Director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody at the Toronto Film Festival 2007 Photo by Matt Carr

Jason Bateman: The script was obviously something that was smart and had a personality and a character of its own, and this group of actors that were assembled along with a director who really knows how to make — and pardon the phrase — a film instead of a movie. That is something that, obviously, I am new to and was lucky to be invited to be a part of.

J.K. Simmons: It was absolutely all on the page and that was one of the first things that jumped out at me, too, when I first read it. There may be a couple of other times in my life that I have read a screenplay and thought this is word-perfect. Diablo created not only this structurally brilliant screenplay, but this world and dialogue of characters that is just flawless.

Olivia Thirlby: What I think is kind of special about the way teenagers are written in the script is they are not actually written differently than the adult characters, which is something that a lot of writers don't get. Yes, teenagers are younger people, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they speak in a completely different, uneducated way. And so the dialogue is a very specific style of dialogue, perhaps not a way most people speak to each other regularly, but I appreciate that the teenager characters aren't written as specifically more or less funny than the adult characters.

Jason Reitman: I had a friend who gave me the script. I fell in love with the script. I loved the voice. I loved its attitude. I loved its originality. I have an adopted sister. I went through an oddly similar experience when my parents decided to adopt, and I had a social worker come to our house and interview us. [Reitman is the son of director Ivan Reitman]. We had to audition as a family. In a weird way, Diablo had come from the experience of Juno because her friend had gone through a teenage pregnancy. I had gone through the [Mark and Vanessa] Loring experience. I just connected with the material. I thought it was original and really clever and such a fresh voice. I wanted to be the guy to get to tell that story.

Ellen Page and Olivia Thirlby in Juno Doane Gregory/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

ON THE CHARACTERS

"If I could just have the thing and give it to you now, I totally would, but I am guessing it looks probably like a sea monkey right now. We should let it get a little cuter, right?" — Juno MacGuff

Ellen Page on Juno: She is honest. She is just so herself. And it is just so unbelievably refreshing to have that in a film that might get seen and that I feel passionate about — which is nice because usually the films I feel passionate about, nobody sees!...[Juno] says what she thinks. She listens to the kind of music she wants to listen to. She doesn't give a crap about the way people are judging her. I really respect that. I read the script a couple of years ago, originally. And I always wanted to play this role. And it just made sense after An American Crime, which was a hard film to shoot, especially because it was based on a true story. It worked out very well.

Olivia Thirlby on Leah: It was such a pleasure to play Ellen's friend because we are friends in real life. We knew each other before this movie, and we were actually attached to another film together [Bradley Rust Gray's Jack and Diane], and still are, but that came about before Juno. So it was a lovely time. Juno and Leah are a little bit like Ellen and myself, [but] definitely extreme versions. I don't have any of the same interests as Leah herself.