Director Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air was recently nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Actor — George Clooney) and has received praise from viewers and critics alike, from Rolling Stone to The Hollywood Reporter. What has made all this possible, though, is a novel of the same name by author Walter Kirn, who has written works like Thumbsucker (which was also made into a movie in 2005) and most recently, Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever.
NBN participated in a conference call with Kirn, who talked to us about upcoming projects, George Clooney and the attention the film has received.
Where did you get your inspiration for the characters in the book?
The main character, Ryan Bingham, was inspired by a man I was sitting next to in a plane one day in the first class cabin. And I turned to him and asked him where he was from. I was making small talk. And he said, ‘I’m from here, right here. Seat 4B.’ And I asked him what he meant. And he said, ‘Well, I travel about 300 days a year. I used to have an apartment. I don’t use it anymore. I gave it up. I married a flight attendant. I know her family. I know the security guards in the Denver airport. This is my home now.’
And I said, ‘How many people are there like you?’ And he said, ‘Oh, more than you realize.’ I got off the plane, and I really didn’t know much more about the guy than that. And Ryan Bingham was my attempt to make a guess at his circumstances and biography. So it was really inspired by a chance encounter with a stranger, the main character.
When you found out that Up in the Air was being turned into a movie, did you have an idea that George Clooney might be a good fit for that role?
It took me about 30 seconds after I heard the news that he had signed to play Ryan Bingham to realize that it was a brilliant choice. In the first 10 seconds I thought, ‘Wait. He’s older than the character that’s in the book. He’s far better looking. And he’s a lot smoother perhaps in some ways.’ But then I realized having read Jason’s script that he was perhaps the only actor I knew of who could play a guy who fired people for a living, and keep the audience’s interest and sympathy to share some magnetism.
In what ways is the book different than the film?
The book tells us Ryan’s story from the inside of Ryan’s head, and the movie tells us his story from the outside looking in. So you know the basic difference is that to make a screenplay of this book and to make a film of this book, Jason had to give Ryan sort of counterparts and sidekicks and situations that dramatized what he was thinking, how he was changing and how he was feeling. He didn’t have the ability I had to just go straight into Ryan’s head and tell us. It was really like unpacking a box. It was unpacking this closed box of the main character’s head and taking the pieces out and making them visible. And he did a wonderful job of it.
Are there any specific messages or lessons that you want readers to take away from the book or viewers out of the movie?
I think the movie does say one thing more than anything, or asks one question more than any, and that is this: where are you going, and why do you want to get there and what do you want to do once you get there? Because it’s life as a journey. It’s a journey towards something, and with someone. It can be very lonely, and do you want to be alone? That is the question the movie’s really asking — do you want to be free and alone or do you want to be a little less free and live with other people in your lives?
How does it feel just seeing the film receive such critical success with all its Oscar nominations and all the awards it’s already won around film circuits?
It’s kind of like parents take credit for their kid’s success. I didn’t have anything to do with the film, to be honest you know. I wrote the book. I helped out where I could in answering some of the questions that the director and the writers had. But I get to see a movie with the same title as my book, and it bears a lot of resemblances to it.
And yet, I didn’t have to go through the pain that is kind of creating it. And so it’s thrilling. It’s fun. It’s easy for me because I got to sit back these last few years. I worked this thing 10 years ago. I had almost forgot about it. And it’s like finding a winning lottery ticket in the bottom of your laundry basket.
What other projects do you have in the works?
I am writing a new novel. That’s really all I can say. It has something to do with the very, very rich. And their relationship to the rest of us, and their sort of ignorance of our reality. It takes a while for a book to take form for me, to take shape. I don’t use an outline. I kind of feel around in the dark looking for the light switch. Then I find the light switch. Turn it on. I can see the whole story. And that hasn’t happened yet in this new book.