By James Oliver Cury
If you have ever been mystified, rejected or dumped by a woman, then you feel the Jon Favreau pain. His characters tend to be super-earnest, confused, average Joes rolling with the punches, as he did in films like Swingers and Very Bad Things. But it hasn't been all bad; somehow he also managed to get it on with mega-hottie co-stars like Courteney Cox (he played Monica's boyfriend on Friends), Cameron Diaz and Heather Graham.
When we chatted with Favreau recently, he was producing the upcoming Christmas flick Elf (starring Will Farrell and James Caan) in between shooting episodes of his own dinner/talk show Dinner for Five, which appears on the Independent Film Channel (IFC). He can be seen in Daredevil, the action-adventure film starring Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell, based on the famous comic book. Ever the pro, Favreau tried to be coy when discussing sex, but he ended up spilling the beans about his virginity, his most memorable onscreen kiss and why he likes a pretty face more than a sexy pair of legs.
1. When did you lose your virginity?
Jon Favreau: I was 16 years old and in high school. I lost it to a girl from the Upper West Side in Manhattan; I was from Queens. The biggest thing I realized was that I thought everyone had done it before me, but after I did it, I realized that most of my friends hadn't yet. I wanted to get it done by 16 -- I don't know what it's like now...trust me, it was a long time before it happened again.
2. How did the Swingers success affect your love life?
JF: You end up being on the level of a nice-looking girl. So you might get a drink bought for you, and you might get a smile from across the room. Basically, it puts you on even ground with what girls experience on a normal day-to-day basis.
3. Don't women proposition you?
JF: I mostly get scripts. People go out of their way to send me scripts. And to be honest, I can't read the scripts. It's quite a commitment to have someone send you a 120-page script to read and I'm busy making my own scripts. I'm not even supposed to take a script for legal reasons. People feel like if they leave a script at my door, that's going to lead to something. I try to be encouraging, but giving me a script won't help anybody. I've never heard of anybody getting a script unsolicited, reading it, loving it and then making their dream come true. It just doesn't work that way.
4. What's the sexiest movie or movie scene of all time?
JF: The Thomas Crown Affair, the original. Oh, you wanna know what the sexiest scene is? Cool Hand Luke -- the woman washing the car.
5. Do you have an ideal "type"?
JF: I tend to like women who have not been augmented too heavily, surgically.
6. OK, but are you a leg man or a breast man or a face man?
JF: You spend so much time looking at the person and into their eyes, and this sounds like I'm lying but it's true. Once you're with somebody, you never see their legs again. Legs look good from across the room, but when you're next to them, then it's just a show for other people. So I think the face is the most important part -- and nice skin especially.
