ISLE OF DOGS tells the story of ATARI KOBAYASHI, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump called Trash Island, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies across the river in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly-found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire Prefecture.
Fox Searchlight Pictures and Indian Paintbrush present, an American Empirical Picture, ISLE OF DOGS, directed and written by Wes Anderson and story by Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Kunichi Nomura The film stars Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Kunichi Nomura, Akira Takayama, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Akira Ito, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Yoko Ono, Tilda Swinton, Ken Watanabe, Mari Natsuki, Fisher Stevens, Nijiro Murakami, Liev Schreiber and Courtney B. Vance.
Opens in St. Louis on March 28.
Enter for the chance to win TWO (2) seats to the advance screening of ISLE OF DOGS on Monday, March 26 at 7pm in the St. Louis area.
Answer the Following:
Which Wes Anderson film features the line, “the CUSS you are. The CUSS am I?”
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2. No purchase necessary. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house.
Want a delicious way to get a FREE pass to the new Wes Anderson movie “Isle of Dogs” before it opens in theaters?
Purchase a ticket to Tenacious Eats presents “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Brunch on Sun, March 18thhttps://m.bpt.me/event/3348535 .
Enjoy food inspired by the popular Wes Anderson film, and while you’re there, visit with some adoptable doggies from Gateway Pet Guardians! $15 from every ticket sold will go to their organization 🦊 and everyone in attendance will get a free pass to the “Isle of Dogs” advance screening!
ISLE OF DOGS tells the story of ATARI KOBAYASHI, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump called Trash Island, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies across the river in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly-found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire Prefecture.
(From L-R): Edward Norton as “Rex,” Jeff Goldblum as “Duke,” Bill Murray as “Boss,” Bob Balaban as “King” and Bryan Cranston as “Chief” in the film ISLE OF DOGS.
For the love of Dogs…
This odyssey of a young boy in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots, on a vast garbage-dump called ‘Trash Island’ features an all star cast of voices Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Kunicki Nomura, Akira Takayama, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Akira Ito, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Yoko Ono, Tilda Swinton, Ken Watanabe, Mari Katsuki, Fisher Stevens, Nijiro Murakami, Liev Schreiber, and Courtney B. Vance.
From Fox Searchlight, check out this funny clip for one of 2018’s most anticipated films… Wes Anderson’s ISLE OF DOGS.
Check out the motion poster.
ISLE OF DOGS tells the story of ATARI KOBAYASHI, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump called Trash Island, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies across the river in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly-found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire Prefecture.
(From L-R): Bryan Cranston as “Chief,” Bob Balaban as “King,” Koyu Rankin as “Atari Kobayashi,” Bill Murray as “Boss,” Edward Norton as “Rex” and Jeff Goldblum as “Duke” in the film ISLE OF DOGS.(From L-R): Edward Norton as “Rex,” Bob Balaban as “King,” Liev Shreiber as “Spots,” Bill Murray as “Boss,” Jeff Goldblum as “Duke” and Bryan Cranston as “Chief” in the film ISLE OF DOGS.
For GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, Wes Anderson’s reaches into that bag of tricks he always does, piling on the preciousness and eccentricities you’ve come to expect (or dread) from the fussy director but, thanks in part to his terrific script but mostly to a magnificent central character played by Ralph Fiennes, he pulls out his best film yet. Fiennes’ turn as Gustave, a Concierge at an Eastern Europe hotel in the 1930’s, is sure to have ‘em talking at next year’s awards season as will the film itself.
Like Anderson’s last film MOONRISE KINGDOM, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is a nostalgic look at a different era as well as a coming-of-age story. It centers upon the once-grand titular venue, perched on a mountaintop in the imaginary European country of Zubrowka. The story is narrated initially by the author of a book on the hotel (Tom Wilkinson then Jude Law in flashback) who recounts how he met the Budapest’s owner Mr Moustafa (F Murray Abraham as an old man and Tony Revolori as a young one), in the 1960s. Moustafa then takes over as narrator, flashing back again to the 1930’s when he was a young orphan being groomed as a lobby boy by the Grand Budapest’s concierge Gustave H. (Fiennes). Gustave runs a tight ship but finds time to sexually service the hotels elderly aristocratic female guests, including the wealthy Madame Desgoffe (Tilda Swinton, in old-age do). The plot’s set in motion when Madame D dies and Gustave is more concerned about acquiring her priceless Renaissance painting ‘The Boy and the Apple’ than the fact that he’s been framed for her murder. Gustave and Zero are soon on the run from police led by Inspector (Edward Norton) as well as Madame D’s angry son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and his savage black-clad toady Jopling (Willem Dafoe – a scene stealer made up to look like something out of a ‘40s poverty-row horror). Romance, chases, Marx Brothers-style gags and wacky subplots ensue. THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL soars during an extended prison sequence that climaxes in a breakout lead by a bald, tattooed Harvey Keitel. It’s all so funny but there is menace and sadness in THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL as well. Sour ZigZag officers (modeled on Nazis) storm onto trains in a couple of scenes, demanding papers and foreshadowing the European conflicts to come, the hotel is shown in later decades as fallen into sad disrepair, and a spontaneous (but cordial) gun battle shatters the serenity of the Budapest’s lobby.
Anderson keeps the story moving at a madcap pace and his script is packed with hilarious dialogue (“Did he just throw my cat out of the window?”). The film’s look is eye-popping thanks to Adam Stockhausen’s meticulous production design (the Budapest’s exteriors are played by a scale model that resembles a candy-colored wedding cake), and sounds unique due to Alexandre Desplat’s Cossacky score while Robert Yeoman’s cinematography basks in storybook mountainscapes and swift interior tracking shots that call to mind a cartoony speeded-up take on what Kubrick was doing at the Overlook. I expect all of these artists to nab Oscar noms for their work in THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL but the film’s greatest strength lies in the its characters and performances. Fiennes’ con man/gigolo Gustave is the most dimensional, larger than life, and fascinating lead Anderson has ever written. Alongside Jeff Bridges’ The Dude, or Peter Seller’s Dr. Strangelove, Gustave is one of cinema’s all-time great eccentrics (Sellers’ spirit is one Feinnes channels) and the wit and energy that Fiennes brings to the character is to be savored. The actor’s timing is note-perfect down to the last arched brow and host of vain and occasionally vulgar mannerisms. It’s early in the year but I think Fiennes, an actor new to the Anderson entourage, is also a shoo-in for an Oscar nom. Most of the other actors in the film (Norton, Brody, Keitel, Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban) have worked with Anderson before and they’re all in top form – especially Dafoe. Owen Wilson, Fisher Stevens, and Bill Murray play members of ‘The Society of the Crossed Keys’, a fraternity of hotel concierges that have each other’s backs, a concept I wish Anderson had done more with (and it’s the second film this year – after MONUMENTS MEN – to underuse the notoriously difficult-to-cast Murray).
I confess I went into THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL expecting to hate it. While I recognize Wes Anderson as one of the few true originals working in American cinema, I was never a huge fan and found his last film, MOONRISE KINGDOM a way too-cute, emotionally distant bore that just irritated me (I went as far as claiming it the worst film of 2012 in my review HERE, an assertion I stand by after attempting to watch it again). The trailer for this follow-up played like a parody of the worst of the director, but I call ‘em as I see ‘em, and though Anderson has refused to broaden his aesthetic, I was stunned how much I enjoyed checking into THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. I look forward to seeing it again soon and recommend everyone do the same. You won’t want to check out!
5 of 5 Stars
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL opens Friday, March 21st in St. Louis at (among other places) Landmark’s Tivoli Theater and Plaza Frontenac Theater
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune — all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
The cast includes Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Edward Norton, Mathieu Amalric, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Léa Seydoux, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and introducing Tony Revolori.
The film is directed and written by Wes Anderson and story by Anderson & Hugo Guinness.
From Fox Searchlight, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is in select theaters now; opens in St. Louis on March 21st.
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL screening will be on Wednesday, March 19th at 7PM in the St. Louis area. Each pass is good for 2 tickets. If you are a winner, you will need to head over to foxsearchlightscreenings.com and register to receive your two passes. We will provide you a code.
Answer the following question:
Which of the cast members listed above has been in the most Wes Anderson films AND how many times?
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This film has been rated R by the MPAA for language, some sexual content and violence.
Visit Akademie Zubrowkato explore the history of the Republic of Zubrowka, home of the illustrious GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, like never before.
The Republic of Zubrowka possesses a rich heritage known only to the few who have thought to seek it out… until now. For the first time ever, you can explore the detailed political, cultural and artistic world of 20th century Zubrowka at the Akademie’s Historical Archive!
Learn about the military coup of 1935, the involvement of The Grand Budapest Hotel and the roving cast of characters that make up its intricate past. Classes are now in session – Enroll Now.
Welcome, beloved guests. The time has come to check-in to THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Upon arrival, be sure to take in the beautiful world surrounding you, as created by director and co-writer Wes Anderson, as well as the wonderful hotel aesthetic, brought to you by production designer Adam Stockhausen. This week, WAMG and a few members of the press sat down (in a roundtable discussion) with Anderson and Stockhausen to talk about Anderson’s all new caper THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Check it out below!
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars; and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting; a raging battle for an enormous family fortune; a desperate chase on motorcycles, trains, sleds, and skis; and the sweetest confection of a love affair — all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
You have an amazing cast in this film. How do you go about managing a cast of this size, especially with their schedules and everything else?
Wes Anderson: Well, with the schedules, you’ve just got to figure it out. It’s a puzzle. I don’t really remember anybody who we were really up against it with, like they were only giving us this amount of time and that sort of thing, so it worked out fine. Mostly, people who are going to come, who are well known and have agreed to do a littler part, they just want to know you’re trying to make it. You’re looking after them and trying to get them done in as reasonable timeframe as you can and so on. With this kind of group, it’s not really a big thing of managing them. They’re all people where you bring them together and say, “Please do what you do.” They’re so authoritative and they all have so much of their own processes. We do all kinds of preparation, get everything set, and then they come in and it’s sort of becomes a little chaotic. We work very, very quickly and they just sort of take over.
I love the worlds that you create in all of your films, but especially in this, it’s kind of a culmination. How did you go about collaborating together to create such a rich, lush world?
Adam Stockhausen: It starts with research and with location scouting and things are pulled from the real world from places that we see, even places we don’t end up shooting. But there are always tons of details and amazing things that you see just traveling around and looking at stuff. And so, that’s kind of half of it. And then, I think in this case historical research of hotels and of travel and of all these different things. And then, you take that and Wes thumbnails through the key sequences to begin, and then, more and more and more of the piece as we go. And then, you lay that all out on a gigantic table and start breaking apart what’s a set, what’s a location, what’s a miniature build, what’s a painting, what’s whatever, and work through step by step by step.
Wes Anderson: He does a thing where he just gets millions of images and we start looking at them together and I say, “I like this. I like this. I like this.” He’s great at gathering and shaping those. And then, each day even in the earliest of phases of prepping everything, he’ll usually come to me at some point during the day and say, “Okay. Can we do 45 minutes at 3 o’clock?” We sit down and he says, “Okay. I’ve got this done.” He’s got things in different stages of preparation and different options of ways we can go and that sort of stuff. It goes like that over and over and over again.
Adam Stockhausen: Yeah. It keeps going, because in the process of shooting, there’s new stuff coming every day, and you can’t possibly design all of it at one time at the beginning, so it’s really a rolling process. So, we’ll work all day shooting something, and then it’s like, “Great, but before we relax, we have to talk about what shoots next Wednesday, because we just got brand new sketches for that.” That process goes and goes and goes.
Was there anything that you brought to Adam and said, “Let’s do this” and Adam said, “No, I can’t make that happen” or that Adam brought to you where you’re like, “No, that’s not quite my vision”?
Wes Anderson: No, because he didn’t really do that. I mean, I won’t say, “Do this impossible thing.” I might say, “Do this almost impossible thing.” But his response to “Do this almost impossible thing” is, “Okay. Let’s look at it and figure it out.” But essentially, he’s going to say, “We’ll do it. We’re going to make it work somehow.” But sometimes that means he’ll say to me, “Okay. I know that here’s what we want to do. If we do it on this day, we can do this. If we can shuffle something around and I can do it two days later, we’ll get the thing from such and such and we’ll be able to do that and we’ll make a choice that way.” Often, it means we find some other approach because of something that’s going to cost this, and we think that’s not really so valuable to us. So anyway, it’s always changing. It’s always evolving. And this thing you were saying about traveling around and discovering things scouting, that’s a huge part of this thing if you just gather all this stuff and we want to share it.
Adam Stockhausen: Because the real items just have their own stories. It’s so nice to have the real thing, not sort of a cardboard version of it that we faked the real thing, but the actual thing.
Wes Anderson: The actual real thing and we’ll see these things and say, “Now why do we keep seeing this? In this part of the world, we keep seeing this happen.” I’ll say, “Well, these things over the doors mean this.” There’s history in all this stuff.
Can you talk a little about how this project first came together, and what inspired this particular story?
Wes Anderson: Well first, it was just this character played by Ralph (Fiennes). And, it wasn’t a hotel concierge. It was just a guy which is inspired a bit by an old friend of mine and my friend, Hugo (Guinness), who wrote it with me. We had written a kind of short story version of a script inspired by our friend, but we didn’t really know what to do with it or where it would go. It didn’t really quite take off and it was short. And then, over the years, I started thinking that I would like to do something related to Stefan Zweig’s work. I started reading this writer who I’d never heard of and I just had this idea of doing something like his work. And then, Mike sort of combined them and in the process of that had this idea of him being a hotel concierge. We always said our friend would be the greatest concierge and he said it. He said, “Oh I’d be wonderful. I’d actually be the very best.” We sort of put that altogether and then we made the script very quickly. After that, we just needed the ingredients.
What was the thing from Stefan Zweig that you wanted to tell on-screen? Was it the storytelling?
Wes Anderson: It wasn’t one thing in the end. The first one I read was “Beware of Pity” and I immediately just loved the way we get into the story in that and it’s something he does over and over again in his fiction. In America, we didn’t really know Zweig until a few years ago. He was just out of print except for some of the biographies maybe. But I loved the way he began a story. I loved his voice and that book was just a favorite of mine. Then I read more of the fiction and I kept seeing this device of somebody would meet somebody else in some settings. Sometimes they’re away from where they live and they meet some mysterious person and then eventually some things happen and eventually that person says, “Well I could tell you my story if you wanted to hear it.” And that’s the thing. That’s the novel. That’s the story. But also, I read “The World of Yesterday,” his memoir which is kind of a portrait. The most memorable thing to me perhaps in it is his description of the Vienna before 1914 and the Europe before 1914 and what it meant to him and what he thought he was participating in and how suddenly and radically it changed and was just obliterated over the continuing years, first nationalism and then these movements of fascism and socialism and how they played out in front of him. His account of that became a kind of backdrop to me for what our story could be, even though our story really has nothing to do with it. The actual story in our movie is not really related to any Zweig story, but it’s that stuff.
Jeff Goldblum talked about you making other films and books available to them while they were on set. As vibrant as your script is and the set designs and this world that you created, what do you hope that they take from those other sources?
Wes Anderson: Nothing in particular. It’s just that everybody is there together and I’ve got all this stuff that I’ve been looking at. Now they want to just work on their thing and they’ve all got their own process, so I think it’s just for fun. And then, maybe they’ll use it one way or another. I don’t know what they do. It’s just, “Here’s the stuff that relates to the movie that we’ve got if you’re interested.” And literally, it’s sitting on a table there and people come by and take a movie. Sometimes maybe they’ll just like that movie. When you finish work, practically everybody in that place is going to watch a movie at night anyway. They’re tired. They have dinner. They go up to their room. They’re watching TV.
Do you remember what specifically you left for them? I mean, Jeff mentioned some movie titles.
Wes Anderson: Yeah, we had one called LOVE ME TONIGHT. That’s a Rouben Mamoulian [movie]. We had lots of Lubitsch (Ernst Lubitsch) movies: THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, TROUBLE IN PARADISE, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, DESIGN FOR LIVING… all the Lubitsch musicals. We had lots of ‘30s Hitchcock movies: THE LADY VANISHES, THE 39 STEPS, and also SABOTAGE and YOUNG AND INNOCENT and the Max Ophuls movies: THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE and LA RONDE maybe we had that. We had Ingmar Bergman’s THE SILENCE because it’s set in a hotel in a made up Eastern European country and a train and all that sort of stuff. In fact, we made their hotel corridors. His are in black and white so we had to guess.
Adam Stockhausen: They’re very similar. All the hotel details are taken from that.
Wes Anderson: Yeah, we just took them from his movie.
How do you bring your audiences into your films? In THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS you have someone narrating the book. RUSHMORE has you opening the curtains and then stepping in. In this film, you have multiple layers. You have a girl with the book, and then that goes to the author (Tom Wilkinson) reading the book, and then going onto F. Murray Abraham who is narrating his own story. Was there anything to bringing more into the different layers that you had in approaching this?
Wes Anderson: Did you ever read Roald Dahl’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Suger”? It’s one of the children’s books but kind of for older children, I guess. That one has a very similar thing: a layer, another layer, another layer. There’s a guy who’s in a house and he finds a book and he opens the book and in the book a guy describes what happened to him and he meets somebody who then tells him a story, so it really does have all those layers like that. And Zweig does this all through his work. I think there’s a mystery about it and there’s sort of a feeling of setting a stage and giving some meaning and some context before you get into things happening in one thing after another. And also, somehow I feel like without me deliberately wanting to say one thing or another about it, it’s something about just storytelling as some kind of thematic whatever-it-is is in there.
Touching on that and playing off of that, I think that’s so clever that it’s this meta-comment on storytelling and playing around with storytelling devices. A lot of people talk about “save the cat” moments in films, but you have a “kill the cat” moment, and I think that’s so funny.
Wes Anderson: They do that to make you like a character.
Here you have it where you’re already not liking the character, but you really don’t like the character. There’s a visceral reaction to it.
Wes Anderson: Is that right when people kill a cat-like that? I was thinking of it in Berlin and I said, “Why do you kill animals?” and these people said, “Well we don’t kill animals. These are actors.” We feel like what actor doesn’t want a death scene anyway? If I was a cat, I would say, “I would love it if you kill me in this one.” I have a great way I’m going to do this. So, I feel like I’m doing a favor to these animals.
Everybody talked about how on the set you had this great communal atmosphere. Is that something that was particular to this film or is that in all of your films where you bring the cast members together and you all eat together and you have this great atmosphere. Does that aid the shooting process for you? Do you feel like you get more from the talent that way?
Wes Anderson: I don’t know, but it’s definitely this one more than any of the other ones, we were all together. Adam and Bob Yeoman, our Director of Photography, and Milena (Canonero), our Costumer Designer, and the whole cast, we were all together in one little hotel that we took over and we had a cook that we brought in. It was a very comfortable, modest, but just terrific little hotel. In fact, the guy who owned the hotel and his wife, we cast them both in the movie. But we cast him as one of the people in the front of house at the front desk of the hotel and he was in a purple thing and everything. We would leave work and then we would go back to the hotel and he would already be there in his regular clothes. I don’t know how he always got there ahead of us but we’d leave him at one hotel and he’d be waiting at the other hotel. I just think it’s more fun to have everybody together. And also, what I don’t really like is I’ve had this thing where everybody has trailers and nine different people are leaving and they go watch ESPN or something like that, and we need them back on the set, and then one of them says, “Has so and so come back on the set? Well let me know when he’s on his way and then I’ll come.” And you’re just wasting time. I feel like everybody can go home when we’re finished with the whole movie, but until then it’s nice if everybody just stays together and stays in it. I think most actors like that. Most actors want to kind of just commit themselves to it because it’s not a day job for most of these people. They would do it for nothing, and in fact, they have to if they work with us.
Do you have a favorite set or location that you worked on for this film or any of his other films?
Adam Stockhausen: There were tons and tons of really fun ones for this one. The hotel is obvious and it was a lot of fun, but there were some little ones that were a lot of fun. One of my favorite stories from this one is this scene where they’re in a telephone booth in the middle of this snow-covered field and we have these mobile haystacks that you could get inside and walk around. One of my favorite days of shooting it was the day we were marching the haystacks around the field trying to line them up just right.
Wes Anderson: We were talking with them on walkie talkie and there were seven guys inside the haystack and we’re saying, “Go to the right” and the haystack just moved left.
Were there any particular challenges to playing with the different aspect ratios?
Wes Anderson: The only real challenge was from lawyers who just don’t know. Aspect ratio for whatever reason is like a thing that goes into contracts. You’re required to deliver a movie between 90 minutes and 120 minutes in the 1:85 or 2:35 ratio. And so, the lawyers see this thing. We’re going to do it in a bunch of different things here, and they were like, “What is this?” and they think it’s a problem. For us, after we paid these fees for it to be argued over for a certain period of time, we then just did it and it’s simple enough to accomplish. This sort of square ratio that most of the movie is in, every movie is shot that way essentially. Every movie except for a super widescreen movie is shot this way and then cropped. The negative is this. It’s just using a whole negative, and that’s the way all movies were like up until 1954, I think. And the other formats we’re using are just normal formats. We just shot them each like a different movie, and then it all gets put together. All the prints, almost everything, is done digitally now, so it’s very simple for us to decide how we want to present it. It was a very smooth process.
What are you working on next?
Wes Anderson: Well, I just can’t say. I have this thing I’ve been working on, but it’s so early and I just feel like it’s … Because I’ve just been working on it, I’m kind of inclined that I shouldn’t say anything about that. It doesn’t sound good the way I described it and I could describe it better. I don’t want to put the bad version out there before I’ve had a chance to make a better one.
Fox Searchlight Pictures in association with Indian Paintbrush and Studio Babelsberg present, an American Empirical Picture, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, directed and written by Wes Anderson and story by Anderson & Hugo Guinness. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Owen Wilson.
The creative team includes producers Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson, executive producers Molly Cooper, Charlie Woebcken, Christoph Fisser and Henning Molfenter, co-producer Jane Frazer, director of photography Robert Yeoman, A.S.C., production designer Adam Stockhausen, editor Barney Pilling, music supervisor Randall Poster, original music by Alexandre Desplat, associate producer Octavia Peissel and co-producer for Scott Rudin Productions Eli Bush.
Welcome, beloved guest-to-be. Upon your check-in to THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL on Friday, you might meet a very important attorney that goes by the name of Deputy Kovacs, who is played by Jeff Goldblum in Wes Anderson’s new caper about friendship, honor, and promises fulfilled. This week, WAMG and a few members of the press sat down (in a roundtable discussion) with Goldblum to talk about the working with Anderson, upcoming projects, and memes. Check it out below!
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars; and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting; a raging battle for an enormous family fortune; a desperate chase on motorcycles, trains, sleds, and skis; and the sweetest confection of a love affair — all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
So, what’s it like being apart of the Wes Anderson World?
Jeff Goldblum: Fantastic. How long do we have?
15-20 minutes
Jeff Goldblum: We’ll get everything in. It’s fantastic. A real privilege. I’m very proud to be a part of this movie, and he’s a… I don’t have to reiterate, a very important and serious filmmaker and artist. What actor doesn’t want to be a part of that thing? And then him, particularly… he’s particularly a spectacular trip. He’s a great guy, and a real artist, and a real teacher. What’s it like? How would I know? Ten years ago. THE LIFE AQUATIC was when we met, and he’s always full of interesting guidance. He’s a style guide, and a travel guide, a location connoisseur. So, I think we went to some restaurant in New York, and we were put together, and he goes “Oh, well I like you” and I’m like “Wow! Really?” dah dah day… THE LIFE AQUATIC happened, and we stayed in touch over these 10 years, then I got an email that said “I’ve written this part, Deputy Kovacs”… It’s a big thrill, you know.
What’s it like? It’s very creative, you know, as you can see. I dig it. His aesthetic, in particular… the voice that he’s found, and had from the start in a brilliant way. I’m into it. It’s a beautiful thing. And then, you go on set and Adam Stockhausen, who’s here, the production designer – they collaborate, and he turns it into his vision. On that set, you’ve heard, is that department store in Görlitz that they turned into the hotel. It’s a great little installation and museum that you get to go, and I was kind of thrilled and knocked out by everything around me there… But, creatively, you get this script and it’s all rendered together beautifully. That document on it’s own is a beautiful thing. It’s beautifully put. He’s a wordsmith, and a literate blackbelt master. The story is gorgeous. And then, you get there, and I was doing that movie LE WEEK-END [mumbles] which opens a week after this [laughs]
Which you were amazing in?
Jeff Goldblum: Did you see that? I really liked that a lot. With Roger Michell, I loved… Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan… but, I was there shooting that when they were in pre-production. So, I went over as per his request, and I saw the building, the set in that place, and everyone getting ensconced in that department store in Milena Canonero (Costume Designer) and all of her Italian artists. He and I went over to that hotel that we were going to be at. He was already ensconced in that hotel, and we had a, kind of, rehearsal, and he had renderings – beautiful drawings – of all of the characters with your face on it, and his idea for the costume, and the look of it. I saw that. And then Milena Canonero and I got together. Her team pulled several things. We tried on overcoats, hats, dah dah day… There was a guy with trays of vintage glasses, and in fact, I found the exact one there, and I was like “I’ve gotta go back to LA, but before I do… I know some vintage eyeglass people, and maybe I can take a look for myself” and I found them! I found those glasses, and I sent him a picture, and he said “Those are the ones. Bring those” so, I contributed that a little bit. That’s very creative. Then, at the time we rehearsed so called – I don’t think he did this with many other people, and it’s not his usual way… I said “I’ve already worked on this. I world it out” and I showed him what I was doing through few scenes, and he said “Oh, that’s good. How about this? Try this.” and I said “This?” and dah dah dah… we talked about it, and we talked in actorly ways. I think he’s an actors director, one could say, even though he has this fully formed aesthetic conviction which you join up with.
The marrying of an actor, and his whimsical and theatrical vision is very enjoyable, because he wants it to be filled with something honest, truthful, human, soulful, substantial… etc. So, in this so-called rehearsal, we got together and I said, you know “What’s the backstory? How long had I been working for this family?”. I had an idea about that. I had ideas about this whole world that he created, and this situation, and then finally I saw in this little event, in this character, in this scene with Dmitri, with Adrien Brody. What I’m thinking is it’s right what’s under the surface, that I’m catching the conscience of Dmitri here by saying “I think there’s bad stuff afoot here, and maybe we should turn this all over to the authorities. What do you think?” and he reacts how I fear, and suspect might be the case, and he “Don’t… Just keep your mouth shut and go along”.
At that point, I think my character for the first time is at a crossroads, and in an eventful way with the political goings on, and the clouds, and a storm brewing in this continent in the world, and in this family I have to go “Which side am I aligned with? Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to join the war. I’m going to be a soldier. My whole life is going to change starting now.” Then, as the story goes, I’m a casualty early on, so that’s the story. We talked about that, and went over it. Then… this is all an answer to “What’s it like to work with Wes” [laughs]… Sorry I’m so yappy. This is still on the first question. The tape’s run out. This blowhard [laughs] but hopefully this will help you. Let’s see. So, what was I going to say? So then, we rehearsed, and when I came back, and got on set, we’re kind of standing… he’s kind of Altman-esqu – I’ve worked with Robert Altman, and he’s making the shooting itself, the process an art piece – of its own. And the communal family, one of the themes in many of his movies, which he really enjoys. Kind of a beautiful experience. And it was. And a creative experience and a focused one. A blissful creative experience.
He’s the head chef in that feast and then you go to the thing and the actors, he designed it so the actors aren’t going back to traditional style trailers and da da da da da… instead you have a chef coming to make us dinner every night. So it’s really more like a troupe and family, than some of these movies. Some of these movies sometimes are. And he intends it that way, and then you hang around the set and watch him working and other people working, which is good. So finally when you get to your stuff… and he did a lot of takes on this movie, as you’ve probably heard, but in a way that’s very beautiful, and creative and enjoyable… and it’s the last chance you get to visit with this thing and make the raw material from which they come from. So it’s a great little sculpting collaboration of him going, “ok there’s that, how about another one about this for this section and ‘do that’ and ‘do that here’ and ‘ok try that and another one like that’ etc.” So it’s kind of like that, you get the idea?
It’s a very unique… you should never say very unique, that’s redundant… so it’s unique and very beautiful. AND! Oh I know something you may have been interested in, but haven’t heard – In a room, that’s communal in the hotel, he’s got not only books of research of old hotels and stuff like that, but a stack of movies. Along with the Stefan Zweig novels that he talks about, but he had a stack of movies that he said were the inspiration for what we were doing here. And I had never seen, ashamedly, GRAND HOTEL, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, THE MORTAL STORM, Bergman’s THE SILENCE, which takes surreal events surrounding a hotel. So you see it was all very educational and I liked that.
And then he made an animatic, and in our little section that he showed me early on in that rehearsal, pre-production thing, the section where Willem Dafoe is chasing me around the museum before he kills me, he said that this is taken from Hitchcock’s TORN CURTAIN. There’s a section where Paul Newman is being silently chased around, stalked, in this museum. So all of that, it helped terrifically. It’s like I say, very actorly. Even though you hear his voice do all the parts in the animatic, its creatively enflaming and actorly to try and bring yourself to and marry something from you with that vision.
Sounds like a great experience, was there any challenge to that?
Jeff Goldblum: Well, I like the challenge, I like a good, meaty experience for me. The challenge was to do what he needs and make it as good as he wants and as good as it can be. An opportunity like that is challenging and it makes you alert. A fellow like me trying to do your best and everyone else is kind of in that vain too. What else is challenging? Yeah, All the aspects of how this thing can work to try and skin the cat and hit the bulls eye, is it challenging to me? Yeah and I don’t do it lightly. He’s passionately devoting himself to the whole thing and I’m nothing if not conscientious, I must say, so I won’t bore you with it, but I’m going at it with everything I can and then the story off the character, to really get that is pretty good. That’s good. It’s not to fall short of it, but the idea is similar to something like Brandon in On the Waterfront. You know, I’ve been going along with this family, and now I’ve come to a point when I better decide where my bread’s buttered. And geez, I like that, it’s a big idea.
And like somebody said, his movies are full of real and big ideas, if you’re receptive to it of course. Outside there’s this frosting on the cake that’s glorious and trippy, but on the inside it’s like a meat cake like someone said. So inside you get a nice helping of protein and grilled meats. [laughs]
How much room do you have to bring to the character yourself?
Jeff Goldblum: I like little collaborations where the other thing happens, where it’s half-baked or its improvised and let’s develop it together and what do you want to wear, do you have an idea – all that. That’s fun to and I like that, but it doesn’t take anything away in fact its, for me, enflaming, like I say, and creatively inspiring to have somebody… that’s great. You wanna be in a movie where your part works. That’s the main thing. No matter how you beat yourself working on the thing, if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, and that’s not up to you, so it’s great when it doesn’t depend on you and leap onto something that you know, “Hey here’s a team and here’s a thing that’s gonna work, and I gotta idea and he’s gotta idea and it’s gonna work together in a way that people haven’t seen you yet,” and that’s all delicious. If his tastes were different, if I didn’t dig his tastes, then that would be something else, but to jump on board something that’s… where you fill in something that’s already been done that ‘s delightful is really good… and then how do I describe… he’s not in any way… tight, constricted in his way of using you. He’s not only meticulous and full-blown and know what he wants, with a lot of passion and conviction. But he’s somehow, simultaneously free-spirited and loves actors and trusts you, appreciating you, but trusts you, and needs you to bring everything to it. Let’s talk about what I’m thinking and feeling underneath and putting it all out, detailing all of that stuff, finding the glasses and all that, but it really feels like a responsible adult, actorly, creative way to meet what he’s done.
Is part of the fun also working with a terrific cast?
Jeff Goldblum: Oh yeah, and as I was saying, he wants this kind of experience, so we were all staying in the same hotel. Oh yeah, Edward Norton is a sort of fountain of wisdom and information, I’m always interested in craft and I kind of was interested to see how people work and for me it’s a little like lessons at school. Ralph Fiennes was there the whole time I was there. I was there for about 6 weeks, shooting finally and watching him work, talking to him about all sorts of things that I wanted to ask him about. Tilda Swinton I’ve never met, but she’s exquisite and it was great to meet her and talk with her. Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson, great to be around and to make something with them. What a cast.
Do you know of the internet fame you have? Recent memes and videos…
Jeff Goldblum: Fine with me. It’s okay. I don’t really look for it. People send me a thing or two and that’s okay. I’m sure it will come and go.
When did you get the e-mail for the part and did you start working write away?
Jeff Goldblum: I should have written down the timeline exactly, but it was like a couple of months before I shot LE WEEK-END and before I had the experience in pre-production. So I worked on it for a month or two, so I had learned all my lines and it was enough time to learn my lines and to work on and get ideas about it. And then I shot LE WEEK-END and visited Gerlitz, and had the experience of the thing, and then it was another month I think that I went back to LA and found those glasses… worked on things more and came back. So something like that.
What’s coming up next?
Jeff Goldblum: LE WEEK-END. I did this play at Lincoln Center, ‘Domesticated’ by Bruce Norris, won the Pulitzer last year, interesting stuff. Shot a part in this movie called MORDECAIwith Johnny Depp, Ewan McGreggor, and Paul Bettany, and Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s by David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park. Then I went to Berlin and then New York, and now I’m here and I do Conan tomorrow and Craig Ferguson next week. Tomorrow night I play Jazz at Rockwell in Los Feliz. All the rest of the Wednesdays this month I’m playing. I also have a gig at Santa Anita, the horse race, where I’ve never been, for a few hours on Sunday.
Fox Searchlight Pictures in association with Indian Paintbrush and Studio Babelsberg present, an American Empirical Picture, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, directed and written by Wes Anderson and story by Anderson & Hugo Guinness. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Owen Wilson.
The creative team includes producers Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson, executive producers Molly Cooper, Charlie Woebcken, Christoph Fisser and Henning Molfenter, co-producer Jane Frazer, director of photography Robert Yeoman, A.S.C., production designer Adam Stockhausen, editor Barney Pilling, music supervisor Randall Poster, original music by Alexandre Desplat, associate producer Octavia Peissel and co-producer for Scott Rudin Productions Eli Bush.
Upon your check-in to THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL on Friday, you will be greeted by a young lobby boy named Zero – a bright brave, resourceful boy who immigrated on foot from Aq-Salim-al-Jabat. Played by actor Tony Revolori, the character of Zero serves under concierge Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) in Wes Anderson’s new caper about friendship, honor, and promises fulfilled. Yesterday, WAMG and a few members of the press sat down (in a roundtable discussion) with Revolori to talk about the incredible cast, slap takes, and mustaches. Check it out below!
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars; and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting; a raging battle for an enormous family fortune; a desperate chase on motorcycles, trains, sleds, and skis; and the sweetest confection of a love affair — all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
Can you talk about what a communal atmosphere Wes [Anderson] created for you guys? It’s not like any other set… where you guys dine together and you were able to talk… Can you elaborate a bit on that?
Tony Revolori: Absolutely. We would have dinners together every night, where you would have an extended, long table of stars, if you will. You would have Edward Norton to your right, Jeff Goldblum to your left, across from you Ralph [Fiennes], and to his side you would have Saoirse [Ronan] and Bill Murray. To the head of the table you would have Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson. It’s great to be able to talk with these guys and just hang out. You’re not even doing anything… You’re usually talking about the scenes you did today and how we did them, how they looked, and then you would talk about movies, music and just regular things really, which is quite nice to see people talking about things that are just quite normal and natural. It kind of takes the whole oh my God there’s Bill Murray, that out of the equation, which is quite nice. It was fantastic being able, even on sets they would have one green room which is where all the stars would stay. If you’re not being called or anything, you would stay and wait there. You would talk, again more about past experiences or whatever the conversation was started. It’s amazing to be able to feel comfortable with these people, especially for me who was someone much less experienced than these veteran actors. They helped me feel comfortable and they helped me build my confidence, which was quite nice, especially for this character. It’s very similar to that experience. He was very shy and insecure then grows into his confidence.
That’s really cute too. It reminds me of the table in the movie where all the servants eat.
Tony Revolori: Yeah, it’s exactly like that, except Wes is not talking and we’re not ravaging our food.
You share a lot of screen time with Ralph Fiennes. Was it very parental, a mentorship, between you two working on the film with him showing you the ropes?
Tony Revolori: Yea, a bit. Ralph, [corrects pronunciation] just to let you know. Luckily for me, a lot of people in this movie had a lot of weird names to pronounce, that’s fine. The thing that I did was that I let Wes introduce me, so it’s like here’s Ralph Fiennes. Ralph, that’s good to know. Here’s Saoirse. Saoirse? I would have never guessed that. You see her name and you think Say-or-rise.
She probably would have punched you if you would have said something like that.
Tony Revolori: Yea, she probably would have karate-chopped me like in Hannah. Working with Ralph was amazing. The mentoring thing, that’s what it was. He kind of gave off the impression to say look very closely and you’ll pay attention and learn a lot. I’m not going to tell you anything, just look and pay attention, and that’s the feeling I kind of got from him and that’s what I did. I picked up a lot from him who’s absolutely a genius in what he does, and I did pick up a lot from a lot of the actors and subconsciously probably in two years, in the next project I work on, I’ll be doing something and say oh, that’s what I took from The Grand Budapest Hotel. It was great. I remember I did ask him for one piece of advice, because I was nervous about doing the kissing scene with Saoirse. As you can imagine, I went up to him and I asked him so what do you think? What should I do? I’m kind of nervous. He looks at me, stares at me for a bit, smiles and says “Well you tell her… I’m sorry if I get aroused, and I’m sorry if I don’t.” I didn’t tell her that but it made me laugh. The way he said it was amazing and that’s what I needed. I needed someone to make a joke of it and I felt comfortable from that point on. He knew exactly what I needed to have done.
So how did that kissing scene work out?
Tony Revolori: Really good. We broke all our costumes like four times. You can imagine we went wild. Wes was like go for it. So it was a lot of throwing the hat, and as you saw my uniform, maybe you can’t see, but it has a lot of buttons. She would grab it and rip it, and the buttons ripped, which Milena [Canonero], our head of costume was absolutely furious about. It was great, and I had a lot of fun. We were laughing after every take. It was beautiful.
Did you have an idea of how you wanted to go into this film acting-wise? And how did you adapt, or change your style, to fit into a Wes Anderson world? Did you do your research beforehand with his films?
Tony Revolori: I had seen his films before; THE DARJEELING LIMITED, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, and THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX, so I know his work. I didn’t concern myself to watch any other of his films because I wanted to focus on this project. I didn’t need to see his other body of works. This is a movie I needed to pay attention to, and he has a very specific style of acting and everything, so he worked with me for months before. I would take myself reading the script, I would send it to him and he would say well, why don’t we try saying the line this way? So subconsciously, after these months of practice, I was there. So when all was said, it just came naturally and I knew what I needed to do. Once I was with Ralph in costume and on set, everything just clicked even further. And so I didn’t come in with a way to approach it, because he’s very particular. He knows what he wants and there’s nothing I need to do, I just need to follow his directions and go forward. Of course, it’s not limiting with him because he’s allowing these suggestions to be made, and allowing you to go forward. It’s beautiful to have someone who knows what he wants, so that way you can go forward and truly do what the director intends for this movie to look like.
What about the physicality and the pace of everything that’s happening? Is there something that you get from the page? Did you talk about that, or did that evolve on set?
Tony Revolori: Well, I mean, it’s a bit of everything really. Being on set, it’s a lot of running and a physicality thing for me. I was a character, I was a person who did most of the things. I hung off of a building for a bit, which was nice, even though I’m scared of heights. It’s great. You don’t pay attention to these things when you’re on set, you just do them. You just know you have to make this character feel as realistic as possible in his films, and there’s no thoughts of okay, I’m running at three times the speed that I normally would or anything. You just feel like okay, he wants it this way, how do I make this look real? Just forget everything else, this is my world and this is how they act, this is how they talk, this is how they move and that’s it.
There are a lot of adventure set pieces on this film. Were there any that were a lot of fun to be a part of, like the ski-chasing scene?
Tony Revolori: I’d like to say I was a part of that, but sadly they were miniatures which were beautifully made. I enjoyed that very much, but everything else was me. It was really nice. It’s quite amazing the way he does these things. He makes it feel like it’s just a small student film, yet you’re doing all these huge stunts and these huge sets that he built. So it’s quite amazing and I really enjoyed myself, as did many of the other cast, all of the other cast really. Everyone really enjoyed themselves very much. It was great to be running around and doing everything for 40 takes at a time and working with these actors. It was quite an experience.
What does a Mendl’s cake taste like?
Tony Revolori: Don’t know. I’m allergic to chocolate. I never tried it and I can’t try it ever.
[groans and such]
Tony Revolori: That’s the reaction I always get! I know, I know, allergic since I was 6 and never had a piece of chocolate ever since.
At 5 you were raking in the chocolate.
Ton Revolori: Oh yeah!— No. My brother was more of a chocolate monster, and I would eat the occasional Oreo and I liked Starburst, and then finally I tried an Oreo one day after sometime around 6 years old, and my throat swelled up and I couldn’t breathe. And we went to the doctor and he was like nope, no more. It’s funny for me now, because I can laugh at it, but back then I was like [gasp]. So no chocolate, no peanut butter, but that’s about it. Death by chocolate, that’s what my gravestone is going to be. Death by chocolate. Willem is going to be death by being pushed off a mountain and mine is going to be death by chocolate. What a way to go. But that’s the best way to go, right? Having a piece of chocolate, and then heaven.
I was going to say you could at least go to peanut butter but you’re allergic to peanut butter.
Tony Revolori: I’m allergic to peanut butter. I’m screwed, except for like—
So Reese’s is just a nightmare.
Tony Revolori: Oh yea! I’m just gone.
Did you ever get to meet F. Murray Abraham, your old counterpoint?
Tony Revolori: I did! I got to meet everyone. I was there on the first day they shot, even though I wasn’t shooting, to the last day they shot. I got to go to the wrap party, yay! I met everyone, and I did get to meet F. Murray Abraham. He was nice.
Did you interact in the making of the film, maybe inform each other’s how you’re approaching the roles?
Tony Revolori: No. We had a vocation, much like Mr. Gustave to Zero in the film. We had a vocation to never speak of our characters. It was unspoken, this thing we had. We never had to talk about it because Zero, when I play him, is so different from Zero when he plays him. He has an understanding of the older Zero that I could never achieve, because he has that age, experience and that knowledge, and I have an innocence and inexperience that Zero at this young age had. So there was no need for him to say or give me any advice.
I don’t know about you, but if I were ever to run into somebody who played the older counterpart of my character I would have tried to mimic all the movements that he was doing just to mess with him.
Tony Revolori: Well I joked, I mean he’s an amazing bowler and we went bowling one time. I joked, well, this is quite amazing! I’m going to be a great bowler one day. The way he does it, he curves it beautifully when he does strikes. And he’s strong too.
That’s the movie I want to see. I want to see F. Murray Abraham and his younger counterpart bowling, traveling through time.
Tony Revolori: Well, I’m not as great of a bowler. I mean I get an occasional strike here and there, but I’m a decent bowler. Somewhere around the 100 area.
We’ve heard about all the takes that you guys have had to do. Was there one day in particular that stands out? Because I heard you had to do 40 takes in one particular scene.
Tony Revolori: I feel like you know what you’re fishing for.
I’m not fishing! I’m not fishing!
Tony Revolori: You’re not fishing, all right. Well there is one story, and you almost got the number right too, which is quite fantastic. I’ll go full details. It’s somewhere around mid-shoot, they’re shooting all the prison scenes, which I’m in only one. I go in the first day, shoot for half a day, then go back to Görlitz where we were shooting, which is the next town over, where we were all based from. They shot the prison in this other very cold place. And so Ralph, Harvey [Keitel] and Wes were all there shooting. They were talking about the scene when they’re escaping, and they come out of the man-hole, and how they’re going to hug each other and leave, it can’t be too friendly, whatever. Harvey said “Well, you know what? Why don’t I, when I say bye to the kid, I give him a nice little slap?” Right? I was not there. I did not know. The day arrives on set. Oh, by the way, just a little thing that probably nobody’s ever told you is that Harvey slept in that prison every day that he was there. That prison was cold. It was like -7 degrees, which was freezing. I don’t know how he did it, I guess they warmed it up for him.
But why?
Tony Revolori: I don’t know man. He’s Harvey, but he did. So then back to the other one… I arrive on set, it’s this beautiful little farm. They built this man hole, blah blah blah. Take one, we’re going and they pick him out, he’s there. He did a couple of push-ups before, which I thought he was just getting pumped for the scene, but I know what it is for now. So push ups, stands up, see you latter Mister Gustave, gah! Good luck kid! And my face was so surprised. I saw the first reaction on tape, because I wanted to see it, and my face was so genuinely surprised. I didn’t know what to do. My mouth was gaping. I just looked forward like what the… and yea. Then about 42 takes later we stopped.
Did your cheek get a little numb?
Tony Revolori: Yeah, but we were in… Okay, first off, he slaps really hard. He’s an ex-marine. He doesn’t play around. There’s no kiddy slap for you. He’s an ex-marine. If you can’t take it, you’re gone. And it was cold, it was really cold, so it was like having ice on my face after he slapped me. So it was horrible, but we did it. Now it’s at 44. I saw him in New York and he slapped me two more times.
Oh wow, you guys have a slap counter now. [Laughs]
Tony Revolori: Yea. So How I Met Your Mother can’t have anything with me now.
So, what take did they use?
Tony Revolori: I have no clue. Somewhere around 32, or 33 I heard, but I endured those slaps for Wes. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
Would you have been a little pissed that they would use take 2?
Tony Revolori: You know, they may have possibly used take 1. They didn’t tell me. They’re like no, we used 35. Probably, I don’t know, but it seemed like they used one of the later ones because the way it played out and everything.
Do you ever still rock the pencil mustache?
Tony Revolori: Yes I do.
Did you get good at it?
Tony Revolori: Yea, but my mom doesn’t buy anymore eyeliner pens so I can’t do it anymore. What can I do? I mean… I loved doing that. It was nice doing that. I didn’t know I was going to do it. I remember going to a fitting one day, or talking with Wes, I don’t remember what it was, and he said oh, by the way, you’re going to have a mustache. I’d seen all these guys go in with these great mustaches and things like that. I was like oh, but I can’t grow one. He was like oh no, don’t worry, you’re going to draw it on. I was like oh… well that’s weird, but okay. And so they drew it on and I had to practice to do it myself, because he didn’t want anyone else to do it but myself. For the rest of the film I did it. I did it recently and I still get it quite nicely in one stroke. But we were thinking of doing the whole burnt cork thing. You know, burn the cork, put it on here, but then it burned my skin and that didn’t work. Like it didn’t burn it, burn it, but it was kind of drying the skin and it didn’t work really well.
I feel like we’re hearing the tales of your face abuse for this movie.
Tony Revolori: Well… I mean, I don’t know. Zero’s such a character that a lot of things happen to him, but he just lets it slide because he does it for the people he loves. I love these people. If I was called back to Grand Budapest 2, a prequel or whatever, I’m there. I’m there in a heartbeat. You can abuse me more, I’m ready for it! No, he didn’t abuse me. That’s the wrong thing to say. He did not abuse me!
So, what are you working on next?
Tony Revolori: I just finished filming a movie in India, a Bollywood film which was an experience. It was all done in Hindi and I don’t speak a lick of it.
Are you dancing and the whole thing?
Tony Revolori: No. It’s very Slumdog Millionaire-type so I don’t know, they might call me back to do another dance number. I mean, a dance number but I’m not very good at that. It’s called UMRIKA with Suraj Sharma, the kid from Life of Pi. The first time director Prashant Nair and it’s an amazing film, I’ve had so much fun making it. I don’t know, I just hope to keep working now.
What’s your character?
Tony Revolori: My character is called Lalu, which means smart ass in Hindi. Talk about that.
Fox Searchlight Pictures in association with Indian Paintbrush and Studio Babelsberg present, an American Empirical Picture, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, directed and written by Wes Anderson and story by Anderson & Hugo Guinness. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Owen Wilson.
The creative team includes producers Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson, executive producers Molly Cooper, Charlie Woebcken, Christoph Fisser and Henning Molfenter, co-producer Jane Frazer, director of photography Robert Yeoman, A.S.C., production designer Adam Stockhausen, editor Barney Pilling, music supervisor Randall Poster, original music by Alexandre Desplat, associate producer Octavia Peissel and co-producer for Scott Rudin Productions Eli Bush.
Director Wes Anderson and stars Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Tony Revolori, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Bob Balaban, F. Murray Abraham and Ralph Fiennes give you a behind the scenes look at the story and characters of THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL in this new featurette.
The adventure comedy will hit select theaters March 7, 2014.
Fox Searchlight also has a neat interactive website for their upcoming film. Visit the newly launched Zubrowka Film Commission for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at filming in the Republic of Zubrowka, home of the illustrious Grand Budapest Hotel and the setting of three-time Academy Award nominee Wes Anderson’s latest film.
Zubrowka offers a grand destination featuring a film-friendly community, luxurious locations and free production space. Find out now how you can take advantage of all that Zubrowka has to offer, and make the beautiful country the backdrop of your next project! The new Tumblr site features a film events calendar and official assets from the upcoming film THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL – including vignettes and new video content.
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune — all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
The comedy was shot on location in Germany (mainly in Gorlitz and other parts of Saxony, and also at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam).
The cast includes Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Edward Norton, Mathieu Amalric, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Léa Seydoux, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and introducing Tony Revolori.
“We were promised very long hours and low wages… and stale bread,” joked the always funny Bill Murray on collaborating once again with Wes Anderson on his latest tale.
Fox Searchlight Pictures’ THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL made a big splash at it’s World Premiere at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
Making an appearance at the press conference, as well as walking the red carpet, in support of the director were stars Bill Murray, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Tony Revolori, and Jeff Goldblum.
First Showing’s Alex Billington had this reaction after seeing the movie: “The more I think about The Grand Budapest Hotel, the more it grows on me, and the more I seem to like it. There’s so much depth to it, so much to think about and discuss after, that I can’t help but admire it more than anything.”
Other reviews –
Indiewire’s Eric Kohn: “With each beat exquisitely tied to Anderson’s techniques, his zippy historical fairy tale (replete with hand-scrawled chapter headings) has a thoroughly immersive quality. The usual vibrant reds and blues (elegantly captured by cinematographer Robert Yeoman) mesh nicely with Alexandre Desplat’s jangly soundtrack. At once absurd and beautiful, Anderson’s world has never been so spectacularly realized.”
Variety‘s Justin Chang: As intricately layered as a Dobos torte and nearly as rich, this twisty tale of murder, theft, conspiracy and unlikely friendship finds its maker in an unusually ambitious and expansive mood — still arranging his characters in detail-perfect dioramas, to be sure, but with a bracing awareness of the fascism, war and decay about to encroach upon their lovingly hand-crafted world. The result is no musty nostalgia trip but rather a vibrant and imaginative evocation of a bygone era, with a brilliant lead performance from Ralph Fiennes that lends Anderson’s latest exercise in artifice a genuine soul.
Fox Searchlight also has a neat interactive website for their upcoming film. Visit the newly launched Zubrowka Film Commission for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at filming in the Republic of Zubrowka, home of the illustrious Grand Budapest Hotel and the setting of three-time Academy Award nominee Wes Anderson’s latest film.
Zubrowka offers a grand destination featuring a film-friendly community, luxurious locations and free production space. Find out now how you can take advantage of all that Zubrowka has to offer, and make the beautiful country the backdrop of your next project! The new Tumblr site features a film events calendar and official assets from the upcoming film THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL – including vignettes and new video content.
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune — all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
The comedy was shot on location in Germany (mainly in Gorlitz and other parts of Saxony, and also at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam).
