Guess what’s coming to DVD on Tuesday? Here’s a hint: It improbably mined the touchy issue of teen pregnancy for comedy, and if you’re over the age of 50, you probably didn’t understand every third word of its script.
It’s “Juno,” the honest-to-blog indie hit of 2007, starring Ellen Page as a high schooler who gets knocked up by her geeky best friend (Michael Cera) and decides to give the baby up for adoption to a seemingly perfect yuppie couple (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner).
The combination of great performances and a pitch-black comedy script from Diablo Cody stuffed with a slang dictionary’s worth of creative language propelled the film to more than $140 million in domestic box office and multiple Oscar nods, including one for Best Picture.
It’s doubtful anyone – including the film’s stars – saw that coming.
“Yeah, I was surprised,” says J.K. Simmons, the versatile character actor who plays Juno’s father, Mac MacGuff. “I’ve done a lot of good small indie movies. This may be the best, but the fact that it actually got seen was a surprise and very gratifying.”
And here’s what a nonplussed Cera told The Post last December about the movie’s building buzz.
“No, I haven’t heard anything. Friends of mine keep telling me they’re seeing the trailer, but that’s about it,” he said.
So how did it hit so big? Simmons says it was one of those rare projects when everything came together.
“Everybody that got a hold of the script was in love with it from day one. And it absolutely could not have landed in better hands than [director] Jason Reitman’s, who’s a genius.
“[He] told me when he first read the script he had 75 percent of the movie cast. He was able to get his first choices in most of those roles because he had had success with his first movie, ‘Thank You For Smoking,'” says Simmons.
“I knew Jason already because I’d done his first film. So he handed me this script, but he didn’t say, ‘Look at the part of Mac MacGuff.’ He just said, ‘This is a really cool script. I think I’m going to get to do it.’ So reading it, the first thing that jumped out at me was, gee, I wish I’d get a chance to play Mac MacGuff. It looks like a really cool part,” he adds.
Simmons enjoyed “Juno” so much that the usually publicity-averse actor even agreed to appear in an online parody called “Jewno,” written by “Daily Show” scribe Rob Kutner.
“I was just talking to Paul Rudd – I’m starting this film with him [‘I Love You, Man’] – and we were talking about ‘Jewno,’ and the director John Hamburg mentioned it and said, ‘I’m watching this thing and it’s funny as hell, and they got an unbelievable J.K. Simmons look-alike to play that part.’ Then it dawned on him,” Simmons says.
In the world of paying gigs, Simmons is currently shooting Diablo Cody’s next feature, “Jennifer’s Body,” about a demonic cheerleader who murders her male classmates.
“In some ways it’s the anti-‘Juno,’ because it’s a horror flick,” Simmons says. “There’s no getting around it. It’s satirical, it’s funny, it has what will become the trademark Diablo Cody snappy dialogue, but yeah, it’s a horror flick. It’s a weird, bold choice for her to make.”
Until then, satisfy yourself with the horror of awkward teens having sex in “Juno.”