Bryan Cranston opens up about filming Wes Anderson's Asteroid City, where the director's meticulous style made the movie "very difficult." Asteroid City is Anderson's forthcoming film, in which he again assembles a stellar ensemble cast, with Cranston, Margot Robbie, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Scarlett Johansson, Maya Hawke, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, and Adrien Brody. Asteroid City's plot is said to revolve around an astronomy convention in the 1950s where the attendees find that their work and lives overlap in unique ways.
Anderson is known for working with the same actors in each movie, with Asteroid City being no different. The director has worked with Goldblum, Brody, and Dafoe on previous films like The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and Moonrise Kingdom. However, Asteroid City sees Anderson working with several acclaimed actors for the first time, including Robbie, Hanks, and Carell. And if the past holds true, those actors may yet return to work with the director on another project in the future. Cranston has previously worked with Anderson on Isle of Dogs, a stop-motion animated film where he voiced a dog named Chief. However, Asteroid City marks Cranston's first time working with the director in a live-action movie.
In a recent interview with Collider, Cranston opened up about working with Anderson on Asteroid City. The actor praised the familial aspect of working and living with the ensemble cast, where they would routinely have dinners full of music, laughter, and talking. However, Cranston does mention that Anderson's meticulous nature made working on the film "very difficult" due to the director's specific vision. Check out Cranston's comments about Wes Anderson and Asteroid City below:
"When you work for an author like that, it is a big trust exercise. We did this movie coming up, Asteroid City, in Spain, and it wasn't easy work. Working for Wes is not easy. It's very detailed and very specific and so you really have to really concentrate hard. What offsets that is the congeniality and the togetherness of the experience. We're all at this five-star hotel in Spain and every single night is a banquet. Every single night you are exchanging thoughts and laughter and someone brings a guitar, and you're singing, and you're talking. It's just so familial. It's like fulfilling an actor dream camp. It was a really, really great experience albeit, again, the work was very specific and very difficult."
"When someone like that calls, it's the same thing, I did the same thing with Tom Hanks. When he calls for something, it's like, yes and what am I doing? I say to Wes Anderson, yes, what is it you want me to do? That's the way it is for all the actors. We kind of show up and say, what is it you want us, how do you want to do this? Wes makes an animatic and voices all the characters in the animatic, what he calls the cartoon. So we watch it on a laptop. We watch the entire movie that he voices on a laptop and it's like, oh, got it. I see where you're going. I see what you're doing and let me see if I can hit that target, the character you've already created. Let me see if I can point my arrow toward it and hit it bullseye."
How Wes Anderson's Meticulous Style Is Unmistakable
Wes Anderson has a very particular style that makes his films immediately recognizable. While he continually tells unique and varied stories, like the underwater adventures on display in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or the stop-motion animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox, the director is able to embrace the characters that populate his films, making for a distinct feel that permeates his filmography. Plus, Anderson's roster of acclaimed talent happily returns for each new film that offers another challenging character to tackle.
Despite the varied premises throughout Anderson's films, he often utilizes similar camera moves and story devices for the film. With movies like The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Life Aquatic using miniatures to establish locations with an aesthetic only Anderson could deliver, his loyal following can spot the auteur's work even without knowing he was at the helm, marking a director whose style is unmistakable. This unwavering dedication to his style speaks to Cranston's comments, which show the meticulous ways Anderson ensures his films meet the standard he sets forth. So while many details about Asteroid City are still under wraps, fans of Anderson's work can rest easy knowing the director is bringing more of what they love to the screen.
Source: Collider