What it's like to get a Wes Anderson education, from 'Rushmore' to 'Asteroid City'

Cast of Wes Anderson's latest — Tony Revolori, Jason Schwartzman, and others — on working with the critically-acclaimed director

By AP

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Published: Thu 22 Jun 2023, 1:07 PM

Last updated: Thu 22 Jun 2023, 1:09 PM

When Tony Revolori, then a 17-year-old with little Hollywood experience, was beginning to shoot Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Jason Schwartzman took him aside to give some advice.

No one knew better than Schwartzman what Revolori, who was starring alongside Ralph Fiennes, was in for. Schwartzman was by then a regular member of Anderson’s troupe, but he was also 17 when he first broke through as Max Fischer in Anderson’s Rushmore.

“He looked at me and he said, ‘None of this is going to make sense until you’ve actually gone through it,’” Revolori recalls. “Your life is going to change in no way and every way. But as long as you keep the people around you, you’re good.’”

Much has been made of Anderson’s recurring regulars, like Bill Murray, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson. But for many young actors, Anderson’s film sets have been their first real blush with moviemaking — or, at least, Anderson’s elegant style of it.

Since Rushmore introduced Schwartzman, Anderson’s films have been nurturing, if surreal, environments for young performers and a singular rite of passage. Anderson's productions are atypically communal, with nightly feasts among cast and crew, and a spirit that can resemble summer camp. For young actors, it can be a thrilling education.

“This is one of the most powerful learning experiences I’ve ever had,” says Grace Edwards, one of the newcomers of Anderson's latest, Asteroid City.

Part of the joy of Asteroid City is seeing successive generations of Anderson actors, including Schwartzman, Revolori and a new crop of young faces, assemble like homegrown players on a team of all-stars. For Schwartzman, it brings back memories of his Rushmore audition — his first glimpse at Anderson's way of treating young actors. On his way out, Anderson asked his opinion about a wardrobe item.

“While I was answering it, I was thinking: Why does this feel so bizarre?” says Schwartzman. “I realized because no adult other than my family had, at that age, asked me a question and really listened to the answer. I was being related to by a person who was 27. He was an adult, but not.”

In the years since, the young actors who have come through Anderson’s films — often in prominent roles — have had similar encounters. Jake Ryan was just seven when he played a younger brother in 2012's Moonrise Kingdom.

“I don’t remember much, but I remember feeling at home there,” says Ryan, now 19. “It felt very cozy.”

Asteroid City, which opens in UAE cinemas on June 29, may be Anderson's most multigenerational film yet. The story features frames within frames, but the heart of the movie concerns a fictional 1955 Southwest town where a widowed war photographer named Augie Steenbeck (Schwartzman) arrives with his bright son Woodrow (Ryan, in his third Anderson movie) and three younger daughters.

A visit with their grandfather (Tom Hanks) awaits, but first there’s a stargazer convention to commemorate a meteorite impact. The gathering has also lured a renowned movie star (Scarlett Johansson) and her intelligent daughter (Grace Edwards).

The pains, regrets and melancholies of the adult characters mingle with the fresher but no less complex experiences of the teenagers getting a taste of love, death and fellowship for the first time.

In Anderson’s films, younger characters tend to be just as adult, if not more so, than the grown-ups. Gene Hackman’s Royal Tenenbaum or George Clooney’s Fantastic Mr. Fox are far from paragons of maturity. Moonrise Kingdom starred Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman as a pair of 12-year-old runaway romantics who sway to Françoise Hardy’s Les Temps de l’Amour. Revolori’s “lobby boy” Zero played sidekick to Fiennes’ concierge, M. Gustave.

Revolori describes Anderson as almost “a pseudo father.” After Grand Budapest came out, they continued to regularly email. Revolori depended on Anderson's advice in navigating his career.

“I think he enjoys working with young performers and discovering someone that he sees talent in and giving them an opportunity. I sure as hell am very, very thankful for it. It obviously kind of made my career there,” Revolori says, chuckling.

“Somebody like Tony — and exactly the same with Jake and Grace — they are wildly prepared,” says Anderson himself. “But they also have young minds. The brain tissue is younger. They can remember everything. So their knowledge of the script is so ready and enhanced. They tend to be interesting just as animals. We’ve never seen them before. They’re new, young people and they’re still forming themselves.”

Revolori, now 27, has been reluctant to turn mentor, even though he's remained in the company, returning in The French Dispatch and Asteroid City.

“I feel like I have to keep proving myself in his films. They’re always the best times so I never not want to be called back,” says Revolori. “Every time I do get called back I’m like, ‘You better be on your A-game.’ And I wonder if anyone else feels that way.

“But I do feel like I’m part of his family.”

For Anderson and Schwartzman, Asteroid City marks just how far they’ve come since they met. In the film, Schwartzman’s manner, accent and movement are unlike anything he’s done before — a father, and a far cry from Max Fischer.

“When we made Rushmore, he relied a lot on me,” says Anderson. “Now, in a way, he doesn’t rely on me at all. He went to the set every day whether he was working or not in costume — not something I asked him to do. He had a ritual for how to prepare each day that I wasn’t even aware of. There was nothing like that back when we met. He’s on a totally different level.”

Schwartzman, 42, wasn't even sure he could pull off the part. He worked extensively with a dialect coach and even used a moisturising clay to mould his face into a more rigid expression.

"When you know someone for so long, there’s really no hiding,” Schwartzman says of Anderson. “Reading the script, it was definitely like: I don’t know how to do this. I felt like what he was saying by giving this to me was: ‘I think you have this in you.’”