Jason Reitman Talks With Chris Klein about "Election"

Jason Reitman, director of “Juno” and “Up In The Air,” started the first night of his movie program at the New Beverly Cinema with a double feature of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Election.” “Election” was released in 1999 and was directed by Alexander Payne who would later go on to direct “About Schmidt” and “Sideways.” Reitman stated that he considers this film to be the unofficial sequel to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” as it answers the question; what ever happened to Ferris after high school? Reflecting on what Edward R. Rooney, Dean of Students (played to manic perfection by Jeffrey Jones) said in the film that Bueller’s life would be in a ruinous state in 20 years from now, that wasn’t far from the truth. Here we see Matthew Broderick still stuck in high school, this time as Civics teacher Jim McAllister. There is no escaping the hell that is high school this time for this Broderick character, and he is confronted with a go-getter named Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon, pitch perfect by the way) who is running for Student Body President.

Reitman started off talking about “Election” and of how Volkswagen was willing to pay a lot of money for Broderick to drive a VW Bug, but that director Payne was adamantly against it. This was proof Reitman said that this director was one who stuck to his guns and never strayed from his vision of the movie.

Whereas “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was John Hughes’ love letter to Chicago, “Election” was Alexander Payne’s love letter to Omaha. This city in Nebraska has been the setting for just about every movie Alexander Payne has made except for “Sideways.” Jason said that Payne has been a big influence on him as a director, and they have become friendly over the years. Payne told Jason that he loves to shoot in the Midwest of America because of “the wind.”

Before “Election” was started, Jason Reitman brought out a special guest to talk about the movie and the making of it: Chris Klein. Chris played the well meaning but hopelessly dim high school football star Paul Metzler. After “Election,” Chris went on to star in “American Pie,” and he later went against type in John McTiernan’s remake of “Rollerball.” That movie was never mentioned during the Q&A, and probably for a good reason.

“This may sound hokey, but this is what dreams are made of.”

That’s how Chris went about describing how he got cast in this film and ended up being plucked from obscurity. At the time, Chris was living in Omaha and going to high school when he was discovered. People in his hometown would never take him seriously when he said that his dream was to be a professional actor. You have to wonder what those same people must think of him today.

During pre-production for “Election,” Chris said that Payne was scouting out high schools and other locations in Omaha when his high school principal (who was essentially acting as his agent) brought Chris to the director’s attention. While Paul Metzler was a football star, Chris had become the star of the plays and musicals put on at his school. One day, his teacher was instructed to tell Chris to get some papers which he forgot to bring with him. As he was walking down the hallway, Alexander Payne passed by him as he headed in the opposite direction. The next day, Payne called Klein up and asked him to audition and do a cold reading for him. Chris said that he actually didn’t know what he was reading for, and that had he known he’s sure he would have blown the entire thing. All the same, he got cast in “Election,” and his career took off from there.

Chris said he had not seen any of Alexander Payne’s previous films, so the director gave him a copy of “Citizen Ruth” which he ended up watching with his mother. For those of you not familiar with this particular film, it starred Laura Dern as a glue-sniffing drug addict who ends up becoming pregnant, and she spends the movie deciding on whether or not to get an abortion. Keep in mind that Omaha, Nebraska is a very conservative area, so neither Chris nor his mother was adequately prepared for what they ended up seeing. His mother ended up saying:

“WHAT IS THIS MOVIE??!! IS THIS REALLY THE GUY YOU ARE ABOUT TO WORK WITH???!!”

With “Election,” it marked the first time that Chris had ever been on a film set, and he remarked that he never realized that they played music during a scene. That must have thrown him off at first. When he read the screenplay, he told Alexander that he didn’t know that it was supposed to be funny. Alexander responded by saying that this was exactly what he wanted. The direction he gave to Chris was that his character Paul Metzler was nervous and never comfortable in front of people. This ended working out perfectly.

For Jason Reitman, Chris’ experience making this film reminded him of various panels he has been on with actors from his own movies. Many said that they had no idea of what Jason was doing until the whole thing was over. Chris described what Jason pointed out as being very similar to his experience making “Election.” It never occurred to him fully what kind of film they had made until he went to the premiere and saw the movie with an audience. After that, he exclaimed:

“HEY! WE ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING FUNNY!”

Admittedly, having grown up in conservative Omaha for most of his life, Chris said there were several scenes in the movie that concerned him. But none concerned him more than the scene where Paul Metzler gets a blow job. Jason however pointed out that the blow job is a huge moment for his character in that it is the first one Paul has ever gotten. The expression on Paul’s face in that moment is so priceless. But this is the way Chris saw that whole scene:

“Believe me; I have gotten A LOT of blow jobs! The thing though is none of them were ever put up on the big screen before!”

Jason remarked that directing an actor (not an actress mind you) to do an orgasm in a film is “really hard.” This was a challenge that Reitman had faced when he was directing Michael Cera in “Juno” where he was very intimate with the title character. Reitman remarked that Michael is a wonderful guy and a great actor, but getting that expression on his face of the thing we want to experience multiple times throughout our lives proved impossible, so it ended up getting cut out of the movie.

All this talk about blow jobs from one movie to the next led Jason Reitman to remark:

“This has turned into an amazing Q&A!”

Once again, “Election” was Chris Klein’s first time on a movie set, so there were many lessons for him to learn quickly. Throughout it all, he spent just about every hour on location to where Director Payne told him:

“Don’t worry, you can go home. We’ll call you when we’re ready for you.”

One other thing that really altered his perception of moviemaking at the time was when the actress originally cast Paul’s sister, Tammy (Thora Birch), ended up being replaced. As Chris saw it, she was basically fired, and he became very fearful that he would be the next one to go. Alexander Payne may have been watching a young actor growing right before his eyes, but Chris described the whole process as him taking it all so seriously so that he wouldn’t get fired.

Chris Klein finished by saying that working on “Election” was really an amazing experience as well as a lucky one, and that watching professionals like Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon (both of whom he described as being “very generous” to him and others) made this one of the very best experiences he has ever had. To all this, Jason Reitman remarked:

“I’m so glad you two (Klein and Payne) ran into each other at your high school!”

Before the Q&A was concluded, Jason had said that over various films and movie festivals, he became friendly with Alexander Payne. Payne has been very complimentary on the work Reitman has done, and Jason said that this has meant so much to him. Now they text each other on a regular basis, so he had asked Payne if there was one shot in all of “Election” which best describes the whole movie for him. Jason read the entire text that he received from Payne to the audience:

“The entire movie rests on the one shot of the protagonist (Matthew Broderick’s Jim McAllister) washing his genitalia in the shower of that motel room.”

Reported by Ben Kenber