Top 40 Jonathan Levine Quotes

I have a lot of friends with bad taste in music – some might say that I have bad taste in music.

I really like it when movies take a song and use it to counterpoint a scene.

I’m a writer and director. And the movie I’ve seen a million times is ‘Coming Home,’ directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jon Voight, Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern.

I grew up with Woody Allen and early Spike Lee movies in which New York was such a specific character. The city has a certain vibe and beat which really informs your entire existence.

Do I wish I was Martin Scorsese? Yeah. But am I really proud of the movies I’ve made and really happy that I get to keep making them? Yes.

I think I’m always conscious of not letting things fit into a specific box. Being a filmmaker and trying to chart a career, you never want anyone to be able to pigeonhole you into one specific thing.

Right after ‘The Wackness’ came out, it was a really exciting time, and then it was a bit disappointing when it came out. Even though not that many people saw it, I was still getting offered some movies. I was thinking that people would just stop calling me since it didn’t do very well at the box office.

I really like using genre to tell a story about characters but also use it as a Trojan horse to tell social or cultural commentary. That’s where the best stuff, especially in the zombie genre, comes out of.

I like a pretty relaxed, fun set. Everyone knows they can bring whoever they want and hang out.

I learned some big lessons on my first film, a horror film which was never released in the U.S., even though we sold it to Harvey Weinstein for a lot of money.

‘Warm Bodies’ was a more long-term thing; I had to write the script, who knew if it was every really going to happen, if I’d find the right actors, and so on, so I grabbed ’50/50′ because I just fell in love with it.

I don’t like being pigeonholed at all. It stemmed from after ‘Mandy Lane’: I was being offered all these horror movies. I love horror movies, but when I dreamed of being a director, it was always doing all sorts of things.

I have about 100 gigs of music, and I’m always going through thinking about what song I can match to a scene and all that.

There’s so often – in filmmaking, you’re backed into something that already has these set parameters, whether it’s a sequel or a book that people love.

I think that’s the great thing about zombies, is, you know, going back to even ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ they’ve always been a tool for kind of holding up a mirror to us and showing us something about ourselves that we might not otherwise know.

That’s the great thing about being a director. You have your list of things you have to worry about and things you don’t have to worry about. If you can hire someone or cast someone who equates to not having to worry about, it’s great!

I like zombie movies, and I like genre movies a lot. To watch. Less so to make, I think. But I grew up on that stuff. I would just grow up watching a lot of horror movies, a lot of slasher movies and then zombie movies.

My first real television-watching experience was when I watched ‘L.A. Law,’ like, at 10 o’clock Thursday nights with my parents. They would let me stay up late.

The way ‘Coming Home’ uses music in general is incredible, but the final song that really kind of crescendos all of the emotion that the whole movie has kind of been building to is this song called ‘Once I Was’ by Tim Buckley.

I have a cameo in every movie. In ’50/50,’ I’m in the back of the bus.

As a director, your expectation and reality don’t always match up, and I think that that’s… I think it’s a little jarring.

If you know how to shoot a scene, then you know how to shoot an action scene. If you’ve seen an action movie, and you watched it, and you paid attention to how scenes are constructed and where the camera is and how the camera moves, then you know how to do it.

‘Warm Bodies’ – I was contractually obligated to deliver a PG-13 movie. But, like, I wanted it to be PG-13 because it’s for younger people, and I don’t want them not to be able to see it. I mean, you have to kind of think about the marketplace as well.

I think people will always want to go see a movie, whether it’s a comedy and you want to see it and laugh with people, or whatever.

I think Giuliani started a trend that Bloomberg continued with rampant gentrification, and I think it’s tough because why would any city choose not to do that?

‘Purple Rain’ is probably the best soundtrack.

Genre is a really great shorthand you can have with an audience. In the same way you can use music to create a connection with an audience, it brings so much of their knowledge of what genre really is to the table. You have a shortcut to connect with them. I really like that.

I love subverting expectations or playing with the sort of unspoken kind of connections that the audience has.

I used to obsess on critical reactions to my films, and it’s really not a healthy way to live your life, so my new take on it is simply, ‘I hope people like it!’ I’m not going to be looking at the tomato meter for at least a year! I was very lucky on ’50/50′ that most critics really liked it.

To me, using music is creating a shorthand with an audience. And I love music so much.

I’m always walking around with headphones on, creating my own soundtracks to whatever the day is. I think I have a poppy sensibility.

In rehearsals, I like to create an honest environment that is kinda free and fun.

There are things that I can tell my friends that I just can’t tell my family, just as far as how I’m feeling about things. My friends know me the best in a certain way. I just think old friends are really, really important.

I love Jamaica so much. I’ve been there so much, and I think it would be great if we could shoot a movie there.

I used to drive a convertible around L.A. a lot.

I feel like comedy is where I’m most at ease, but I also have an allergy to silly jokes.

I really don’t like when you see improv scenes go on too long. It really bothers me, even if the jokes are good.

Zombies have always had a lot of built-in social commentary.

To be a director, you have to think you’re the best. Ever since I went to film school, I imagined that you have to think deep down that you want to be Martin Scorsese or you want to be P.T. Anderson. Like, am I as good as those guys? Absolutely not. I feel like I keep learning, and I feel like I keep getting better.

For whatever reason, the films I gravitate towards do have these strange sort of tonal balances to them… I kind of realized on ’50/ 50′ why I liked these blending of tones, because I think it’s kind of what life is like: funny one minute, sad the next, scary the next.