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. – Jon Favreau
There’s a lot of real estate in our brain dedicated to facial recognition and to physics. That takes a lot of processing power out of our brain. – Jon Favreau
To see talented people in roles that others might not see them in, to see how they might fit in the puzzle of the cast, has always been something that I’ve been good at. I think that if you look at the successes of my films and start to peel them back, there’s usually a really smart casting decision that has gone into that success. – Jon Favreau
I’ve been in the service industry. I’ve bar-tended. I’ve waited tables, and I’ve worked at pizza places; I’ve made pizza. I’ve had a lot of jobs, and many of them were in the food service industry. – Jon Favreau
What’s fun about chefs is that they’re big guys, often, and they might not look like the most athletic people, but they’re very powerful people, and they have tremendous stamina… It takes a toll on their body, too. – Jon Favreau
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. – Jon Favreau
Acting is the most fun. I like to do it and it’s great that I can still do that, but you know, you don’t really have a lot of control over things, so it’s real hit or miss. – Jon Favreau
I like a naturalism to my dialogue and my comedy. I would rather have a few jokes sail by that might be more subtle than have every single joke hit hard. I would rather the comedy come out of character as opposed to feeling forced. Even if you’re giving some laughs up for it. – Jon Favreau
You don’t get to see your family much. In the movie business, directors often go out of town for long periods of time, and even if you’re in town, you’re working 14-15 hour days. People tend to not balance out the important things in their lives with their career. – Jon Favreau
Christopher Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’ set the bar very high for the superhero movie, as it showed that you could get a great cast for these movies and take a real filmmaker’s perspective. – Jon Favreau
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. – Jon Favreau
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. – Jon Favreau
For a movie – any movie – to work, all the bread has to fall jelly side up; everything has to go right. You have to hit the zeitgeist. – Jon Favreau
The irony is that the more unapologetically sexist men are in movies, the more women tend to be attracted to them in person. – Jon Favreau
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. – Jon Favreau
Ever since I read ‘Kitchen Confidential,’ I saw a little light bulb go off. Being a chef is like being on a pirate ship; it’s not like ‘Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?’ or whatever my impression was as I was growing up. – Jon Favreau
Everybody loves a hit. There is nothing as fun as making a cultural splash with a movie. – Jon Favreau
Of course I danced a lot when I was making ‘Swingers.’ The swing music scene was big in Hollywood, and I went to places like The Derby. And, after I wrote it and was trying to get it made, I would go every week so I’d be good at dancing. – Jon Favreau
David Anspaugh, who was my first director, on ‘Rudy,’ was all about empowering the actor, making you feel comfortable and appreciated, allowing you to keep your dignity, and treating you like a man. Being treated like a grown-up makes you proud to be involved in a film. – Jon Favreau
Get the shading right, the lighting right, and there are things you can do to make the CGI look more real. People end up going crazy and give themselves a little too much freedom in how they use CGI, and if you overuse it, it draws attention to itself. – Jon Favreau
When I’m working with improv people, I give them the green light to just bring it and try things. – Jon Favreau
Movies like ‘Chef’ are not really box-office monsters in the summertime and don’t really fit into Hollywood’s business model any longer. Even if ‘Chef’ is successful, it will be successful in the context of what it is. There’s a limited upside to a film that’s so small, but there’s also limited exposure for the people who backed me. – Jon Favreau
I did a guest thing on ‘My Name Is Earl,’ and there is something about being involved in a TV show that’s in the midst of its popularity that frees up the creative process. – Jon Favreau
I’ll basically eat anything that a chef puts in front of me. One of the reasons is respect for the chef. I watch chefs eat at other chefs’ restaurants, and they’re very aware not to leave anything over because the chef is watching very closely. It’s a very sincere interaction when two chefs are cooking for one another. – Jon Favreau
I’ve been fascinated by the world ever since I read ‘Kitchen Confidential’ by Anthony Bourdain. I’ve watched ‘Top Chef’ and watched interviews with chefs on ‘Charlie Rose’… I thought they’re really intriguing characters, and they really encapsulate that tension between vision and commerce, art and commerce. – Jon Favreau
I don’t think I’m egotistical as much as I’m taking responsibility for what I’m putting out there. – Jon Favreau
Half the people think I write Obama’s speeches; the other half think I’m on ‘Entourage.’ So I’m at the level of fame where people kind of know who I am, but they confuse me with other people. – Jon Favreau
