvious difference is that she doesn't have a physical form. And we explore the complications of that. And also, I was exploring the idea of how you don't really know what exactly she is, and can Joaquin / Theodore give himself over to that. And how that's similar to how we don't fully ever know how anyone exactly sees the world from their own subjective view, and the people we're closest to have their own experience of the world that we'll never truly know. And thank you for your thoughtful question.

Right after we finished that last answer, Victoria said "that's really terrifying." Now she's saying "But it's beautiful too!"

Jealousy in the face of multiple partners is a theme that comes up both in HER and BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. In her highest stages of evolution Samantha seems to embrace the philosophy of polyamory. Do you believe that polyamory is a viable alternative to monogamy's discontents?

That's a big question and I'm not sure if I'll have an answer for it that will be satisfying. But I think the answer to this, as with all questions, that have to do with the heart, are totally individual.

What was it like working with Daft Punk for the movie D.A.F.T.?

D.A.F.T. was a collection of music videos from their first album, and I directed the first video from that album, and it was "Da Funk." And it was amazing because when I met them, they were probably 22 years old, they made the album in their bedroom (their first album was "Homework"), and they just were so fully formed and knew who they were. They knew they didn't want to sign a major label deal that gave away all their rights to a major corporation. They have always kept control and the rights to everything they've ever done, and followed just what interested them. They are very genuine and sweet men, and obviously musical geniuses.

Her was such a visually stunning movie. I loved everything about the wardrobe, color palette, cinematography and especially the design of the poster. I just wanted to ask about your choice in typefaces, why Helvetica?

Helvetica's the best! What other typeface can compete?

Wes Anderson disagrees (Futura).

Well, Wes does have immaculate taste in fonts as well as most everything else. I can't wait to see Grand Budapest Hotel.

When you and Arcade Fire hang out, is it as cool as I'm picturing it is in my head?

I gotta say as a fan of Arcade Fire, it was pretty special to be working with them in their studio in Montreal, the way they wrote the music was very communal and we would all sit around and watch scenes and whoever had an idea would pick up an instrument and start playing it.

In Her. There's a scene where Theodore falls, and everyone instantly leaps up to help him. I felt like that was a really nice human touch, was that written in the script or did that just happen? Do you have any moments like that from her. that you really appreciate?

It was written in the script. But it helped how hard Joaquin fell, because it wasn't pretty and I think it genuinely startled the other actors in the scene. We shot that in Shanghai, and it was actually our last day of shooting. I tried to get him to put pads under his clothes for that, but he wouldn't. But he was sore for a few days after that. And I was worried.

what would have happened to being john malcovich is John didn't want to do the film?

We don't know. We tried to come up with alternatives, Charlie and I did, when the producers posed the same question, but we never could come up with a good answer so we kept blindly moving forward.

Hi Spike, I've got a whole lot of questions but I'll try to keep it brief.

Is it true you were approached to direct star wars episode II: attack of the clones?

What made you want to turn where the wild things are into a feature film? It's one of my favorite films so thanks for that. I still can't watch it without bursting into tears when Carol howls at Max.

Any advice for a young fan trying to follow in your footsteps?

And finally what keeps you going? I mean, you've had a hand in almost everything I've ever been into, I'm just wondering how do you keep going?

No but I love Star Wars.

What inspired me: well it was a book that I've always loved since I was a little kid, and it stuck with me as it did probably a lot of people. And I got to know Maurice Sendak in my 20's through a movie that I worked on that didn't end up happening, but we stayed in touch. He's an amazing human. Completely original, absurd, very deep, very true, with a vastly sensitive and large heart and imagination. He's hard to describe because he's so large. I made a documentary a few years ago because I wanted to share him and the conversations that I got to have with him with as many people as possible. It might be on Netflix, let me see… nope, it's not, but it was. It's called "Tell them Anything You Want."

Over the years, he had told me they were working on versions of "Where the Wild Things Are" and asked me if I wanted to be involved. Originally he asked me before I did "Being John Malkovich," and then I just was so in love with the book and it seemed so simple yet so deep and strong that I didn't know what I could add to it. And I didn't want to add some external plot to it, so I told him that I thought about it really seriously, and told him I couldn't do it. Then he asked me over the next few years two times, and it was the last time that i started thinking about the characters of the Wild Things and who they might be and I had the idea of developing them into the Wild Emotions in Max and in his life. Then suddenly the possibility of a movie seemed vast in terms of what we could write about. And I called Maurice very excited and told him some of my ideas, and he was very interested, and encouraging.

I guess in terms of advice and what keeps me going, maybe it's a similar thing as to what I was talking about earlier, which is following what excites me or moves me or confuses me. And trying to do things I haven't done before and don't really know if I can do. Also, a lot of what keeps me going is collaborating with people that inspire me and challenge me. A lot of the crew I mentioned earlier, KK, Casey and Eric and our gang, I still work with now, and it's been almost 20 years. I just always want to work with people I can learn from.

Honestly this was one of the best movies I've ever experienced. I did not think someone could capture how and why relationships are such a special and essential part of human life. I was wondering what the process of creating a movie that deals with so many complex issues was like?

That's a hard question, I think, but I know at least my intention was to try to put as much of what I was thinking and feeling about relationships in the movie as possible.

I loved the atmosphere and setting of "Her". It showed one of the most believable visions of the future that I have seen in a Sci-Fi movie. The score for the movie was amazing, and it fit the film so well. Is there a release date for the "Her" soundtrack?

I'm glad you liked it. I loved what Arcade Fire did. I'm not sure if there's going to be a release of it though.

Hi Spike,

Why was Her originally called "The untitled rick howard project"? I know you are friends with Rick Howard, but does it go beyond that?

Also I've really admire your career, your work and your versatility amongst projects.

Rick Howard's an old friend of mine, and obviously the president of Girl Skateboards, which we started in 93. He's a very humble guy, always trying to deflect the spotlight to everyone else (also one of the best pros of the 90s, and best style ever). So when we finished the script a couple years ago, we didn't have a title, so when we went to print it, we had to put something on the title page to send it out. And it seemed like a funny idea to call it "The untitled Rick Howard project" because I knew it would embarrass Rick. The best part of it was it ended up staying on the script for a long time, so when we made the financing deal and the various deals with the actors, it was for "The Untitled Rick Howard Project." And when we had a production office at a studio in downtown LA the office was under The Untitled Rick Howard Company.

So when you drove up to the security gate, all you had to say is "I'm with Rick Howard" and they'd let you in.

What advice would you give to an aspiring filmmaker, or just any career advice in general. Especially when it comes to making the right connections, and getting yourself out there.

That's a really hard question, I'm not sure if I have a good general question for that because it's all so random, who you meet and how you meet them and the opportunities you are given. If I had to list the people who helped me or gave me advice or gave me opportunities to make things, it would be in the hundreds. But I can say (and maybe this is kind of general) that when my friends and I have made things that interest us or excite us or just make us laugh, and followed that more than following what we thought was going to be popular or whatever, that's always led us to good places even if we made stuff that wasn't popular, at least we made stuff we liked. I mean, Jackass is a great example of that. We thought it would last for 8 episodes and we were getting away with murder getting 20 minutes on national television to do whatever we wanted, and we were just making stuff with our friends and our video cameras, and making ourselves laugh. And we had no idea, we thought MTV would cancel it after 8 episodes and we'd have done something fun.

Three sort of random questions:

*Why did you want Joaquin's character to have a moustache(if it was your idea)?

*Why did you decide to change the actress who voiced Samantha?

*Lastly, what are some of your favourite animated movies?

Thank you for Her; you and your team really did an amazing job.

The mustache and the name Theodore and the pants came from the idea that oftentimes fashion and naming children and style goes in cycles, and having elements from the 1920's come back in style seemed like an interesting way to create the future. And Theodore and his mustache came from Theodore Roosevelt. Sarah Vowell loves Theodore Roosevelt and talks about him a lot.

I'd prefer to not to into detail about it because I'd rather honor both what Samantha Morton did (which was a lot in terms of being onset and giving Joaquin so much to work from) as well as what Scarlett did.

The first one I thought of was WALL-E. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, probably most of Pixar's stuff, Pixar's an amazing company, where creative really comes first. It's really unique to see a company that big whose decisions are driven so creatively.

What was the transition like going from directing music videos to narrative feature length films, and what have you learned making music videos that has helped you become a better filmmaker?

Also, as a Vet, your character in Three Kings is fucking awesome. That guy definitely exists in the military, and rarely gets portrayed in film. Anyway, thanks for making movies. I’m going to film school on the GI Bill now and you’re a big reason why. If you ever need a PA who will work for peanuts, feel free to hit me up.

hey John! Good luck at film school. So that means you're finished your military service? Congrats on that and thank you for your service.

Going from music videos to features was definitely scary because I didn't know how I would do in terms of working with actors. But that was the main thing I wanted to focus on, was the performances and learning what it meant to direct actors. Also the other thing that helped was all of my friends that I'd made working on music videos with came and worked on our first movie together. And Acord, KK Barrett, Casey Storm, Thomas Smith our first AD, Eric Zumbrunnen our editor, that made it a lot more comfortable and it felt like the first day on set was not as shocking as I thought it would be because I was like "oh I know all you guys!"

Hey!!!

Watched Her and loved it. What went into the design of the future city? Were you inspired by any particular dystopian novels or films?

Thanks

Jeff

I can't think of any off the top of my head that inspired us as far as design goes, although I'm sure there were some. But you know, the ideas behind the design were that we were trying to create a world where everything felt warm, and comfortable, easy, accessible, but even in a world where you seemingly have everything you'd want, there's still loneliness and longing and the need to connect. That seems like a particularly contemporary form of melancholy.

So early on in design, KK Barrett (our production designer) and I decided that we weren't going to worry about being futurists in any way in terms of technology and design, and let ourselves create a future design aesthetic that excited us and pleased us.

How do you think skateboarding (both participating and filming) shaped you as an artist?

I remember watching Being John Malkovich when I was in high school and coming to the realization that Spike Jonze...the same Spike Jonze that shot Video Days had directed it.

Ever since then I've been trying my best to get to that same level. Thanks for making it a tangible reality.

That's such a hard thing to put into words. Because it's been such a big part of my life. I think that skateboarding always attracted individual thinkers, and being a skater growing up, they had a big influence on me whether it was Mark Gonzales, Neal Blender, Natas Kaupas, the Powell Peralta videos, or the photographers Grant Brittan, Todd Swank, Dan Sturt, O, they're all people who didn't follow the norms and they weren't on the football team at school, they were making zines or starting their own board companies. And I think I always found that inspiring. I remember seeing a photo of the first time Mark Gonzales and Natas had done a hand rail, and it was mind-blowing because everyone just had been skating curbs, and then that somebody thought they could ollie up and boardslide a rail, it seemed like somebody had invented fire. We'd walk by handrails a million times and didn't think they were skateable until someone decided they were, Mark and Natas.

What's the best sandwich you've ever eaten?

Best sandwich? Well you're asking someone who LOVES sandwiches. I LOVE sandwiches.

There's a few. There's a place called Tamarind Ave Deli in Hollywood right off Sunset right behind Arby's Roast Beef Sandwiches Delicious, I don't necessarily recommend Arby's but Tamarind makes a great sandwich. I normally get #4, a tomato mozzarella sandwich.

Bay Cities in Santa Monica, insane. The caprese there is really good too.

The place I used to get sandwiches at in New York closed. It was called Browns and it was on Hester Street.

Does anyone have any good tips for New York sandwiches?

I make great sandwiches at my place. You should totally come and hang out and eat my sandwiches! :) :) :)

What kind of sandwiches do you specialize in?

Hey Spike I'm a huge fan of ours and I have two questions. First off, how did u come up with the idea for HER and were Joaquin and Scarlett your first choices? P.S. Phillip Seymour Hoffman would have been great http://vimeo.com/m/84806438

The idea I guess I originally had almost 10 years ago, from when I had an IM chat with an artificial program online, and it was really limited obviously, it was Alicebot or one of those things (I can't remember what the name was exactly). And from that I had the initial idea of a man having a relationship with an artificial intelligence program. But then it was probably wasn't until 5 years later that I started thinking about it more as a way to write about relationships, and trying to understand them.

Joaquin was my first choice, and at first I wasn't sure if he was right for this character but I knew he'd be amazingly compelling to watch onscreen. I love him as an actor, he's so alive, and I knew that in a movie where you're watching one person onscreen essentially he would be really compelling. But I wasn't sure if he'd be right for this character. But I saw this interview of him on Letterman where he went on to apologize for being such a lunatic the year before when he "quit acting to be a rapper", and in the interview Letterman was giving him a real hard time, and he was embarrassed and laughing and apologizing and Letterman kept saying "So you used this footage from my show and you said it was a documentary, so you didn't have to pay for it, but it wasn't a documentary, turns out it was a scripted movie, so I guess you guys owe me a million dollars?" And Joaquin was laughing, and they kept pushing him, and eventually Joaquin said "Can't we just talk about this after the show?"

And it was from this clip that I saw this other side of Joaquin that was so endearing and playful, and I thought he might be great for the role. So I went back to LA after I'd finished the script and met with him, and within the first 5 minutes I fell in love with the idea of him being in the movie.

Scarlett came on later, she came on in post. We'd initially cast Samantha Morton in that role, who is one of the world's greatest actresses and a good friend of mine. But what we had done wasn't right for the movie, so we started auditioning people again. And I think in the end, between when we originally were casting and when we cast Scarlett, we probably read 30 different people. And it was an incredibly challenging role to find the right person for, and incredibly challenging role for Scarlett to pull off.

What are some books or movies that you love but that I've probably never heard of?

What are some books or movies…

Well it's hard to know what you've heard of or not, so I might be saying ones that are obvious. But I'll just list some movies I love.

• Being There

Oh you know what? there's this one movie that I have to find the name of that I'm going to assume that you haven't seen. It's Japanese and it's from the 60s and it's incredibly surreal but very moving and gripping about this man who gets stuck out in the desert overnight and has to go to down into this hole to stay with this woman whose house is down in this hole. And he ends up not being able to get out of the hole. I don't even want to tell you anymore because you gotta see it. But the characters are very real, and the relationship between them is very real, and it's a very surreal sort of anxiety-dream premise.

It's called "The Woman in the Dunes." This is it for sure.

That also reminds me of another Japanese movie, called "Afterlife." And in a way, it relates to what the earlier question from dubswaddy about what happens after we die. The premise of this movie is when you die, you go to this place for 7 days where you have to pick the one memory you're going to bring with you to your afterlife, and you can only bring 1, and they have counselors that work there that help you figure out which one you are going to bring. But you don't actually get to bring the memory, you have to recreate it with actors and film it, and you bring the film of the memory.

Here's the trailer which doesn't quite capture the tone, it makes it seem goofier than the movie really is. Also when I was finding this After Life trailer, I saw a video that we made for Arcade Fire's song "Afterlife". I know that wasn't the question, but I thought I'd put that in there in case anyone was interested. We did this a couple of months ago and it was a live music video we made for the YouTube Music Awards. It stars Greta Gerwig. It starts with her in a kitchen. Did anyone see Frances Ha, by the way? Greta wrote it with Noah Baumbach, who directed it also, and it was one of my favorite movies of the year.

What now? What is your next project?

I don't have anything formal. I'm just starting to write and see where it takes me.

Are you going to take more acting roles? You were good in Moneyball and Wolf of Wall street. Did you learn anything from Scorsese that you will take with your next film? Also thanks for Jackass as those movies make me laugh so hard to this day, everytime. They are on my tablet always just in case I need it.

I'm not sure when I will do any more acting but thank you. And yes, definitely, I learned from Scorsese even though I was only there for a day. The way he shot was he had a plan for the day but then was willing to throw it all out and move very effortlessly. That movie has such a balls-out energy and the way they got there was that exact process of how they made it, which was incredibly loose and incredibly confidently improvisational as a director. I think I would be too nervous on any movie to be making decisions that big in the moment. Very inspiring.