Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.
Spike Jonze
Is artificial intelligence less than our intelligence?
Spike Jonze
Some of the best ideas come from sheer discovery, and not by some masterminded, preconceived genius.
Spike Jonze
There were times in ‘Adaptation’ during the editing where I really thought, ‘Okay, well, this was a noble failure. I tried to do something good, but this is not going to work.’
Spike Jonze
Emotions are messy and hard to figure out. Hard to know where you start and the next person stops. Even as an adult, that’s a hard thing to know. As a kid, it can be really confusing, because it’s all new and you’re trying to sort of make your map.
Spike Jonze
I have a home phone number, and I like it! It’s like a throwback already.
Spike Jonze
A great poem leaves so much room for everybody to have such a different reaction to it.
Spike Jonze
If you compromise what you’re trying to do just a little bit, you’ll end up compromising a little more the next day or the next week, and when you lift your head you’re suddenly really far away from where you’re trying to go.
Spike Jonze
I like the idea of the documentary as a portrait. There’s not a chronological beginning, middle, and end structure. You build something in the editing room that’s shaped by getting to know the person and digging deeper, unpeeling the layers of them as you get to know them.
Spike Jonze
I’m a little slow, so forgive me if I’m inarticulate.
Spike Jonze
I’m a little slow, so forgive me if I’m inarticulate.
Spike Jonze
I definitely enjoy getting to know people I find inspiring.
Spike Jonze
I met Arcade Fire on their first record, ‘Funeral.’ I loved that record, and it was a record I was listening to while I wrote ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’ Those songs – especially ‘Wake Up’ and ‘Neighbourhood’ – there’s a lot of that record that’s about childhood.
Spike Jonze
When I’m making stuff, the thing that excites me most is not the result, but the process and trying to do something I’ve never done before.
Spike Jonze
The Beastie Boys are guys I loved before I met them, and when I got to know them, we started a magazine together, and we started making videos together, and a lot of it came out of us just cracking ourselves up, like going to the fake mustache store and buying fake mustaches.
Spike Jonze
There’s a difference between stress and pressure.
Spike Jonze
I think at the beginning of a project, you decide if you’re in love with the idea and what it’s about, or what you think it’s about at that time at least. Then you commit to it, and once you’ve commit to it no matter what, no matter how many self doubts you have, you’re in it. The ship’s sailed, you can’t turn around.
Spike Jonze
As a parent, your perspective of childhood is through the eyes of this person that you care so much about and you just want the world to be great for them. You want their life to be easy and happy.
Spike Jonze
Felt is not the easiest thing to animate. It’s very flimsy.
Spike Jonze
There’s great food everywhere, and even McDonald’s uses nice wood now.
Spike Jonze
Obviously, movies and music videos are different because they’re different lengths, and in a movie, you have more time to explore an idea. But I feel like they’re all the same, really.
Spike Jonze
Any conversation I have with anybody that’s real is always revealing and inspiring.
Spike Jonze
I like people that define their own values. I am much more interested in somebody who has their own definition of what they value, their own definition of what success is, their own definition of what love is.
Spike Jonze
I just want to be who I am, as I am.
Spike Jonze
Emotions are messy and hard to figure out.
Spike Jonze
I’m always amazed when any actor can decipher my direction.
Spike Jonze
I’m very nervous about taking jobs. I always make sure that, if I’m going to work with somebody, that they really understand what it is that I want to do. I’d rather not take the job than be vague about how I’m going to do something and run into trouble later on. It’s a hard thing to negotiate.
Spike Jonze
The strengths and failings of a relationship depend entirely on your ability to talk about your feelings.
Spike Jonze
Be willing to get fired for a good idea.
Spike Jonze
You can go on Nike’s website and choose exactly what fabrics and colours and shapes you want your sneakers to come in.
Spike Jonze
I remember when MySpace came out. It did do something pretty incredible – which was unite people around the world with common interests and common tastes.
Spike Jonze
If you focus your energy on the camera, it takes away from the time you have to focus on the performances.
Spike Jonze
I think, as you’re growing up, your emotions are just as deep as they are when you’re an adult. You’re ability to feel lonely, longing, confused or angry are just as deep. We don’t feel things more as we get older.
Spike Jonze
I just want to make whatever is exciting.
Spike Jonze
If I can make one generalised statement, and generalised statements are never entirely true, nobody wants to be talked down to, kids included.
Spike Jonze
Kids are so fiercely opinionated, that if they love the Harry Potter books and they go see the movie, they’ll be the first to say, ‘That was wrong! They didn’t get that right!’ They’re storytellers themselves. They’re critics. They’re going to have the critical opinion.
Spike Jonze
I’m not one to intellectualize why I did something.
Spike Jonze
I think the way kids create is so inspiring. They’re drawing a picture? They love the picture they drew; they’re not tortured about it.
Spike Jonze
It’s fun when you start a movie, because it’s kind of like you get to go Christmas shopping… you get to make your wish list and you start thinking about what each character needs.
Spike Jonze
I think because I’m not a parent, my most immediate connection to childhood is my memory of my own childhood.
Spike Jonze
Music is thousands and thousands of years old and I don’t think that basic, primitive connection to the language of music ever changes.
Spike Jonze
The invention of the iPod changes how you use music. Suddenly you have music everywhere.
Spike Jonze
I like naps. I don’t drink coffee.
Spike Jonze
You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.
Spike Jonze
I don’t understand the whole testing-numbers thing. It is not how I want to make movies.
Spike Jonze
I like hiring people based on a feeling – this person gets it – rather than what they’ve done in the past.
Spike Jonze
I feel like you only have so much time to make stuff. I’m definitely aware of that. I’m also excited about it.
Spike Jonze
You have to be involved and relate to the characters in order to make a film that is true emotionally.
Spike Jonze
On everything I do I’m always taking someone’s money, whether it’s a movie studio or a record label. Somebody’s paying for it, and I’m always respectful of that. But I’m never going to compromise.
Spike Jonze
I always aspire to that, where it feels like the film was made by the characters as opposed to the filmmakers. I try to be invisible.
Spike Jonze
What I learned from the Beastie Boys was to be independent. They set up their own world separate from the label. They built their own studio.
Spike Jonze
I’m in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that’s the movie. They’re not discovering the movie in postproduction. They’re editing the script they shot.
Spike Jonze
I would love to make video games.
Spike Jonze