Ellen Page and Jason Bateman Interview: 'Juno'

Before September's Toronto Film Festival, chances are you'd never heard of 'Juno,' or Diablo Cody, the former stripper turned screenwriter/toast of Hollywood who wrote the movie, or Ellen Page, the diminutive actress who lends the film's 16-year-old pregnant heroine a charisma that's larger than the life growing in her belly. Well, get ready to hear about them all. 'Juno' is just hitting theaters now, and it's already being hailed as this year's 'Little Miss Sunshine' (it's actually better), a serious Oscar contender and the most crowd-pleasing flick of the holiday season. The film tells the tale of young Juno, who gets knocked up by her awkward but true-blue best bud (Michael Cera) and decides to give the baby up for adoption to a seemingly perfect upper-middle-class couple (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). Hilarity -- and award-worthy performances from Page (aka, Kitty Pride in 'X-Men: The Last Stand'), Bateman (he of 'Arrested Development' glory) and the rest of the cast -- ensues. Moviefone chatted with Page and Bateman about using thigh deodorant, crying after sex and starring in a movie written by a person who named her own cat Douchepacker.

Jason Bateman: You know what the key is to relaxing for an interview? Take a Quaalude before every interview. One 'lude [Jason opens up his mouth to reveal a breath mint] ... Want half?

Ellen Page: Sure. Actually, I just brushed my teeth. Otherwise I was gonna go for that.

Moviefone: Actually, I read somewhere that brushing your teeth gets you excited.

EP: I am a compulsive tooth brusher.

JB: Really? Why?

EP: Probably because of the vomiting.

MF: You a little under the weather?

EP: Yes, that's what I was getting at. [Laughs.] No, no, no. I'm kidding. I'm fine. I don't vomit. It's weird. I have no gag reflex.

JB: I'm getting really hot.

MF: Seriously. Speaking of vomiting, how did the two of you get involved in 'Juno'?

EP: I read the script ages ago. I should define "ages": probably a couple years ago. I immediately fell in love with it. It's one of the best scripts I've ever read. So right now, sitting here, it's pretty frigging surreal to think that I actually got to be Juno. It was a bit of a process, but at one point Jason [Reitman] became the director and we met and it was just good vibes ... good vibes all around. We just connected. And the pieces just fell together.

JB: And I was very, very late on the whole thing. There was actually somebody else there and then they fell out, and I got a call. And everything was all assembled already, so it was a quick, easy decision, given the cast that was assembled and the script that was so amazing and the fact that Jason is one of our great young filmmakers. And, you know, I haven't been invited to hang out with a whole lot of filmmakers, so there wasn't a bad thing about it. So I was onboard quickly.

MF: How did you guys feel about being in a movie that was written by a former stripper (Diablo Cody) who has a cat named Douchepacker?

JB: [Laughs.] Oh really? I didn't know any of that before I'd read it. It had a dangerously specific sort of stylized dialogue that in the hands of a hammy bunch of actors would really just be too much. But Ellen just underplayed all of that so beautifully, as did Michael Cera, that it becomes a really easily swallowable movie. It could have been bad.

MF: Yeah, Juno definitely had a lot of music and pop culture knowledge that predated her existence. For example, it was really funny to see a teenage girl reference 'The Thundercats.'

JB: I don't know that reference. People howled last night [at the screening] -- when your water breaks. What are 'The Thundercats'?

MF: The Thundercats are kind of like a cat/man half-breed.

JB: Is it a cartoon?

EP: Yeah, like a superhero thing.

JB: And what's the war cry?

EP: Thundercats are go!

JB: Thundercats a go?

MF: Actually, I think Diablo kind of combined 'Thundercats ho!" and "Thunderbirds are go!" so this was like a combo war cry.

EP: Ha -- yeah, it was one of those two. But yeah, Juno is pretty cool, pretty on the ball. She was obviously not alive for when Patti Smith came out with 'Horses,' the best album of all time, but she knows about it. And I know about it.

MF: Do you guys and the characters you play share the same taste in music?

JB: I do like Sonic Youth.

EP: Yeah, I like their new album.

JB: I do not have the sort of high-brow taste that Ellen has and Jason has and Diablo has, but I wish I did. I'm just not that educated.

EP: What are you gonna do? You live in L.A. There's no culture.

JB: Yeah, I live in a cultural vacuum.

EP: That's a joke. There's lots of culture in L.A.

JB: Oh really?

EP: It's a common misconception. You just have to put effort into finding it.

JB: And where have you found it?

EP: I find it in the hearts of people, Jason. [Laughs.] Sorry, I'm a little out of it.

MF: The movie deals with the always touchy subject of teen pregnancy, but actually shows that it can be dealt with in an empowering way. Was that important to you guys?

EP: No. It was just a good script, you know what I mean? I don't think it's political. When I'm going into something I don't dwell on anything like that because then I start judging the situation -- and that's just retarded.

JB: Yeah, and teen pregnancy just means so many different things to so many different people in so many different corners of this country and of the world, it's like how can we be so presumptuous that we're going to make some kind of statement or be didactic about our views on teen pregnancy. This is one point of view on it that happens to be Diablo's -- or maybe it's not even Diablo's. Maybe she just thought this was the most interesting version of the controversy. I don't know. It just happens to be what the story is about. I don't think there's any reason to go deeper than that.

JB: Yeah, every movie needs an event to happen around which people talk.

MF: And how was it work with the rest of the ensemble? It's kind of an all-star cast you guys have there.

EP: Everyone's awesome. It can sound like B.S. when people say it, but I am really grateful to have worked with everybody. And I'm not just saying that.

JB: Yeah, that's true. And I mean obviously we're not the only talented actors in the universe. What was nice was that Jason assembled a bunch of actors that have the same type of taste and tone, I guess, with their acting styles that fit this particular script. In other words, there are very, very talented actors that have a different style of acting that wouldn't have been right for this. Sometimes you see that in movies, especially in star vehicles. You'll see somebody is attached to something, and they're just miscast because what they do really well is not appropriate for the tone of the content. And everybody seemed to be making the same movie with this -- we had the same aesthetic -- and so it was easier to deliver on what we were trying to do. We were all kind of making the same movie.

MF: Was it weird for you to be in the same movie as Michael Cera -- who played your son on 'Arrested Development' -- and not share a single scene with him?

JB: It was a little frustrating because he's fun to act with. He does what he does very well. And I was a little frustrated, so I would go down to the set a couple of times when he was acting in scenes just so I could watch him -- and he would crack me up. He's really, really, really good. And he's going to be around a long time. And I was just very jealous of Ellen being able to do all that stuff with him.

MF: Did you think it was funny that he was cast as a track star in 'Juno' after that running joke on 'Arrested Development' that he has woman's legs?

JB: Right [laughs]. You know I didn't think about that. That's funny.

EP: You see lots of Michael Cera's legs in this movie.

JB: Oh yeah, too much.

MF: The ladies will melt during the scene where he puts deodorant on the insides of his thighs.

JB: Was that deodorant, or was it something to eliminate friction?

EP: I think it is deodorant, but it is used to eliminate friction.

JB: Right, he was fresh out of Vaseline.

MF: Did you guys have a favorite scene in the film -- one that you did together or otherwise?

JB: I liked our thing down in the basement because it's our kind of culminating scene, our peak scene. There are a lot of questions answered there because there's an ambiguous through-line for my character: Is he trying to sleep with this girl or is he just really interesting in having a connection -- a friendship -- with her? And so we sort of give an answer in that scene, so that was fun to play.

MF: How about for you, Ellen?

JB: Really anything with me was her favorite. I'll answer that one for you.

EP: [Laughs.] No, no, no. It's true.

JB: You could see in her eyes that that's what she wanted to say.

EP: Playing the guitar was also really special for me because I'm really passionate about music, really emotionally connected to music. And that song is a huge part of my life. I have a lot of sentimental connection to that song. And to play it with Kimya there was very crazy.

MF:One of the things your characters bond over in the film besides music is horror films. Were there any horror movies you saw when you were young that really freaked you out?

JB: 'Halloween' got me pretty good ... The first one did bad things to me.

EP: When I was 5, someone thought it was smart to let me watch 'The People Under the Stairs.' It might not even been that scary, but I do remember skinned people in cages under the stairs and a man who lived in a wall without a tongue.

JB: Ewww! I don't want to see that.

EP: And that's why I cry after sex. [Everyone laughs.]

JB: That's what they call an orgasm killer.

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