“Gene Hackman is somebody who is also iconic, and he is not easy to direct, does not like to be directed, but it is exciting to work with him, because you know you see what you wrote brought to life in the way you just couldn't have anticipated, and that's exactly what I wanted except better.”

~ Wes Anderson

By Catzie Vilayphonh  |  Send to Friend

When I was first informed I would be interviewing Wes Anderson, I told all my friends. Like ALL of my friends. On top of being the most Hollywood interview I would ever do, Wes Anderson is something of a pop-culture phenomenon, yet still discernable, intelligent, artsy and indie enough. And then, of course. after all that boasting, I thought I'd have to do a damn good job: research questions, look up past interviews -- even asking friends for a helping hand. After careful consideration I had a healthy list of 12 questions to go with -- some pertaining to his current work -- "The Darjeeling Limited," which was what he was currently promoting -- some regarding his quirky sense of humor as a way to deal with tragedy; his stable of ensemble actors; and the most confrontational question, inspired by a "Slate Magazine" article, concerning his use of race as a backdrop, while continuing to weave his plots around upper-crust rich white people.

I knew it might have been dodgy, but it was significant not only because it seemed true of all of his previous films, but, also, because it resonated the most in "Darjeeling" which, naturally, was set in India. I also planned to throw in some lighter questions, and I pledged that I wasn't going to ask about Owen Wilson, so I felt vindicated.

As the day of the interview drew near, I envisioned what the actual experience might look like. We'd be in a hotel suite of course, sitting in the living room. I'd be comfortably seated in a chair with my little notebook and recorder set dutifully on a table. Wes would be in his pajamas, sipping on some tea in between questions, occasionally getting up to walk over to the window, making comments about what he saw on the street below. I knew that Wes was an auteur, and that among writing, directing, producing and picking music he also played a heavy role in the set design. I had also heard somewhere that he liked animals, and I was nervous about possibly belong photographed so I got this crazy idea to bring along my friend Mike to take pictures, and let my friend Tina style me and got my friend Lynda to lend me some animal jewelry. Boy, did I overdo it: an elephant chain, a jaguar-rabbit necklace, bunny rabbit rings. I was Noah's Ark dipped in gold and silver. The closer the moment came when I would interview him, I realized that I had become as involved with each little detail as he must have been with his own movies. I couldn't wait.

Let me tell you now, before I build this up too much, that I failed miserably. What actually took place was a group roundtable discussion among Wes, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Copolla and Waris Ahluwalia (the Sikh Indian actor who plays the train conductor and also the ship captain in "The Life Aquatic") and about a dozen other journalists, far too many to be stuffed into this room. And I had to share my precious thirty-five minutes with the bunch of them as they, obviously knowing what to have expected, aggressively asked one question after another, taking over the whole interview. I only had a chance to blurt out one thing: "Why did you pick India?"

That's right, I had to sit through idiotic questions along the lines of "If "The Royal Tennenbaums" took a train tip, where do you think they would go?" I only got to ask one question. A single, lonely, solo question that anybody, anywhere, could've asked.

I'm not entirely sure where the confusion came about but even my Editor-in-Chief was stumped. Damn those publicists! I was so disappointed that it wasn't like anything I had prepared for I didn't even try to ask my favorite question of the bunch. Fortunately, there were some journalists present who had similar questions to the ones I had thoughtfully prepared, so it wasn't a complete waste. And since this is an interview feature, I didn't want to disappoint any readers any further so I've decided to selectively pick out the good questions and answer and post them here.

Could you talk about some of the happy accidents that occurred during filming that become part of the film?

Roman: Most of the script I find interesting because I have been around several movie sets and the text isn’t really adhered to it necessarily, but the script of this film and the final product is very, very, very similar. One would think there was a lot of improvisation and so it was a kind of compliment to hear, but in fact, it was all scripted.

Jason: In fact, no words were really ever improvised, but I will say that shooting in the environment that we were shooting in, for instance with a moving train, so much of the environment was unpredictable physically that, you know, no two takes probably ever looked the same, because in one take you are saying the lines, and you do it, and then you take two, half way through your line a cows walks through, and you kind of have to look at the cow.

Wes: Take three has a cow in it.

When you went on the trip, when you started, did you know what the basic story would be and then you got the experiences and then put it in, or did you have no clue did you start with it?

Wes: We had a story about the brothers traveling together. But we did not have anywhere near as a strong a sense of India.

Me: Why did you pick India?

Wes: Well, for me it was -- it really came from movies, I mean from Satyajit Ray’s films, films, from movies and documentaries about India you know 30-40 years ago and a John Renoir movie called "The River." Then, I have a number of friends that are from India who told me about India for many years, and those are the things that interested me and at a certain point it just reached a certain level, and I was like this is it, that’s where I want to work next. And then I went for the first time.

You’ve put together some great cast, who would you like to lure into your ensemble that you haven’t worked with yet?

Wes: Clint Eastwood, you know, that is probably tough.

What sort of role do you envision him playing?

Wes: I don’t know, I mean, that’s the first time that thought even popped into my head. I don’t know where I came up with Clint Eastwood.

Do you think it would be a daunting?

Wes: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that is the appealing thing about it, is – Gene Hackman is somebody who is also iconic, and he is not easy to direct, does not like to be directed, but it is exciting to work with him, because you know you see what you wrote brought to life in the way you just couldn't have anticipated, and that's exactly what I wanted except better.

I wonder if you could just respond to the biggest rap on you as a director, that you keep making the same movie over and over again in different locations.

Wes: Okay, the thumbnail version of it is I don’t mind that, and I can’t really pay too much attention to critical response because I have got to just do what I think is right, and I don’t mind my movies being connected to each other in some way, so it is really -- it is everybody has their own play, everybody has their own experience when they watch a movie, and it is just that is out of my control, but what is in my control is I can stay true to what I want to do and what I am interested in and the three of us in our story we can make our decision just on the basis of our story.

Jason: And if I may just jump in, I also think that this film isn’t like any of Wes’ movies before. I think all of his movies are actually very different but I think this movie is very different from the one from all of them because I noticed just being on the set and being directed by Wes, it was the intent, and the intention was a much more wild and freeing environment, and I think it is a major point of departure, and Wes said early on “I want this to be unpredictable, if we are writing the script, there is a red car picks up the brothers, but the day we shoot they bring us blue truck, then shoot the blue truck”. So, I think he embraced the unpredictableness of reality or whatever, of India, and I think there is a major -- that is a big different, and I think this is like the most kind of raw and wonderful picture he has done in that direction.

So there you have it. My almost interview.

Mike's photography is alot more interesting that what we were working with, see more of it at www.visualdiction.com

 

Next Week: Lin Yee Yuan, A Woman About Many Towns