.:: CNN Showbiz Tonight Interview 11.15.05 ::.

HAMMER: Welcome back to SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. I`m A.J. Hammer. Tonight in a "SHOWBIZ Sitdown," Jon Favreau, who burst onto the movie scene back in 1996 with the sleeper hit "Swingers." That is a cult classic now. The movie depicted the L.A. hipster scene, and it really launched Favreau`s career.

He went on to direct "Made," a movie about two wannabe mobsters, and of course, "Elf," the Will Ferrell holiday comedy. Favreau is back in the director`s chair once again. This time it`s a space adventure, "Zathura". Jon Favreau joining us live on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT.

Nice to see you. How are you doing?

JON FAVREAU, ACTOR/DIRECTOR: I like your new digs.

HAMMER: I`m happy to have you here.

FAVREAU: Pretty cool.

HAMMER: It`s your first time on the program.

FAVREAU: It is.

HAMMER: We welcome you with open arms.

FAVREAU: Thank you.

HAMMER: Of course, I mentioned "Swingers," the cult classic now, but it really is what put you on the map for most people.

FAVREAU: That`s right.

HAMMER: Depicting that hipster scene that you were a part of back, what, nine, 10 years ago in Hollywood.

FAVREAU: Yes, it`s about 10 years old now.

HAMMER: Things have changed a little bit since then in terms of that Hollywood scene. We think of, you know, the paparazzi bursts with Tara Reid and Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, of course. If that were the scene, if you were just getting into Hollywood now and that`s the scene, is that something you`d be a part of?

FAVREAU: Oh, I don`t think -- it was going on then. They just didn`t care about us. But you know, ironically, now when I go out with Vince, it couldn`t be more paparazzi laden. And you know, we used to just go out and hit the local bars. It was a lot of fun, you know. And now with all the attention on him and on Aniston and on, you know, and his movies are, you know, doing a lot of business. Now he`s a big star. I just say he was "GQ" man of the year.

HAMMER: Yes, of course, you`re talking about Vince Vaughn, to be sure, who you did "Swingers" with and were friends with back then. And you guys were living very much in the background of the Hollywood scene.

FAVREAU: Yes. It was weird. I just worked with him on "The Breakup" with him, which started out in Chicago. And it was -- you know, it was Aniston and Vince together. So that was -- it was starting to percolate, like the paparazzi, and it started to get a lot of attention, but it wasn`t until we came back to L.A. that it was like we can`t even hang out and go out when everybody wants to get together. We have to sort of hide.

HAMMER: What`s it like for you, though. As a guy who knows him from back then and when you guys were just trying to make your way in Hollywood and now, you know, "GQ" magazine. And everybody wants to know are he and Jennifer Aniston together or are they not? He`s your best friend. You`re seeing him all over the place on these magazines. Is that -- how weird is that?

FAVREAU: It`s weird, because I know what a toll it`s taking on the guy. I mean, you couldn`t get a more down-to-earth guy, a guy who never wants people around him, never has a bodyguard or driver or any of that. He`ll just go out and handle his own business, and he`s very gracious.

And now, you know, from you know, anytime that -- you know, we all worked on a movie together, so if Aniston comes out with us, it turns into a whole different thing, because she`s had all of these people following her around for years.

HAMMER: So now he does have to take those precautions and have bodyguards and things like that?

FAVREAU: No, he doesn`t do it, but you can`t -- he still handles himself, as he always has, but you know...

HAMMER: You say...

FAVREAU: ... you find yourself not going out to go to drink at the Dresden where we might have gone or go out to a bar. You end up hanging out at somebody`s place.

HAMMER: I love the Dresden.

FAVREAU: To be with my best friend.

HAMMER: We`ll talk about that later. But you say it`s taking a toll on him, other than not being able to go out how you might have once.

FAVREAU: Actually, it`s just frustrating.

HAMMER: Is it beating him down?

FAVREAU: It`s just frustrating; it`s draining. Because you know, here -- he came to the premiere of "Zathura," and he comes down the line. He wants to see his friends, Peter Billingsley, and myself, who worked on this movie. He wanted to check it out.

And all of a sudden, everybody`s asking him all these questions, and not for nothing. I mean, I can tell you just categorically everything I`ve heard in the tabloids has either been exaggerated or made up. So it becomes -- I think it becomes -- it wears him down.

I know that Jennifer was working on her "Derailed" junket. And everybody`s asking her questions about everything.

HAMMER: That`s the way everything is.

FAVREAU: That`s the way everything is. You know, people are rooting for them, I think, to be together and for all those things to be true. So I can`t blame, you know, people for liking the two -- the idea that the two of them might be together, but I know it just is very tough for both of them. Because they`re, you know, they`re very down-to-earth people, and they don`t want to be bothered with all this craziness.

HAMMER: Well, you mentioned being at the big premiere for "Zathura." And we had Tim Robbins here on the program the other day. Quite a path you`ve had from, you know, those indie flicks like "Swingers" to the big, big blockbuster kids movies like "Elf" and now "Zathura."

Is this a path -- you hear a lot of directors say, well, "Now that I have kids, I want to make a movie that my kids will be able to watch." Is that the deal? Are you going off in this direction, or it`s just what you`re doing at the moment?

FAVREAU: Well, I learned with "Elf" that you can really make a movie that makes everybody laugh and entertains everybody and have it be a PG movie where it`s appropriate for kids. You don`t have to make a dumb movie, just because it`s PG.

My 4-year-old could follow the plot of most PG-13 movies. It`s just that there are things that aren`t appropriate.

So I say make the best movie you can. When I was watching family movies growing up, and I was watching Spielberg stuff like "E.T." and "Close Encounters," those weren`t kids` movies just because they were PG. They were -- they were family movies, for everybody.

And I think that if you`re going to go into the movie theater and pay that kind of money it should be an experience that everybody can enjoy together and discuss and laugh at. And if you like my sensibility from my other movies, here`s a movie that just sort of breaks into another genre, has a very nostalgia sensibility, and kids really go crazy for it. And the reviews have been very good.

HAMMER: Congratulations on it, Jon.

FAVREAU: We`re very happy with it.

HAMMER: We`re really happy to see you doing so well, Jon Favreau, a New York boy especially.

FAVREAU: Thank you.

HAMMER: A home towner.

FAVREAU: Yes.

HAMMER: Nice to have you on the program.

FAVREAU: Thanks a lot.

HAMMER: "Zathura" is, as we mentioned, is in theaters now.