Writer and director Jason Reitman is the man behind hit movies like Thank You for Smoking and Juno. His latest box office offering, Up in the Air, is about Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney, who makes his living crisscrossing the country firing people. He's passionate about his solitary way of life until an eager young colleague and a beautiful woman turn his idea of happiness upside down.

Jason started writing Up in the Air seven years ago, long before the economy took a turn for the worse, but over time the movie evolved into an honest look at how the economic downturn affects everyday people on a very personal level. "I thought I was making a movie about a single man, about a guy who was trying to figure out who and what he wanted in his life," he says. "And over the course of writing it, the world changed. ... We went from an economic book to one of the worst recessions on record. So the film just began to reflect what was going on."

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