Top 30 Jonathan Levine Quotes

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

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.

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.

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.

‘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.

Any time I hear certain songs I put in a movie, I have to not listen to them anymore because I associate them with that movie. They take on that association rather than the association I had when I first heard them. So it’s kinda bittersweet to put a song in a movie, honestly.

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

I like to branch out as much as I can, but I feel like the movies that are closest to my heart are ‘The Wackness’ and ’50/50′ – the ones that are dramedies that have that human element to them.

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 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.

I really hope everyone who saw ‘Twilight’ sees ‘Warm Bodies,’ but at the same time… I don’t resent the comparison on a level of quality because I don’t judge other movies like that. Now that I make movies, I see how hard it is to do everything. I pretty much love all movies.

I always look at myself as kind of a work in progress. I hope that’s not always the case. But for me, every film is a learning experience.

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

I don’t often watch something I’ve done on TV. Usually, I’ll change the channel and watch something else.

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 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.

I was actually shooting ‘Warm Bodies’ on the day that ’50/50′ came out, which I don’t recommend to other filmmakers because I was sort of a wreck. Actually, it was good for me, because I had work to do, so I couldn’t obsess all day and be checking how ’50/50′ was doing!

For me, the best high school movie is, like, ‘Fast Times’ and what Cameron Crowe is like.

It’s rare that movies can sort of capture the tone of life; movies always feel like they have to be one thing or another.

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

I was Paul Schrader’s assistant for six months before I went to film school, and he’s very much about knowing what’s going to happen on every page before you even start writing dialogue – the entire plot and character arcs are mapped out.

After ‘Mandy Lane,’ I didn’t really know what to do because I didn’t know anyone who’d made a feature yet.

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

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.

On ’50/50,’ even though it was 8 million dollars, it was all acting-intensive.

‘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.

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.

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

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.