Development
The idea of the film initially came to Jonze in the early 2000s when he read an article online that mentioned a website where a user could instant message with an artificial intelligence. "For the first, maybe, 20 seconds of it, it had this real buzz," said Jonze. "I'd say 'Hey, hello,' and it would say 'Hey, how are you?', and it was like whoa [...] this is trippy. After 20 seconds, it quickly fell apart and you realized how it actually works, and it wasn't that impressive. But it was still, for 20 seconds, really exciting. The more people that talked to it, the smarter it got."[16] Jonze's interest in the project was renewed after directing the short film I'm Here (2010), which shares similar themes.[17] Inspiration also came from Charlie Kaufman's writing approach for Synecdoche, New York (2008). Jonze explained, "[Kaufman] said he wanted to try to write everything he was thinking about in that moment – all the ideas and feelings at that time – and put it into the script. I was very inspired by that, and tried to do that in [Her]. And a lot of the feelings you have about relationships or about technology are often contradictory."[16]
Jonze took five months to write the first draft of the script, his first screenplay written alone.[18] It was a semi-autobiographical project about his divorce from Sofia Coppola a decade earlier.[19] One of the first actors he envisioned for the film was Joaquin Phoenix.[20] In late 2011, Phoenix signed on to the project, with Warner Bros. Pictures acquiring US and German distribution rights.[21] Carey Mulligan entered negotiations to star in the film.[22] Although she was cast, she later dropped out due to scheduling difficulties.[23] In April 2012, Rooney Mara signed on to replace Mulligan in the role.[24] Chris Pratt's casting was announced in May 2013.[25]
Jonze's long-time director of photography, Lance Acord, was not available to work on the movie. In his place, Jonze hired Hoyte van Hoytema.[26] In discussing the film's look, Jonze told Van Hoytema that he wanted to avoid a dystopian look, instead the two decided on a style that Van Hoytema termed "kind of a hybrid between being a little bit conceptual and being very theoretical",[26] Van Hoytema took particular inspiration from Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi.[26] In keeping with the film's theme, Van Hoytema sought to eliminate the color blue as much as possible, feeling it was too well associated with the sci-fi genre.[26] He also felt that by eliminating the color it would give the rest of the colors "a specific identity".[26]
Filming
Principal photography on Her took place in mid-2012,[27] with a production budget of $23 million.[2] It was primarily filmed in Los Angeles including the Warner Bros. backlot, along with the Bradbury Building serving as Theodore's apartment building. The skyline and some of the cityscape were filmed in Shanghai, China for an additional two weeks.[28][29] During production of the film, actress Samantha Morton performed the role of Samantha by acting on set "in a four-by-four carpeted soundproof booth made of black painted plywood and soft, noise-muffling fabric." At Jonze's suggestion, she and Joaquin Phoenix avoided seeing each other on set during filming.[30] Morton was later replaced by Scarlett Johansson. Jonze explained: "It was only in post-production, when we started editing, that we realized that what the character/movie needed was different from what Samantha and I had created together. So we recast and since then Scarlett has taken over that role."[31] Morton is credited as an associate producer.[32] Jonze met Johansson in the spring of 2013 and worked with her for four months.[20][29] Following the recast, new scenes were shot in August 2013, which were either "newly imagined" or "new scenes that [Jonze] had wanted to shoot originally but didn't."[29]
Post-production
Eric Zumbrunnen and Jeff Buchanan served as the film's editors. Zumbrunnen stated that there was "rewriting" in a scene between Theodore and Samantha, after Theodore goes on a blind date. He explained that their goal in the scene was to make it clear that "she (Samantha) was connecting with him (Theodore) and feeling for him. You wanted to get the sense that the conversation was drawing them closer."[33] Steven Soderbergh became involved in the film when Jonze's original cut ran over 150 minutes, and Soderbergh cut it down to 90 minutes. This was not the final version of the film, but it assisted Jonze in removing unnecessary sub-plots. Consequently, a supporting character played by Chris Cooper that was the subject of a documentary within the film was removed from the final cut.[29]
Several scenes included fictional video games; these sequences were developed by animation artist David OReilly. His work on the film inspired him to explore developing his own video games, eventually leading to his first title, Mountain.[34]
