Top 55 Jon Favreau Quotes

I like happy endings in movies. I think life has a happy ending. When it’s all said and done, it’s all something worthwhile, and I want my movies to reflect that. There are enough things to be sad about. When you pop in a movie, let the message be one that’s one of hope.

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.

At the end of the day, it seems like there’s a critic archetype for food movies, like with ‘Ratatouille’ or anything. You know, if you were doing a puppet show about chefs, one puppet would be the chef, one would be the critic.

If you look at the mythology of aliens, there’s a lot about gold. It’s about them coming for gold; whether that’s a simplification or not. If you think of ‘Chariot of the Gods,’ there’s this reoccurring theme of gold.

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.

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.

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.

I cooked a little bit in my first movie; I did a movie called ‘Made.’ For the little kid in the movie, I do a scene where I’m preparing a pasta puttanesca. I always loved watching that scene.

There is no free lunch, so if you’re playing with the big train set – on big movies – it’s a lot of money they’re entrusting you with, and you have to get that money back for them. I don’t take that responsibility lightly.

I just adored ‘Shaun Of The Dead.’ That’s a true mashup. That’s a real Romero-era zombie movie and a real Gen X indie comedy. That was before zombie movies were cool, before ‘Zombieland’ and ‘I Am Legend,’ and now it has become a whole sub-genre.

Between the theme parks and the movies, the Disney iconography was probably the first set of archetypes that I was exposed to. Walt was able to expose me as a child to the full array of emotions, including fear and sorrow. Those movies and attractions haunted my dreams and made a deep impression on me as a child.

‘King Kong,’ especially the first two acts of it, is a really good example of the use of miniatures mixed with digital characters and how convincing it was.

I’ve always been fascinated by chefs and the worlds of chefs – what they do is incredibly cinematic.

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.

You show people playing poker or hacking into a computer; it feels so significant in the script, and then when you see it on the screen, it loses something. But there’s something about cooking – food being prepared is incredibly captivating. It became just a fun box of tools to use as a director.

Unfortunately, we are not painters and authors, where we can do something in isolation. We require a lot of money to create what we create. It’s almost like being an architect: You can’t be an architect and build whatever buildings you want to.

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.

I think ‘Chef’ is about somebody who’s in the middle of his life, and he’s kind of lost his passion and his voice, so he seeks out some refinement and redemption.

I want to make sure everyone’s having a good time because when I ask you to come to my movie, I’m throwing a party for you. I want you to enjoy it.

I’m not on chef level, but I’d make a good line cook. That’s not too shabby.

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.

For me, I love food. It’s my greatest pleasure and also the thing that could ruin you as well. It’s one of those things where, if you’re not thoughtful about it, it could be unhealthy. But if there’s a mindfulness about it; it actually is a wonderful tool of emotional expression.

I’m a pretty early adopter of social media. There’s a whole subculture to it. I’m smart enough not to tweet things out of emotion.

I’m of a generation of director that came up understanding special effects.

The ultimate storyteller is Shakespeare, who was able to get the ‘groundlings’ to laugh at his bawdy humor and storylines but could still be studied by scholars to this day for the complexity of his language, meter, and symbolism. That’s the real guy.

If you’re going to be an R already, you may as well be ‘The Hangover,’ and you may as well be as shocking as possible, because that’s what delivers the most return.

Once you buy into a television show, there doesn’t have to be resolution from week to week. You can develop characters and storylines and react to the audience, so you get more of a serialized version of storytelling where you can go much deeper into each character. It’s more like a novel.

I remember watching the ‘Iron Man’ cartoons when I was younger. I remember reading the origin stories and some of the Silver Age stuff, and I read ‘The Avengers’ – ‘The Defenders’ and then ‘The Avengers’ – and that sort of brought me into ‘Iron Man.’

‘Made’ is about opening your heart to people who deserve your love and not trying to turn other people into something that they’re not: not trying to save people who don’t want to be saved. If you go down that dark path, you’re not going to end up doing any good.

I’ve always wanted to call the shots because I would rather fail than not have a chance to figure it out on my own.

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.

Hopefully we’ll figure out how to get ‘Iron Man 2’ going, and I’ll be involved with that. You have got to outdo what you did before. So, if the last one took two years, we would need at least that to do what we are talking about or, at least, thinking about.

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.

When Ron Howard does ‘Rush,’ he has to learn and steep himself in F1 culture and European racing culture, and that’s part of the fun of the gig. You learn to learn. Your real skill as a director is being a learner and an observer. You’re constantly learning another thing in context.

I think what is nice about ‘Elf,’ and why it doesn’t play as one long sketch, is that the character actually grows up during the course of the film. It’s not just a character that you can keep checking in on and keep doing sketches about. It’s a story. I’m pretty proud of how we told it.

Everybody loves a hit. There is nothing as fun as making a cultural splash with a movie.

I find that people… very few people think that what they’re doing is bad, and usually the people who think what they’re doing is bad it has more to do with guilt.

A thoughtful piece of criticism by somebody who understands the context of what you are doing is a tremendous gift and honor to read, even if they don’t completely embrace your work.

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.

Back to the painting of the Sistine Chapel, there’s always been run-ins between benefactors and artists.

I don’t know that a movie like ‘Daredevil’ did better for having Ben Affleck then ‘Spider-Man’ did having Tobey Maguire, who was a relative unknown at the time.

When it comes to celebrities and tabloids, to me that is a bummer. That’s a little disappointing. And it is amazing how things really get made. I always used to think that where there is smoke there is fire, and now I see stories pop up out of nowhere with no basis in reality.

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.

I remember the first script I wrote after ‘Swingers’ was a Western, and I just couldn’t get it made.

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.

I don’t think I’m egotistical as much as I’m taking responsibility for what I’m putting out there.

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.

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.