If you’re a Wes Anderson fan, there’s a good chance you’re excited for his latest film Asteroid City, which features the quintessential Anderson cast member: Jason Schwartzman, who many will remember from the quintessential Anderson film Rushmore. Turns out Schwartzman had quite the time preparing to film the new one, opting to go method to prepare for the role.
Schwartzman stopped by TODAY, and revealed that his role in the movie was written specifically for him by Anderson. The movie, by the way, is set in a small desert town in 1955 and involves extraterrestrials. It also stars Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, and a slew of other notable names.
Schwartzman described the movie as “so vast” with “so much to look at and take in.” As for the plot, “it’s all these parents of these children who come to this junior stargazing event, and they’re all these people who wouldn’t know each other in their daily life.”
He added, “it’s really about what do you do when you are experiencing something that no one else has experienced with someone that you might not ever see again.” So, how does he prep for a role that was made for him?
“Well, I was nervous,” Schwartzman admitted. He also added that the movie is “about acting” but he doesn’t want to give too much away. In the movie, Schwartzman plays an actor named Jones Hall playing a photographer named Audie Steenbeck. Yes, you read that right. It’s a Wes Anderson movie, so of course it’s about seventeen things at once.
“Wes was like ‘let’s do some really fun stuff. Stuff that we’ve never tried before.’ … I’m a photographer in the movie, a war photographer, and I know Wes so I thought, ‘he’s probably going to want me to develop film on camera.'”
His solution? Go method. “I built a darkroom in my house.” Were the photos good? They were not. “I’ll send you one,” he jokes to the host. “Mediocre would be like a dream.”
You’ll can see Schwartzman play an actor/photographer when Asteroid City hits theaters on June 16, and then more widely on June 23.