Tribute To A Friend

My beautiful friend Jason Constantine and I. He taught me a lot about life, just by being himself.

There are certain cliches about the movie business that turn out to be very real. Getting notes on a script from a studio really DOES feel like getting a colonoscopy without an anesthetic. Screenwriters really DO like to complain when they gather in large groups. Producers really DO look over your shoulder at parties to see if there’s anyone more important they should be talking to. And then, every once in a while, a person comes along that bucks the usual narrative. The first example I can think of is my friend Jason Constantine. A studio executive at Lionsgate, Jason was the person who oversaw all of the Saw movies (he also had a huge hand in shaping many other incredibly successful film franchises, such as John Wick and The Expendables). Studio executives - so the cliche goes - are often seen as the enemy of artists. Jason was an exception to this perception - he was relentlessly, almost aggressively, positive. He never appeared stressed or came across as conniving. To him, we were all lucky to be working in movies. And his attitude was infectious to anyone who breathed the same air as him. Recently, Jason passed away after a long, tough battle with brain cancer. I genuinely loved him and I wanted to write a little something about him so that more people could see what I saw. 

Jason was a Star Wars nerd first. That was his gateway drug into movies. After graduating from Yale University (and meeting his future wife Kristin, equally as amazing and kind as he was), his parents must have had high hopes that he would pack his bags for New York and become a highly sought after lawyer. Unfortunately for their dreams, Jason’s love of movies had other ideas and he drove the opposite direction to Los Angeles. He ended up at Lionsgate and that is where he worked his entire career. I first met him when Lionsgate acquired a little film I had written entitled Saw. James Wan, the director of said film, and I had only recently arrived in Los Angeles from Australia - and we could not have looked more naive if we’d gotten off the plane with a bindle over our shoulder and a stick of straw between our teeth. In a city where dead eyed people talk about how a film is “tracking” as if that’s a thing that normal, well adjusted human beings do, we needed some innocent, wide eyed appreciation from somebody. Anybody. Enter Jason. 

The first time we really hung out was the opening night of Saw. James and myself rented a limousine and packed in as many people as we could. We drove around to different movie theaters and in a moment I’ll be eternally grateful for, we got to witness the last gasps of the monoculture that we didn’t know was in it’s last days. You know how there’s these old idioms that were born in a different era and have no modern relatability but we still use them today? “Burning the midnight oil” is one, “hold your horses” is another. Well, I’ve never used an oil-burning candle or traveled anywhere by horse, but I did get to actually witness a real life “line to the box office”. Our film was a hit and we were hanging out with exactly the right person to help celebrate that  - Jason Constantine. He introduced us to In N Out Burgers that night (I remember not being impressed and thinking that it was just McDonald’s with better marketing) and a long friendship was born. 

Over the years, Jason taught me a lot about life. About never letting cynicism wear you down, about friendship and about gift giving. Let me be clear - there was no better giver of gifts in the world than Jason. He was the exact opposite of the person who stops in at a store on the way to the party and gets a bottle of George Clooney’s tequila for the birthday boy or girl, hastily scrawling a card ten seconds before walking in the door (I’m not judging this person - I’ve been them many times). Jason would make an event out of his gifts. He would think about the perfect thing to get you a year in advance. He would plot and plan, marshaling other people to help him realize this scheme. If he was browsing in a used bookstore in Venice, Italy and his eye happened to wander over something he knew you would like, he would purchase it right then and there and store it, waiting for the exact right milestone to bestow it upon you. And he wouldn’t just hand you the gift - he would talk to you about how it found it’s way to you and why it needed to be in your hands at this very moment. The biggest lesson he taught me though, was about being a father. 

Jason had a Christmas tradition that really changed my thinking about what being a good parent really means. One year, when his three sons were young, he decided that a Christmas themed train set needed to be built in his front yard. Having no idea about model trains or how to build them, he set about cobbling one together. He journeyed to a hardware store and purchased a large plywood board to erect it upon. He trawled through Etsy and bought miniature Christmas trees. He scavenged his sons lego collections to find a human population for this mini world. And through sheer blood, sweat and beers, he cobbled together a passable train set with a Christmas theme. It sat in his front yard for the month of December and he was proud of it. A few neighbors even stopped by to gawk at it with their children.

And then a wonderful thing happened. 

The whole train set thing then became an actual tradition. The next year, he went even bigger. He bought more miniature buildings and figured out how to make the best fake snow. He used lights to give it color and Bluetooth speakers to add sound. He enlisted his sons to help and it became a true family activity. When they finally unveiled their work to the neighborhood, a few curious people turned into a steady stream of onlookers. Suddenly, hundreds of people turned up in front of his house and took photos. Children gazed in wonder. The Christmas train set became a holiday tradition for the entire neighborhood - and for Jason’s family. As his sons grew older and their priorities shifted from Santa Claus to girls and Game Boys, they continued to help build the train set. When I went to visit Jason in the last month of his illness, he could no longer muster the strength to move let alone build a Christmas themed train set. It didn’t matter though - his three adult sons were out in the front yard, building it for him. 

I love you, Jason. Thank you for teaching me about the effort and time you have to put in to leave your loved ones with something that they can carry on without you. xo