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I understand you also supported yourself while you lived here by working as a cartoonist?
Yeah. The first gig I did was at the Old Town Arts Fair and one I think called Custer’s Last Stand in Evanston. I'd bring a folding chair and stack of paper and some markers and I'd knock out cartoons for like 3, 4 bucks a pop, 'cause I was pretty fast.
I printed out some business cards and by getting out there and doing the work and handing out some cards I landed some work with the Cook County Courthouse. I also worked on an educational comic book, did some ad work for some agencies and did some personalized gift stuff for people. I'd get 50 bucks here, 30 bucks there, and that went a long way towards paying rent in Chicago in the late 80's.
I had been bartending at the time and between the art and residuals from some commercials I'd done, I didn't have to do the bartending anymore. I was really considering doing the art work thing full time and nor pursuing acting anymore. Then I got cast in "Rudy" coming out of Chicago and everything changed.
It was that miracle that everybody in Chicago dreams of – being somehow plucked out for a movie. It’s hard in Chicago to get a role where it's more than a day player, so to get a role in a major film -- and a good film like "Rudy" -- was a real home run and it changed my life. More so than "Swingers" or "Elf" or anything that happened subsequently.
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Speaking of "Elf," the film made a ridiculous amount of money at the box office.
Has that changed the type of projects you approach?
Yeah. You certainly get pickier because you have less heat. You don't have to fight so hard just to work. This is the third field I've done this in. In acting, I went from "Oh my god, I'd love to work," to scrutinizing the parts a little more. After "Swingers," the writing was the thing. I got on the list at the studios and I suddenly had all of these opportunities to be a writer. Eventually you start getting pickier.
Now with the directing, after "Elf" there's no movie I couldn't go up for as a director where they wouldn't at least take me seriously. But as an actor, I can always get the supporting role, but I couldn't star in a movie. The opportunity changes with the climate and the times.
What was most interesting to me about "Elf" were those old-school animated characters in the opening scenes. They seemed a little out of place in an interesting way.
My whole pitch from the start was that this movie had to be from the Rankin Bass
world. Let's make it really small and feel like something that I watched growing
up, that my generation could latch on to. It might seem cheesy to little kids,
who are used to big effects, but that's how we did it. I wanted it to feel really
kind of choppy and flawed like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Our goal with the film wasn't to make a movie that would make $170 million dollars.
Our goal was to make a movie that kids would watch every year. It doesn’t necessarily
matter how well a film does commercially. Some of the films I've done that have
done the worst monetarily are the ones that really stick with people. I mean "Swingers" is
still playing on cable. "Rudy's" still playing.
They did some big, crazy TV deals on this film, where USA and WB are sharing and alternating it for 12 years, so you'll be seeing a whole lotta "Elf."
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002: Jon Favreau
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