Wes Anderson is one of the most recognizable directors in Hollywood. And not just from his pastel-colored suits and delightfully flowing hairstyle. Over the past three decades, Wes Anderson’s movies have taken him from a curious cult filmmaker and turned him into a renowned auteur, with his most recent film,Asteroid City, in theaters now.
He’s created an aesthetic that’s so well identified with his name that YouTubers make parody films, andAI can recreate Harry Potterin his style. Some of the most noticeable hallmarks of his style are his use of symmetry, his tableau compositions, and his beautiful color pallets. But one thing Wes Anderson fans also love to notice is how he continually reuses his actors.
Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, and Willem Dafoe are just a few of the names that Wes Anderson reuses in his films. It has come that to work on a Wes Anderson film is to work with some of the biggest names in the industry. Over the years, Scarlett Johansson, Edward Norton, and Jeffrey Wright have been added to thiscast of recurring actors. None of these are names that one takes lightly. And all of them are faces we recognize in an instant. So how has Wes Anderson made an art of reusing the same incredible actors?
The Experience of Asteroid City
Normally in Hollywood, a star leads a film. One big name is cast to lead a movie, and the rest are less noticeable actors meant to support the star. Occasionally, a movie will have two or three big names at the center, but more often than not, the film will follow each on their own separate plotline. Rarer still do we get the ensemble cast, with a group of superstars that, while still working as a team, all distinguish themselves from the other in a particular way. Wes Anderson seems to have taken this idea and run away with it.
In hismost recent filmAsteroid City, almost the entire cast comprises A-list celebrities. All the other actors are either children or hired extras. It all has to do with how Wes Anderson creates his films. Though his early films didn’t start with this many big names, he quickly built up to the ensemble casts we see, and now stars liken working on a Wes Anderson film to belonging to a theater company.
Hope Davis talked to A.FRAME, explaining what her experience was like on set:
“Wes wants the entire production to be a group experience, so we all live together and eat together and you see one another on your days off. […] He really cares about everyone’s experiences across the entire project,” Davis says. “The whole experience becomes one complete thing. At the end of it, you feel like you’re part of a company.”
A lot of the time, actors work on set, filming their scenes alone. They’ll finish a shot and then return to their trailer or take the rest of the day off. Not so in a Wes Anderson movie. Adrien Brody, whose time inAsteroid Citymarks his fifth movie with the auteur, says that the community feeling is why he keeps coming back.
“All of the intricacies and nuances in his films, the specificity is just so artistic and creative. […] He’s surrounded himself not only with wonderful actors, but an amazing production designer, costume designer, and director of photography as well. The work environment is really what I yearn for.”
Keeping all these actors together on set might be a symptom of the filmmaker’s notorious perfectionism, but the style creates a wonderful feeling that actors can have, working together. So Anderson’s method not only informs his movies but also creates an environment that actors love to work in.
Related:Wes Anderson’s Best Movies, Ranked by Rotten Tomatoes
The Actors Become the Aesthetic
By this time in Wes Anderson’s career, we have seen a certain set of actors so often that we almost expect them to be in his next movie. It’s sort of become a thing when a new film comes out that the audience asks, “Well, who’s Owen Wilson going to play now?” We see his face so often in these titles that he’s almost become part of the set. Not that it’s a bad thing.
Related:10 Actors We Want to See in a Wes Anderson Film
Seeing Willem Dafoe go from playing a strange sailor with father issues inThe Life Aquaticto an imprisoned accountant inThe French Dispatchis one of the great things about a Wes Anderson movie. These recognizable faces become caricatures of themselves as if sneaking into the film to make their own cameo.
But more than that, the actors Wes Anderson has worked with over the years havebecome part of his family. And perhaps it’s not the best example, but Bill Murray is one of Anderson’s oldest friends.
Anderson said he didn’t “want to speak about somebody else’s experience” when asked about the harassment allegations facing the actor. But he noted that, more importantly, Murray had become part of his family after working with him for so many years. So much so that Murray had splashed the water at Anderson’s daughter’s baptism, and think what you will of the actor, but let the nature of that relationship sink in. This iconic filmmaker has been working with so many actors over and over again that, beyond making a good film, he’s been making a good family.
