Asteroid City – Press Conference – EV – Cannes 2023

foreign [Applause] quick introduction of people that don't really need introduction to my left Monsieur Jeffrey Wright thank you next to him Rupert Friend Maya hook Jason schwartzmann on the other side of the table monsie Brian Cranston Stephen Park Scarlett Johansson and Missouri ready West Anderson [Music] all right guys I'm due to the question in a few moment but I would like to ask all the actors here I mean for us movie lovers and I know I'm speaking in the name of kind of everybody in the room it's a delight to go back into the world of a filmmakers as that has a vision that is so particular that has a vision that is so defined a style that is so defined as Wes Anderson it's always the movies are all different they talk about different things but it feels familiar it feels comfortable to find this this universe again what I'm wondering is how is it for you actors those who come back and those who are newcomers into this world how is it to to dive into uh the mind of Mercy Anderson should we start with you ladies Maya Scarlett um it was intense um no I I um yeah it's funny because of course the world is sort of there you're in you're in it you know you you're the whole environment is created there it's not it I I mean this was my only experience of working you know as a live actor and not a and not a dog they very much create the whole environment and it's a physical tangible usable space so it actually I think in a way is almost like doing it's kind of more like doing theater because you have the whole tangible space and it's not you know you don't have the same it's not this familiar process of you know being on a sound stage and you know going back to your trailer and all this down time and then you know all that stuff that just eats up the momentum um you know which is just part of the process there's not much you can do about it somehow Wes has avoided that um and so it feels very vibrant and um very much like a you know like you're like you're working on them in theater it's it's very fulfilling and and exciting yeah Maya you want something well I mean I think Scarlett said it so beautifully the the lack of hierarchy and The Ensemble that Wes creates on set in combination with the level of writing storytelling and and the beauty of the space that you're inside of just makes it um such a pleasure and it feels like there's no pressure on you because every part of the world around you works so smoothly between the people that you get to act with and be surrounded by and um and the words you get to say and so you just kind of you the process and the product are aligned so beautifully and it feels I don't know it's just one wonderful um and at ease even though it's it feels like it should be such a high pressure environment because of how high the stakes are answers yeah it starts but but this is more difficult because of the visual aspect of the film I mean for uh for for I don't know the shell composition is very important for West and does that make the work uh I don't know more demanding more difficult right absolutely makes the the work very challenging we have to we have to focus on what we do to me it feels like Wes Anderson is a a conductor of an orchestra and all of us are players of our particular instrument and we hyper focus on our instrument and just present it Without Really knowing exactly how it's all going to piece together and he conducts it a little less of Brian a little more Scarlet at this moment or whatever it's so he he makes the adjustments as he goes and like the the the dialogue in in the film there's a part where where Augie goes in and talks to the director and says I I just don't think I understand the play and and he says uh it well you don't have to you just keep telling the story and that's I think in a nutshell what the film meant to me is that we go through life we don't know exactly what's going to happen how long Our Lives will be who will be in our lives how it'll all play out we just have to keep telling the story just keep moving forward and and be a storyteller good night everybody [Applause] I'm back Ryan come back Stephen you want to add something about working with Wes well Wes uh shares with the cast before we start filming is I can share the this moving storyboard which is the animatic and Wes voices all the characters in this moving storyboard and if you saw that storyboard last night it would have been like equally entertaining and Brilliant release it was so amazing and then what he's shooting is is exactly what he visioned in the storyboard so we know going on set exactly what Wes wants and I don't know how you do it it's well but I I will say that the this this uh the thing you describe is nothing like the movie because the movie is entirely about what you guys are doing you're the the the whole movie is the actors playing these things and so mine kind of shows my plan yes but everything is a total everything is improvised in a way the emotions and the expressions and the feeling of it are all coming from the cast um that's true but how you voice everybody's character so is is if was I would love to see it in the movie theater no no we never will do that we never would yeah it's at least the animatics Jeffrey what can we see on the animatics uh well it really is a blueprint and I think if you if maybe I'm uh I'm overstepping but I think um in terms of my insight but it seems to me that there is a very you know there's a specificity obviously to Wes's frame and that can't be improvised on set you can't just show up and say okay maybe if we it has to be there has to be a schematic that exists prior to that and I think that the the cartoons as Wes refers to them serves as that it really is a blueprint and Scaffolding and everything that allows him to be able to facilitate the vision on set so I mean everything he does is uh is super interesting you know it it it you know it creates uh for example the way that we all gather together creates community and all of these things but everything has a purpose relative to the work and uh and I think above all else what he achieves uh through this process because we work in one of the most inefficient um uh spaces that exist but what he creates is efficiency and and and and and just sinew and streamlines it in a way that I love because you know because he also serves great meals at the end of the day and you just want to hit it and get back to the wine you know asked you to do you want to be a dancing cowboy [Laughter] um well anytime Wes asks you to do something for me it's like there's a there's only a couple of people who can who have the power to make you believe you can do things that you didn't know you could do um so for me one of them is Amy Mullins obviously to whom I'm married and the other is West so when he calls and says and you know could you do the song live and I said well yes but I don't play the industry I'm not a musician ah then he just asks again could you do the song Live though and I said yes yes I can do that okay and so it's a journey because every time um we do something it's a brand new set of skills it's a com and then getting to work with I mean so George and Jarvis Cocker and these wonderful musicians and making this troupe and getting to dance with Maya I mean dream come true Jason talking about Cowboy this is not your first rodeo with uh with Wes uh yeah [Applause] how is it the year 2015 on your run how is it the 25th time around yeah how was it who is West well it's it's uh it's always there's a I'm always grateful and always surprised and honored to be there and even though we were together the two of us the group keeps growing of these incredible people that are magnetized to this person and um but just personally uh you know he's the first you know I was 17 when we met he was the first person that wasn't in my family that was over the age of 20 that actually asked me a question and cared what I said um and uh was curious about like what I was interested in and that was that was unusual uh especially because I yeah that was good anyway um but um that that that feeling is why we're all here because he does want to know about all of us and he's curious and he sees things in US sometimes that we don't see and um he always takes what the things that he knows the the things he learns he remembers that he worked but he never makes it comfortable I think for himself I think there's always a new element like one new challenge in each thing that that that is what's that it gives it the thing to push against to I don't try to make it uncomfortable no no no no no I didn't even say that but I'm just saying you don't you you naturally are you you Evol you grow but you take the things that you learn and then you push them in these new places and it's such a as a fan of wesses too it's a play it's like when you know like to talk about music it's when I hear her album by someone and you hear oh on this album they used a harpsichord this is exciting you know they're branching they're using it's that you learn about someone through their choice of instruments and the way they what the songs they're writing and as someone who loves this person and is a fan of this person it's a great way to get to to know him and where he's at this experience because Jason was so young when we first met and when we first worked together and he played the role in one of my first films that where he was the guy on in every single scene and um our experience then was you were we were using you as you existed in a lot of ways you had things in common with you were different from the character but you had so much that connected with the character that we could put in it and then we spent all this time together preparing and preparing and and we relied on each other very closely in this movie now all these years later which is 26 it's longer than I would like to think um the uh we all we worked as closely together uh you know Jason came with me to the set every day in costume whether he was in the in his in a scene or not he was he stayed with me and in it but I realized at a certain point in the movie that I actually had no idea of the work you've done of the preparation you've done because I asked you to do a scene that we had not planned to do and you were not meant to work that day suddenly I said you know could we go do this and we'll do it right now and you said well I need an hour because of my stuff and I realized he had a ritual of of tasks that he was doing each day before working that I had no knowledge of but that in fact I realized in the course of this thing as we as I tried to get him to whittle it down to 25 minutes or so he they were absolutely crucial to the character that he was playing that was that I was enjoying him play so much so and only that to say how totally in a way how totally different it is this person who was a teenager and now has command of his his craft and the medium in a way that I wasn't even aware of in a sense because I I saw I could only see the results but it's the same but letting me do that is the same is is asking me what I think and listening to me like even let me do that is is thanks for asking no yeah okay thank you thank you all right yeah all right before I open the floor I could ask you tons of questions about the directing shot competition how to work with actors stuff like that but what we really want to know is do you believe in extratorial territory life me personally yes you personally uh um well you know I think um I wouldn't really rely on my opinions about that in any significant way the research that went into this extraterrestrial as extensive as it was it doesn't doesn't compare with anything you would find in Academia um so I Look to I you know I have read that Stephen Hawking's insists it's it's uh numerically improbable that there would not be extraterrestrial life and he certainly knows more than I do without these things he's talking about numbers um so um uh is but I don't really all right first question said we're here from BBC World Service in London congratulations on your film and excellent performance my question is for Mr Anderson so you said before that the film is impacted by the pandemic time covet pandemic we so lost the characters try to handle their struggles in the film but you also focus on the struggle in anxieties and fears of the artists themselves in the scenes and behind the scenes was it a self-reflection to what happened during the pandemic and how was directing all these stars in one movie thank you thank you well I think you the during the real intense part of the of the kovid period uh we were we were writing the script so I don't I don't think there would be a quarantine in the story if we weren't experiencing it but it wasn't deliberate it's just when you're writing I feel now that writing is in some ways the most improvisational part of the whole process because it relies upon a moment of having nothing and having absolutely nothing and if you don't have something spark even though you may rework it and rework it which we do um uh and that always has what's in your life filtering into it what's in your entire course of your life and what you've read and what's happening right then so I think it's steeped in it in a way that we didn't control um the making of the movie however is is was still during covert it was still covered protocols and so on and it really suited us you know it worked very well and from my point of view we're I love for us to form a troop and stay together and you you've sitted a long table and have dinner and we worked in a in a in a large you know our set was enormous in a way I mean it was a desert but it was a closed desert that was there just for these people this little group of people in a camera in the middle of it somewhere uh to play these imaginary scenes and so um I don't want to say it was good for the movie uh but uh you know we uh used it in a way that uh was uh wasn't bad all right question over there she's on my standing up hi um freelance film critic from Belgium I have a question for Mr Anderson a technical question on the use of slow motion that you have used a lot in your first films as a way of maybe letting the emotions sink in or throwing the pace like the last shot of battle rocket Margo Tenenbaum coming out of the bus or Sam and Susie getting married and since yeah yeah and I remember that yeah me too and since uh that if I'm not mistaken you have not really used slow motion so I was wondering if you could comment on what happened regarding the pace of your films and yes well I would say you know um I feel like I I one of the things that is is that is kind of I have a series of ways I like to Stage things and do things that you know that are that I don't know that I if I'm in command of them I it's part of my personality as doing this sort of thing and I always I would liken it to handwriting but that's one of those tools that I've used often um and you know I think um I should look for uh some spots for that um bring back the slow-mo um uh it's always you know it's there's a wonderful thing about when you shoot things you know you know you know how it happens what happens is you do something and the camera is whirring very very loud because it's spinning much faster in order you know you're shooting a lot more frames per second and it's this and you're burning through and when and if you run if you roll out the camera you hear it just fly through you know it runs out and it almost sounds like it's gonna break the camera if you're shooting at a fast enough frame rate and while you're doing it you have absolutely no idea what you're getting um because you know it's completely it's completely transformed when you see it in the dailies um and um and there's something magical about it um you know and I see it goes back to like you cocktail or something I mean people who use slow motion so long ago and achieved these uh results that were that must have startled everyone sitting in cinemas so I take the note and um I'll uh I'll do it we get a question at the back of the room then chidisa de Silva from arise news Nigeria my question is for Wes Anderson um as a director you use an audio visual vernacular that's so particular and so identifiable in entertainment today where 90 of the Productions that are made are either CGI and superheroes or dragons and women of questionable youth with breasts that are clearly not camera shy how do you feel that a West Anderson is necessary when looking to the Next Generation and the possibility of another West Anderson existing when stylistically the industry is pretty much stagnating well wow oh really heavy um the uh you know that I I I I think um you know one thing is when you mention CGI and the the technique of in in a way the the the the the atmosphere uh um I want to make for the uh cast affects the it informs the whole way we're going to produce the movie so a movie like this one uh asteroid City it has a there are so many things that we could have done in post and we did them instead in Spain um and it changes the experience of these people playing it and they they it I mean when Scarlett said it was like being in a play I to me that sounds good I I think uh that's what I'm hoping we get out of it and that it's worth going to the effort to make a real space I will say in addition to this I am particularly drawn to the old techniques and I can't say that I've ever said I wish we did this all on a green screen um it's never crosses my mind um it's I'd rather um I you know we shoot on film and um we we the the way we work is probably much more similar to the way a movie was made in 1930 then uh than most movies made right now um how that informs somebody young and coming next I I don't know um I think now people have the ability to make so much themselves with with very little means and there are so many techniques that didn't exist when I started making movies and the way we make movies requires you to have um to have a lot of support um so I don't know but you know it always it depends on what your story is that you're telling and what you need to accomplish to get it and and there's certainly the way of going out into the world and finding it that's that's not a that's not a digital solution you know to go make a movie out in the world um and uh so in a way I don't have a finish to this that's uh that's my rambling in response to your good question thank you all right Rodriguez hi uh it's a question from Brazil Francisco West almost 20 years ago you put Sergio to play David Bowie and Steven Sue and now we have this funny cowboy stuff I'd like to hear you tell a few words about his work well you know he's someone who I love and uh and um I'd seen him in city of God uh before we did The Life Aquatic and then he appeared uh I mean you know I he we got in touch with him he said yes and he came to Italy and I met him for the first time and he's a as you know I think a wildly charismatic person and he's a very kind warm person um he's also just spectacularly talented and when we did the the that movie we were doing these days you know he reinvented these David Bowie songs and it was really just entirely up to him he didn't even know the work he didn't know most of these songs at all and um he made his versions of them that I think probably you couldn't even do it if you knew them well um I mean I later later in the process I realized he'd been rewriting all the lyrics and they were saying completely different things from a while I thought he was just translating but no he wasn't translating um the um uh but um so he's someone who I love and you know over the years I mean we always keep in touch and I go see his shows and I see him in New York and I see him in Paris in different places um in this case uh we had a chance to put together a group of cowboys somehow it just seemed automatic we'd ask him if he had time and and he did um so it's it's always a pleasure then you get the experience of the the music that they made together and just the his his presence in this group of cowboys uh led by Rupert Montana um but the bonus is that um every night uh maybe he'll bring out the guitar after dinner and that's uh that's a great thing you know we had the South George and Jarvis Cocker and uh and we had other people in the company who were performing who you wouldn't necessarily expect to um there was music uh at back at the hotel which was great because I think it it well like what Jeffrey said it sort of goes into the movie somehow of what's Happening after um it's everybody's having these bonds are formed and they're there uh somehow I think is my theory wait got a question right here hello nice to talk to you this is Uzbekistan TV a country which is in the deserts completely like in your film yes and it's heated by asteroid of ecological disaster of the adult sea so there were so many Fantastic metaphors everyone captures and takes for for its own heart so my question to this why did you decide to use theater in your film do you think that theater can help us to reconstruct our broken world um yes I think I I would I would say yes I I you know the reason to make something I you know I it's one of the you know that uh the you know in The Red Shoes he asked her why do you dance and she says why do you live um it's I don't know if there's an answer except that um but I think telling stories is so automatic for us and and putting on a play is something even though I don't put on plays uh on a real stage it's something that is always has always um sounds it's the excitement of it of being backstage and having an audience out there waiting to see this thing you've created uh it's always the three things the only thing is I've never actually done a play because I'm afraid you have to start you know you have to book the theater before you've even started rehearsing it's going to open on a certain day whether you like it or not that concerns me uh I you know I like to be able to go back to The Cutting Room for a little while and just you know play with it a bit and you know make sure we've got it all just right um but um anyway that so I I I I don't know if that if that addressed your question exactly but um you don't have a question Uzbekistan did you ever see that this polish movie Pharaoh do you know it oh you know he shot it's a it's it's it's ancient Egypt but obviously but um he uh he shot quite a bit of it in Uzbekistan um so it's a good desert a good desert movie that's one of the actors want to add something about the uh the question about theater and how he can reconstruct I mean storytelling in general well this this is a movie about a television show doing a story on theater and I think it's Wes's Love Letter to performance art uh in its and he wrapped his arms around the three major mediums I think that we we are involved in and you know the thing is [Applause] thank you the thing I add to that that I didn't realize so much until we were making the movie was how much I think the movie is is uh comes out of just me liking to be around actors uh the movie is every every single character in the movie is also an actor and I think most of them are an actor playing an actor playing a role um if you really think about it um and um so anyway which was why also it's uh last night watching the movie with our cast was such a good experience for me I don't normally like to watch one of my movies but but to watch it with the cast with this uh story was I felt like I think I understand uh why we do this yeah from it seems to me from Wes's perspective and this is rare have you really have you acted yourself I was I was in Marshall oh that's more than I've done um so I I it seems to me it's unusual for directors particularly those who haven't you know done a lot of acting or any as many um have not to to understand on a detailed level and appreciate and even kind of like Wonder at the process and I think Wes does that he he he really digs the process of actors and performance and the entire thing and I think it kind of in some ways distills back in maybe a little bit down to the theater process you know of of creating characters and storytelling and I I you know I can tell for whatever odd reason that interests you I'm not sure why it interests me and I do it but I can tell that it interests you I I I always have felt this thing on a movie set from the first uh set that I was on which was my own set you know I had never been on a movie set before I was making a movie um the actors are different from everybody else different from all the crew and different from me they're connected to each other in a way that it's always been a bit mysterious to me but was especially mysterious to me at the beginning because it's they first of all you're going to be the movie not just you're gonna do this stuff it's going to be you up on the screen and everyone is just watching to see the tiniest things you do and somehow that fact I feel it connects all the actors together you have an experience that most people just don't don't have they don't know what it's like and they all watch it um and uh I see you know it's it's kind of mesmerizing to me anyway and I love it may I ask you what what was it commercial for uh you can look it up it's American Express all right Islip means quite good it's on YouTube hello uh you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep first of all very many thanks for these words because it was very touching for me it was very very diff and thanks and based on this uh words I want to ask to Miss Scarlett um which part is for you Cinema it's a real life or it's our dreams I'm sorry can you ask which part is which part stains the cinema for you it's our real live Cinema yes yes real life or dreams or is just running out from real life thank you I don't know which part is real life the cinema or dreams Cinema dreams for you that's good I don't know how to answer that question exactly I mean I don't know it's so it's such a strange question I I worked for such a long time um that it this movie making and acting for film is like it's such it's it's like an extension of my subconscious Consciousness I mean I feel I'm probably all actors I'm guessing have that feeling where you kind of you know it still bleeds together I guess um for me I and I use my dreams for work also um which is can is it something that I sort of doing a couple of few years ago I was working with somebody who who did a lot of like dream dream analysis for that purpose and um and it was exciting I I liked it too I mean I think I don't know if that answers the question exactly but um yeah it's such a film film and acting for film is such an extension of my full being I guess and I've been doing it for so damn long you remember dreams lucidly or what you yeah do you write them down or sometimes I text you my dreams um I don't write them down I think I practiced I I think it's a thing where you if you practice remembering your dreams you get better at it yeah yes because it's a weird thing where you might have a very clear memory and you're now awake and you have the whole thing but it doesn't stick necessarily and I think maybe that's the thing if you train yourself to really yeah but the thing I've had in dreams sometimes is the solution to the whole script I'm working on comes in the dream but no way it doesn't usually work later so I wake up and that was that's that's it that's it but what's it better and I can't really use it sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and you have a great idea that comes out of the dream and then the next day it's it's slippery and impossible you're like what the that was a terrible idea or not even a real idea but the middle of the night you're thinking I figured it out it's which all has to must be something to do with the brain uh how brains work that we don't how much we don't understand how mysterious a brain is um I think the film says sometimes it's best just to stay in bed salt all right Jason from thatshop.com in Canada put the bias on the table I just named a cat named zeusu so that's sort of where we're at coming from there congratulations on the film thank you we talk about the symphony putting the instruments together Jason you mentioned the music I want to talk about your use of music through your Cinema but particularly here your choice here it's mixed much lower but the song's very much inform the characters if you could talk about your process from the beginning to now of a mix of needle drops and working with composers be it Mark or now Alexandra and as the cast members if you could talk about we've seen AI versions now of Star Wars done by Wes Anderson as if computers are going to replace this odor but if you could talk you've actually lived inside the world of Wes Anderson if you could talk about what it's like to inhabit the world that he experiences so if you could talk about the use of music and if all the performers can talk about what it's like they're actually going to have it this incredible world that him and his production designer and all this attended people actually help construct well you know that's a good idea the music on this one it was very sort of um sometimes I've had movies where we plan a lot of music we're shooting around certain music and this one the thing was we were shooting in a big space with little spaces in the middle of it and we had open windows and we had people getting in and out of uh cars and talking outside and the space it's the experience of making the movie kind of told me what I think it might sound you might hear something coming from this room over here and who knows what they're up to and from the little office over here there's a radio and we put a lot of radios and things into the shots um and so when we were so in The Cutting Room we just added we we put in song after song I worked with our music supervisor who's worked with me since you know even in a way he even worked on bottle rocket my first movie he'd released the soundtrack for it and Randall poster and we listened to Los Angeles we sort of found a kind of music that we liked uh of the period um and the odd thing is many of the songs in the movie are uh British English skiffle versions of American you know folks of country American folk music really um and um I bet that and why that it was the case I don't know I mean the song at the beginning of the movie uh last train to San Fernando I think San Fernando was like in uh where is it where is San Fernando uh Trinidad or something like it's not a you know it's not San Fernando California it's a it you know it comes to it's it's an interpretation coming from a completely different uh mixture of traditions um and um so anyway that's a bit how that happened and then and then with Alexander Splat he he that he started playing just two notes over and over again and the whole uh score of the movie about I mean his you know there's not loads of score in the in the movie but it's I feel like his inspiration for it gave the movie It's it gave the movie a shape that it didn't have before we had that to work with there he is [Applause] here I only have one more thing to say merci beaucoup thank you very much sorry we only got half the question [Applause] thank you for again for Spiel I I wasn't doing it but he was my my Guiding Light I I've that was thank you so much [Music]

Channel: Festival de Cannes

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Id: e-sx_hK5wpM

Length: 40min 19sec (2419 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023