Being from the mind of Spike Jonze, Her is the first movie that the director wrote himself, and it’s expectedly influenced by the writers and other collaborators he’s worked with throughout his career. Though it’s considered a romantic movie, the film also has licks of science fiction, as it explores the relationship between humans and technology.
And being such a strange mix of genres, how the film came to be is quite fascinating. From the director’s methods of making the actors bond with each other, to the creative ways in which he made the movie look futuristic, to last-minute changes in post-production, Her’s development is almost as strange as the movie itself.
It Was Influenced By I’m Here
There was a long gap between Her and Jonze’s movie that came before it, Where The Wild Things Are. The six years between the two movies was due to a few smaller projects the director worked on. Jonze directed the short movie The Suburbs for the indie band Arcade Fire, and he also directed a 30-minute movie about humans and robots co-existing in the future in LA.
In fact, Jonze has said that making I’m Here (the aforementioned 30-minute flick) is what inspired him to get to work on Her, and though the stories aren’t closely related, the themes and the location of the two movies are the same.
Joaquin Phoenix Was Always The First Choice
Being one of the greatest actors of this generation, it’s thanks in large part to what movies Joaquin Phoenix chooses, whether it’s Gladiator or Joker. But in the case of Her, it was Jonze who chose him, as Phoenix was always the actor to portray Theodore in Jonze’s eyes.
Jonze first met Phoenix when the actor auditioned for a role in Adaptation, the 2002 movie directed by the filmmaker, but the role eventually went to Chris Cooper. However, the method actor was on Jonze’s mind for 10 years, and they finally collaborated on the perfect project together.
It Was Inspired By Writer Charlie Kaufman, But Not The Movies Jonze Directed
Jonze and Charlie Kaufman have a long history together. As they were unknowns when Jonze directed Kaufman’s brilliant screenplay Being John Malkovich, which ended up being one of the trippiest movies of the 1990s, they immediately became two sought-after talents in Hollywood.
Jonze has directed two of Kaufman’s screenplays, but it was actually Synecdoche, New York, which Kaufman directed himself, that Jonze was inspired by the most. The director mentioned being inspired by how Kaufman threw all of the conflicting feelings he had into the one movie, which was carried over into Her.
It’s Semi-Autobiographical About Jonze’s Divorce
Though Her is all about mankind’s growing relationship with technology, the movie is actually more personal than some viewers would think. In the early 2000s, Jonze went through a very public divorce with the celebrated director Sofia Coppola, and he used the narrative of Her as a self-reflective look at that era of his life.
And funnily enough, Scarlett Johansson starred in both Her and Sofia Coppola’s masterpiece, Lost in Translation, both of which are two moody, artsy romance stories.
Samantha Morton Was Originally In The Role Of Sam And Recorded All Of The Lines
The reason why the character of Sam, the artificial intelligence in the movie that Theodore falls in love with, is called Sam is because it was going to be voiced by Samantha Morton. In fact, it was voiced by Morton, and she was even on set every day during production, recording her lines in a dark room.
But in post-production, Jonze felt that there was something not quite right, and with her blessing, he replaced her with Scarlett Johansson. Johansson and Jonze then spent four months re-recording all of Sam’s lines.
Alien Child Is Voiced By Jonze
As Her isn’t just a romance movie but a sci-fi movie too, one of the parts that make it a great sci-fi movie are all of the elements that look like they could be possible in the distant future. One of those elements is a holographic 3D game that Theodore plays, and the playable character, known only as Alien Child, is voiced by Jonze himself.
Jonze already has a fairly high-pitched voice, but he ramps it up for Alien Child, and it’s hilarious, especially considering how foul-mouthed the playable character is.
The Airplane Sculpture Is Completely CGI
For a science fiction movie, there isn’t much CGI at all, as most of the scenes that take place are in rooms, and their minimal designs are what make them look futuristic. And the little CGI that is in the movie, such as the video game with Alien Child, is blindingly obvious.
However, Her has a few CGI bits to it. When Theodore walks outside the Pacific Design Center, viewers can see a sculpture of an airplane that stands on its nose, and it’s completely CGI, even though it doesn’t look it.
The Establishing Shots Are Of Shanghai, Despite Being Based In LA
Filmmakers who shoot films set in the future use a lot of movie magic to make the environments look futuristic, whether it’s the intricate practical effects in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or all of the CGI in the movies of today.
But given that very little CGI was used for Her, Jonze very cleverly but simply tricked the audience when it came to giving LA the futuristic backdrop it needed. Jonze shot the skyline of Shanghai in different ways, and as it’s full of skyscrapers and neon signs, it worked perfectly. And if some viewers look hard enough, they can even see Chinese writing on the signs in the background.
Jonze Locked Amy Adams And Joaquin Phoenix In A Room Together
As great of an actor that Joaquin Phoenix is, he’s been known to be hard to work with, especially given how dedicated he is to his craft. But during the production of Her, Jonze made him and Amy Adams sit in a room together for hours every day so that they could become closer as friends, which would then show on screen.
And it clearly worked, as Her is one of Phoenix’s best movies and they are still friends in real life to this day. Amy Adams credits how close they are to Jonze’s little technique.
Director Steven Soderbergh Did An Edit Of The Movie
When it came to post-production, Jonze had an unexpectedly hard time cutting the movie together. The overall runtime at one point was around two hours and forty minutes, and he was struggling to remove anything to make it shorter.
With Jonze having a tight-knit group of friends in the industry, fellow director Steven Soderbergh offered to take a look at it, and within 24 hours, the Ocean’s Eleven director had snipped off over an hour. Though it wasn’t the final cut of the movie, Jonze expressed that it made him realize what scenes weren’t necessary and it helped him cut off half an hour.
