(Peter Kramer/The Associated Press files)

Most aspiring filmmakers hope to become famous. Jason Reitman just wanted to be anonymous.

The son of legendary Canadian director Ivan Reitman, the 31-year-old recognized early on that while nepotism will get you the gig in Hollywood, it won’t earn you much respect.

“I’m not an idiot. I have ears. I hear how people talk about the children of famous people. They’re not treated very well and their presumptions are usually awful.”

And so for years, remembers his father, Jason kept his fascination with filmmaking to himself.

“He was very careful to keep it a secret from my wife and I — and from everybody else. But he was there from the beginning. He was on the set of Animal House when he was 13 days old and never stopped. And he was clearly paying more attention than I realized, which is good.”

Still, Jason resisted what could be called the family business. Initially he studied to become a doctor. But it became clear during his first semester of pre-med, Ivan recalls, that he was unhappy.

“I went to him in that first semester and had a talk with him. I quoted him a line that my own father had said to me when I was going to open up a submarine shop business because I thought I could make some money. He had told me, ‘I’m sure you would do very well, but I don’t think there’s enough magic in it for you.’ And I basically said, ‘Being a doctor is a very noble profession and I’m sure you’d be a very fine doctor, but frankly there’s not enough magic in it for you.’ And he just relaxed after he heard that story.”

Relaxed maybe, but the younger Montreal-born Reitman was nevertheless determined to prove himself on his own terms.

“My father has taught me lessons my whole life and he’s most responsible for the storyteller that I’ve become,” Jason says.

“I’ve always showed him my stuff; he’s always looked at my material and given me great advice. But when I started my career, I didn’t want to make a movie with him because I was dead-set on establishing myself as my own director.”

So he cut his teeth making shorts and touring the “Darwinian” festival circuit. He was already a semi-regular at Sundance, TIFF and other fests before his feature-length debut, the satire Thank You for Smoking, arrived in theatres to critical acclaim in 2006. If he survived the culling process of the film festival scene, he reasoned, he would have proven himself on his own.

“I couldn’t imagine making a movie that didn’t play film festivals. When I think of other filmmakers like my father — every one of his films, they open and that’s it. They open and have a few huge weeks and if they’re good, they hold on for a while. The idea of it being so short-lived is heartbreaking to me. And truly while I’m writing and directing and editing, I’m thinking about the people who line up to see my movies. It’s those people that I make my movies for. And when I’m writing, I’m thinking, ‘How will they react to this?’ so the idea of skipping this entirely and going into a movie theatre for general audiences just seems heartbreaking.”

Indeed, in 2009 there is little family resemblance between the careers of father and son. While the elder Reitman is famed as the architect of such broad, big-hearted 1980s comedy blockbusters as Stripes and Ghostbusters, Jason’s films are comparatively introspective, cynical and driven by the rhythms of dialogue. He followed Thank You for Smoking with the Oscar-nominated smash Juno in 2007. The film won its screenwriter, Diablo Cody, an Academy Award and catapulted Halifax’s Ellen Page to insta-stardom.

“After Juno, I thought I’d established myself enough as my own director that I’d love to work with my father. It’s great to have a producer you can trust as much as family.”

And so for the first time, the two Reitmans share a producing credit on Up in the Air, based on the novel about a corporate grim reaper (George Clooney) whose detached, dehumanized lifestyle is challenged by two women: One, a professional rival (Anna Kendrick) who wants to ground his non-stop travelling; and an alluring no-strings frequent flyer (Vera Farmiga) who seems his emotional equal. Expect it to weigh in significantly at next year’s Academy Awards after it opens in December — including nominations for best film, director and actor.

Not that Up in the Air is the only film Reitman is busily promoting these days. His rapidly-growing influence now extends to films he is shepherding to release. He is one of the producers of Jennifer’s Body, the Megan Fox horror comedy written by Cody that opened this weekend. And he is the executive producer of Chloe, Atom Egoyan’s psychological drama, which his father produced and which stars Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore.

“My goal after Thank You for Smoking was to follow it up with films that came from my heart ... And if I could be successful, I wanted to help other filmmakers who wanted to make those kinds of films. I don’t have any intention of producing movies for the wrong reasons. I don’t want to do it for the money; I don’t want to do it just to have something popular out there.”

Reitman began work on Up in the Air six years ago. In the time since, he has gotten married to a Vancouverite and become a father. Given that Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, finds himself coping head-on with such crippling issues as commitment, mortality and loneliness, it’s no surprise Reitman describes the finished product as his most personal film to date. All the better, then, that it may also prove to be his most acclaimed. “If you’re exploring your own fears in a film, you don’t want people to be, ‘Meh.’ The reception’s been lovely.”

Yet however intimate and unique Up in the Air’s themes may be, many of Reitman’s signatures are evident as well.

For one, it features hyper-articulate characters who are as bright or brighter than your average moviegoer — compared to most films in which the characters are dumbed down so as not to make audiences feel inferior.

“I guess that’s why I like adapting books and I like Diablo,” he says. “She’s taken a lot of flak in the last year for her word choice, but it’s actually clever and the first time I read it, it had that feeling of a classic movie where I thought, ‘I’ve never heard any of these expressions but I know exactly what she means.’ I enjoy that. And I write tricky dialogue. I have to find the right kind of actors because I write paragraphs, not lines.”

And like his other films, Up in the Air, despite Clooney’s star presence, is modestly budgeted and difficult to categorize.

“I don’t know what a budget gets me other than a loss of control. I have no intention of making any superhero movies right now. I don’t really have any stories in mind that involve expensive scenarios.

“So right now when I think of an idea, my first intention is to make it as cheap as possible so that the people putting up the money are as confident in me. I don’t want them to be scared. What leads to more bad decisions in filmmaking than anything else is being nervous. And that’s whether your actors are scared or whether the financiers are scared. I’m not interested in spending a lot of money on a movie and I think by having that kind of respect for the studio and the fact they’re paying for things, they respect me back.”

Lastly, while Clooney’s cad is clearly the protagonist, the female roles are no less rewarding: Difficult, demanding and unusually dimensional.

What is it about female stories that attracts him so? “I don’t know, but it certainly does,” he says. “I got very excited about writing Maria Bello’s role in Thank You for Smoking. I got very excited directing Jen Garner and Ellen Page and Olivia Thirlby in Juno ... There are more original stories to tell about women at this point than there are about men.”

Says Farmiga, “He clearly has a great respect for women and was probably surrounded by them. I don’t know who his mother is, but I’m dying to meet her. His characters are sharp and sassy and eccentric.”

Reitman puts it another way: “(Women) are complicated and hard to understand. So anytime I’m given insight, I want to spread the knowledge like the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Jason good at scaring up interest

Whether it’s being fired by a faceless corporate bagman or eviscerated by a gorgeous cannibal, Jason Reitman has a handle on what scares audiences.

But what frightened the producer of Jennifer’s Body when he was growing up?

“The girl in the original Nightmare on Elm Street, getting thrown up on the ceiling, her shirt ripped open and the claw going across her chest and stomach. That hit me,” he remembers. “Also, a lot from The Shining. I was way too young (when I saw it). The two girls, the blood in the hallway, the music, the car driving through the canyon. The Omen: Lots of imagery from the first Omen. That movie f----- me up.”

Reitman didn’t direct Jennifer’s Body — he was busy prepping Up in the Air — even though he considers comedy and horror siblings.

“They are the result of filmmakers pushing people to places they don’t want to naturally go. You can sit through a drama and not do anything. But a successful horror or comedy director wants to elicit something.

“They want you to laugh or they want you to scream.”

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