| Interview with Jason Ritter. - Sept. 28, 2008,
Part 5 of 5
Reelscene : Your credits have
you as a producer along with being an actor; do you plan
to keep on working in that position?
Jason Ritter : I would love to.
This is the first feature that I've produced and I've
produced other friends of mine shorts projects and I would
love to continue doing that. What would be great is if
"Good Dick" made the money that it cost back and
then a lot more and we could just funnel it back into creating
the kind of work that we enjoy seeing and that we enjoy
sharing with the world because a lot of times as an actor
you're hired to be a part of someone else's vision. So there
are lots of times... there's movies and different things
that I've been in where everything that I believe as a
person is not represented in the movie, In fact sometimes
it's opposite. And I go 'well my character's a good person
but there's this other attitude that is represented as normal
that I don't find normal. Like say,... I dunno,
just like general disrespect of women, or like some
kind of attitude toward women. So instead of having that
being a thing that exist and having that character be,.. have
that attitude and having it be real, it's like 'oh, that
character looks like the cool guy'. You know what I mean?
So then that seems like a normal way of treating other people.
And so I've been part of things like that and it bothers me.
So it's nice to make projects where I say 'I stand behind all
the ideas in this movie'.
Reelscene : Well, you've
got kind of an illustrious history behind you yourself.
Jason Ritter : Yes.
Reelscene : Going back to "Ghost
Riders In The Sky" [Tex Ritter].
Jason Ritter : Yes (laughs),
exactly, absolutely, Yeah, "High Noon" and... yeah,
defiantly. Ahh... no I don't want to just find a little niche
and... I want to find my own voice and then try to continue
to speak from that place or help other people get the
opportunity to speak from their truthful place, people that
are like-minded with me that I feel like represent the same
values and the same ideas as I do. The friends that I
gravitate toward are people who are much more interested in
the long term results of anything. That's what it takes to
get people to do anything creative 'cause you don't get
immediate results, you have to put in work and so I'm not
going to hang around the kind of people who are like,..
let's.. I dunno, I can't even think of something specific,
but... let's go to a bar or a club or something and not
even talk to each other and just look around and try to,
basically, get through the night with as much poison of one
form or another. I dunno, I really respect the kinds of
guys who are trying to stay on the side of... going back
to "Star Wars" again, the types of movies where all
of those things are exploited.
Reelscene : Let's say, 'stay
true to the creative idea'.
Jason Ritter : Stay true to
the creative idea, exactly. And the non-creative idea sells
a lot of tickets and that's why those movies keep on being
cranked out. And so there's like a temptation to go
'oh alright, I'll just maybe do some of those and then
I'll go back', but there's a point of no return with some
of those movies and I think sometimes as an actor you can
do one too many of those movies or do the wrong kind of movie
and that's it. No one will take you seriously any more, no
one wants to listen any more.
Reelscene : Maybe this is
not the right place to ask but did you learn anything
from your Dad [John Ritter, "Three's Company",
"Eight Simple Rules… for Dating My Teenage Daughter
"] about this process?
Jason Ritter : The biggest
thing that I learned from my Dad is that,.. he always
talked about this invented thing of celebrity as being completely
false. It's another way, just like five year olds will decided who
they're going to pick last on a baseball team [as] another way
to make people, certain people, feel good about themselves
and certain people feel terrible about themselves, just
this ego survival system where there's a desire and a human
thinks 'I am better than you' in some way. People operate on
that, on... and then celebrity is the most sort of the
most socially and publicly supported, completely insanely
overblown sense of ego. That's why you have people acting
like they can just do what ever they want and treat other
human beings as lesser than them because people have been
telling them 'you're better than everyone else' and they've
believed that. And so that like one of the main things I got
from my Dad is that he would go to things and he would
say 'oh, thank you, thank you very much', but never felt
like I'm more important than anybody else. He loved
to work and he loved his work and that was the main thing
about it for him, it wasn't about,.. my Mom and he have
all these stories about how many parties they went to because
they had to and how many times they found a back entrance
and just ducked out and went out to dinner at the local
diner just to be with each other because that's the important
thing. It's looking around at people who will be around
when you're at your top and smiling and laughing and all
that stuff, that's all fine and good but you have to
realize that's there's a certain amount of people in your
life who will stick by you through everything. And if
you lose them in the shuffle you have nothing to keep
you grounded. So you float off into this world of
insanity where it gets more and more isolated and
crazy and self-loathing and self-destructive 'cause
there's nothing real about your existence anymore.
Reelscene : What do
you plan next or how do you see yourself going in the
future from here?
Jason Ritter : Who knows,
I've been auditioning for a bunch of things. The main
thing that Marianna's movie, especially and a couple of
other independent films that I've been a part of, the thing
that I realize over the years of auditioning and getting
parts and trying to figure out and make my way is that
the movies that I've done because I was scared of not
working in any given period of time are typically the
movies I'm not so proud of. Where as the movies that
I've really,... the parts that I've gotten that
I've really loved the character and maybe made
no money on, but I've really connected and believed
in the story, I really love and stand by those films.
So I've made a conscience decision basically, to not
just jump into something because it's there. I want
to start taking responsibility for the kinds of messages...
I say, 'I endorse this type of behavior', so, not to say
that I endorse stalking, but I endorse...
Reelscene : Or endless
viewing of porno.
Jason Ritter : Yes
(laughs) exactly, exactly. But I certainly do endorse,
sticking it out and trying to at least find some
kind of honest relationship with another person
even if it takes a couple of extra steps.
Reelscene : I think
we've pretty much exhausted the topic.
Jason Ritter : Haha!
Well cool, thank you.
Reelscene : I'll
let you run back to your hotel room.
Jason Ritter :
Thank you so much.
Editor's note: Perhaps
this is unintended by the filmmakers but for those
of you working in the psychiatric/psychotherapy/mental
health field this movie would be good to veiw as a
DSM-IV Axis 2 case study.
|
Jason Ritter Interview
Sept. 28, 2008 Page 1 ,
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| Copyright © 2008 by Paul
Godbey, all rights reserved |
