At the time you said ‘The Life Aquatic’ was your most difficult film to make because you shot on water, had this gigantic crew, etc. But ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ is a big, ambitious undertaking too. Was it more difficult?
No, it wasn’t. Because we are much better organized this time. I also have had the experience of doing X-number of more movies and seeing all the kinds of ways movies can go wrong and especially making a choice to not put myself in those same positions.
“Owen and I did have a Western idea. We never wrote it. We had a very peculiar kind of a Western.”
I don’t want to be going over budget and over schedule. I don’t want to be spending more money that I think isn’t really right for the kind of story I’m telling. You know, I want to make the movie a more reasonable kind of undertaking. I want to be extremely frugal, which with a movie means to me: I want to do every single thing that’s in the screenplay but I want to find a way to do it that is the most efficient and I want to force ourselves to find economical versions of doing these things because as long as those solutions end up being things that I feel like I like, more than if we just had the money.
So it’s trying to find a way where it feels like there’s no compromise and yet there’s no feeling of waste. Sometimes movies you know – it’s no fun for the movie to drag on and luxury, there’s certain kinds of luxuries that are fun on a movie and there’s certain kinds of luxuries that to me are no fun. Like trailers and things like that. Having six cameras going and two second units. A second unit, and a third unit and all that kind of stuff. There’s a lot of stuff that you know, I don’t want to have a big fleet of trucks out there and all that stuff.
Director James Gray told me that you wrote a part for him or tried to get him into ‘Life Aquatic.’
Yes, that’s right. He was meant to be. The person we have is such a great actor, it’s played by Noah Taylor but before it was Noah, and in fact before we had James in mind we had [screenwriter/producer/Anderson friend] Wally Wolodarsky who has been in lots of my movies. And the character is called Vladimir Wolodarsky. But James was just one of the people who passed on it but the thing is the person we ended up with happens to be a spectacular actor. Who I had not even thought I could approach with this small part but he said yes, I think partly because he was happy to go live in Rome at that period of time. But it’s great. That’s the kind of luxury we do like: having somebody just tremendously and talented in a part like that.
There was an interview the other day that mentioned your idea for a Bond film. Were you approached about that?
No, no. That was in a Q&A the other day we were just talking about, “would I do a thing like that?” Essentially I was saying I have not been asked but I did have an idea for a Bond thing but it’s one that just in and of itself prevents anyone from wanting it to happen.
You should make your own version of a British spy film, that would be great. Did I read eons ago – circa “Bottle Rocket” – that you and Owen Wilson had a Western movie idea?
Yes, yes. I forgot about that! We did have a Western. We never wrote it, we had a bunch of things and at some point we should get back to that. We had a very peculiar kind of a Western.
Will you and Owen write together again? I believe after ‘Darjeeling’ you guys had said you had another idea you wanted to do.
I think we will. It’s just one of the things: we lead very international lives. Owen jet sets all the time. He goes all over the world, he moves freely, rapidly all over the place and I tend to get someplace far away and stay there for a long, long time. I move slowly but I do spend a lot of time abroad so it’s not like how it used to be where we’re living in the same house together or even living in the same city together in any consistent way.
So it’s just been a longtime since we could really settle down and do something together. It would probably be me and him just pressing pause on everything he’s got going on for a good stretch but I think we could do it. I do have a set writing time, but I’m not as active a person in the world as he is. So it probably will happen when he feels …there will be some moment when we say, “Okay we can do this.”
The Hugo kernel that became ‘Grand Budapest Hotel,’ that was sitting around for eight years. Do you have lots of other little ideas lying around that could be movies?
Well, not really and I would have said there’s nothing at all, but then you remind me of this Western. And there’s probably another fragment or two of something out there. But there’s not much. One thing is, we’ve made a lot of [these fragments] into movies already. A lot of the ones that were sort of waiting there in some form have happened already. And now I’ve done seven eight movies and so I do have some ideas for the next thing I want to do which is very complicated. I’m not even sure if it even is a movie. But hopefully it is.
Has it got stage elements to it? Because I always feel like that’s where you’re headed in a way.
Well it could have that, but in a way it’s a little bit vaguely avant garde kind of concept, and I’m just not sure if it’s going to quite gel.
Are you writing that with anyone in particular?
Roman Coppola and I are working on an aspect of it together. I’m trying to think of a good tease. I think the thing is well, it’s a thing where, “many things happen” at once. That could be my tease [chuckles].
Do you ever think back on your old characters sometimes? Obviously your work doesn’t lend itself to sequels, but do you think of where these characters are in your mind, like Dignan from “Bottle Rocket”?
Well, you know Dignan is funny because he’s named after a real person, Stephen Dignan, and I just got an email from Stephen that was, “Why wasn’t I invited to the premiere [of ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’] last night?” I was like, “Because you live in Mississippi. He said, ‘Well I didn’t know if you remembered that I was in Mississippi and then I would have thought I would have been invited.’ I was like, “I know where you live, I’ve seen pictures of your house, I know where you live and I know you’re not a New Yorker.’ ” But he felt like he had not been invited. That’s Dignan himself. The character in the movie and real life.
“I always related Jason Schwartzman to Jean-Pierre Léaud in the [Antoine Doinel] Francois Truffaut movies. Not necessarily a sequel, but he continues the stories.”
But most of these characters, whatever journey we get them on in the movie we’re lucky enough just to get them to the end of it and have this story. Sometimes I have some character material that’s not in the movie, a certain amount of stuff that you know is maybe something more. You think, “well that’s a pretty good bit and almost could have gone in there,” or it’s better than some of the things that are in the movie, but didn’t serve a purpose there.
But mostly I just feel like this is what we got and then we’ve moved onto the next movie. Although I always did have some sense of thinking a bit about how the character in “Rushmore” that Jason Schwartzman plays, he’s called Max, fared in life. I have thought about him off and on, along the way. I did think Max would live this life I mean I’ve had some thoughts about that.
