NYFF: Wes Anderson & Cast Of ‘Royal Tenenbaums’ Talk The Challenges Of Working With Gene Hackman

3. Many will know that the film was originally intended to include several Beatles songs, and even had them in place at its NYFF premiere back in 2001, but the filmmakers were unable to attain the rights. What many don’t know is exactly how far they went in trying to woo one of The Beatles into getting them.
When the film debuted at the NYFF in October of 2001, the film both opened and closed with Beatles numbers. While the version that most people know opens with Mark Mothersbaugh’s instrumental rendition of “Hey Jude” and closes with Van Morrison’s “Everyone,” Anderson’s intention had been for it to open with original Beatles recording of “Hey Jude” and close with The Beatles’ demo version of “I’m Looking Through You.” Anderson went to great lengths to try to attain the rights to the original recordings, even sending Paltrow on a personal mission to get them from Paul McCartney.

“I tried to bribe Paul McCartney,” Paltrow said. “I ended up taking him bowling weirdly enough with Heather Mills, his ex-wife, and we were trying to… I don’t know what [we were trying to do], [Wes] put me on a mission.” Wes continued that she had screened it for him on Long Island, with Paltrow adding, “And he loved the movie and then we went bowling and everything before he said he had nothing to do with the rights.” Murray then joked, “Paul McCartney, too, is weak.”

4. The part of Mordecai was originally written for Jason Schwartzman.
Though it was nearly 10 years before Anderson reunited with his “Rushmore” star in “The Darjeeling Limited,” his intention was to include him much earlier. The part of Mordecai, eventually portrayed by a hawk in the film, was originally conceived for Jason Schwartzman. Anderson explained, “We had a character that was called Mordecai, which in the movie was the name of a bird, but Jason Schwartzman was supposed to be a boy who lived across the street from the Tenenbaums in some embassy or something in an attic.”

5. In an effort to make sure they hadn’t mischaracterized Hackman, Anderson asked the cast to share what it was like working with him but quickly remembered that he had asked Murray to come to set even on his days off to act as his protector.
“We make jokes about him being challenging, well he was, but it was also exciting to [work with him] for me,” Anderson said. Paltrow reminisced fondly, “I loved being in the same scenes with him. He was a bear of a guy but I also found something very sweet and sad in there and I liked him a lot. I think he’s one of the greatest actors who ever lived. Working in his presence and watching him do his thing, you know, if you’re Gene Hackman you can be in a fucking bad mood if you want to, you’re Gene Hackman.”

Anderson had tried to stay positive but recalled that Murray had actually come to set, even when the actor was not involved in filming, just to protect the director. “You were not scared of Gene,” Anderson said to Murray. “I noticed early on so I started asking you to come be there. I remember, there was a scene where Gene goes for a walk in the park and I looked up on the top of this rock and you were standing with a cowboy hat watching the set. And you were just there to show solidarity and I was very touched by that.”

Murray added with his usual deadpan approach. “I’ll stick up for Gene too,” Murray said, “You know, the word ‘cocksucker’ does get thrown around a lot. But I’ll just take that word and throw it out of this room; it doesn’t belong here. I’d hear all these stories [like], ‘Gene threatened to kill me today.’ Kill you? You’re in the union, he can’t kill you. ‘Gene threatened to set fire to all of us.’ [I’d say], it’s a union shoot! He can’t set anyone on fire!”

The NYFF conversations is not available, but the Apple store talk that Rodrigo moderated is and you can listen to it below.

https://soundcloud.com/the-playlist-podcast/meet-the-filmmaker-wes