The Fantastic Mr Fox | Feature | Charged

How do you start your ideas. In The Darjeeling Limited, for example, I believe it started with the idea of three brothers, rather than a specific plot...

Did the character of Mr Fox attract you, with this idea of the father figure that is seen so much in your work?

I know. You’re right. It’s not like we started with a story. We started with a setting.

And as much setting an emotion. I had the idea of these three brothers in this train compartment, and with this feeling of the conflict. But not the specifics of the conflict. But almost of my films – with the exception of Fantastic Mr. Fox – start with something like that. The Royal Tenenbaums, for instance, the first thing I was thinking of was this scene with this brother and sister that had been separated and they’re meeting each other for the first time. She’s coming off a bus and he’s waiting for her. I didn’t know where she’s coming from, or where he’s come from – anything about it. I just had a feeling of what the emotion of the scene was. But I guess every story starts somewhere. Someone like Roald Dahl. I looked through a lot of his journals and things at Gypsy House. And he had many ideas for stories that are very plot oriented, but with just a quick description of a story. And you think, ‘That could’ve been one of the best Dahl known stories: what he would’ve done with that.’ So that’s somebody who thought so wonderfully in terms of plot. I tend to think in terms of the characters and the atmosphere before that.

Yes, I loved that character. And I think the thing I loved in that character is something that becomes a thread through the work of Roald Dahl. There are these fathers who are often a bit shady. They’re often up to something that’s not really allowed. They don’t accept authority – any other authority. And they usually have some ingenuity in how they break the rules. There’s some sort of anarchy in a lot of Dahl, especially in the children’s books, and in him. In his autobiographies, you get that sense. The more you know about him, the more you think he didn’t really accept anybody’s rules.

How important was it for you to go and write the script at Roald Dahl’s home, Gypsy House?

Still, it must’ve been easier than when you made, say, Rushmore...

It just occurred to me that it made be inspiring for Noah and I to start our writing there. First of all, it would be very comfortable and relaxing. It’s a beautiful place. And then also, we’d see what we’d pick up. But in fact, we modelled the whole movie on that place and the area around it. And our script is filled with information and details from it. And even while we were there, we went through his archives and the end of the movie is based on something from his original manuscript of Fantastic Mr. Fox – so Dahl became much more the subject matter from spending time there.

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You’ve assembled a fabulous cast. Was that easy?

No, it’s not that easy. But we have some pretty good guys. Usually, it takes some time and luck to bring together a group like that. It helped that Bill [Murray] and Jason [Schwartzman], I’ve known for a long time. But if you have George Clooney, that really brings some power to the cast. And Meryl Streep, part of what might’ve interested her was George being involved.

Rushmore... we had Brian Cox, in a smaller part. But other than him, Bill Murray is the one guy. We almost didn’t even try to get him, because we thought there was no way it would work out. We almost didn’t even bother – because we were told, ‘You’ll never get him. He won’t read the script. It’ll never happen.’ And then that was just luck. I’ve known him for many years now, and I know a lot of people who had scripts for him, and could not get him to read them. And they’ve asked me to try to help them to get him to read them. But for some reason he read our script, two days after we sent it, and we heard back the day after that and he said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ We didn’t have a

If we had to create a pack of Hollywood artists types, Wes Anderson might almost be the king.

He's definitely in line for the throne: with movies like Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic he's well on the way to classic 'auteur' status. That means he's not some hack director. Recently Anderson transcended live-action movie making and released his first fulllength stop-motion feature. We chatted to him about The Fantastic Mr. Fox. APr 2010 23

great big budget. And we asked him, ‘What do you need to be paid?’ And he said, ‘I’ll get paid what everybody else gets paid.’ He made $9000 or something to do that movie. But the movie made some money, so I think he made money later. But he was originally paid just $9000 to act in it.

Working with big actors, it’s always a risk in that they could make life difficult for you...

In a way, it’s up to the actor. If George Clooney wanted to make it difficult, he could – but he doesn’t. We had so much fun with George. It’s probably not surprising because the impression he gives is somebody who likes to have fun. But he quickly became friends with the whole group. The first time we had a meeting, a group of us got together in Italy at one point, at the very beginning of the project. I had to leave but Bill stayed. And so Bill and George spent the next week-and-a-half together, not working on the movie. We were supposed to be doing some rehearsals. But George really helped us to get it done. He was up for anything. And the thing that surprised me was how much his performance comes through just in his voice. When we went back to the editing room, there was so much personality in his work.

Did you have a specific audience in mind when you decided to make The Fantastic Mr. Fox? I didn’t have an audience in mind. I thought ‘We’re making a children’s film’ so I knew it had to be a certain rating. And there are some parameters for what we can do. But making each decision, I never really thought, ‘This is for children and here’s what they would like.’ Instead, I just thought, ‘What do I think is the best for it?’ or ‘What would be entertaining to me?’ I guess if you were doing a children’s movie, you might not want to have a lot of Latin, for instance, in the film. Young children may not know what Latin is. But on the other hand, I feel like when I was a child, if I saw a movie with a lot of Latin, I’d want to know about Latin and I would ask – ‘What are they saying? What are these words? What does this mean?’ I feel like I was used to not understanding everything and asking. And so I feel like it’s a children’s movie but it’s for all audiences.

thing very different to your typical DreamWorks or Pixar children’s film?

Yeah, they probably are because they’re both made by people who are don’t come out of the world of doing family films and who don’t come out of the world of doing animated films, and who are used to doing personal movies. I haven’t seen Spike’s movie yet but I’m really looking forward to it. It sounds great.

Do you think in terms of working to a Wes Anderson style?

I don’t even think of my style. I just think how we’re going to do this story. But it ends up being connected to my other ones anyway without me really trying to. But the thing is, figuring out how I could work in animation was a very complicated, involved process. There were all these systems, and understanding how animators work was something that takes time. You get a lot of experience. Having done this movie, I feel like I do understand this process in a way. There would be no other way to get this education. And I love this process. I love this form.

How do you ensure the film remains spontaneous?

There are several ways. The way actors were recorded, there’s more chance for accident in that kind of circumstance, when you’re not in the studio.

What else?

Well, with the limitations of what we can accomplish, how we’re going to get something done. In stop-motion, it’s not like CG, where you can think of it and illustrate it. Sometimes it’s difficult to do something that you wouldn’t necessarily think is that hard – something physical with the puppets. The most subtle facial expressions, sometimes it depends on what the puppet itself is capable of, which you don’t ever really know until you start testing the puppet. You spend months designing and manufacturing it, and then an animator tests it, and it can’t smile! We had puppets in their first versions where they couldn’t really talk. And another one that you think is going to be difficult and it works wonderfully. It’s very unpredictable.

Would you make another stop-motion movie?

I would consider doing another one. I want to do a live-action movie now, though.

It’s interesting that your film has arrived at the same time as Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are. Do you think these films offer some-

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> The Fantastic Mr.Fox is available on DVD and Blu-Ray now.

Bottle Rocket

Rushmore

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Life Aquatic

The Darjeeling Limited

As his debut, Anderson created a crime dramedy that Martin Scorcese would call one of his top 10 favourite films of the Nineties. It might have bombed, but it caught Hollywood’s attention.

Bill Murray apparently accepted only $9,000 to play in this story of a genius-but-crazy student, because he liked the script so much. He would end up becoming a mainstay in Wes’ films.

One of the best ensembles casts of the last decade and an Oscar-nominated script about one very dysfunctional family reunion helped break Anderson into Hollywood’s A-list.

Bill Murray returns to work with Wes a third time in this strange but funny world of a explorer legend who discovers he has a son. It also marks Wes’ first experiments in stopmotion animation.

Owen Wilson, who has starred and co-written nearly all of Wes’ films, headlines this tale of three brothers trying to take an epic voyage across India, but bad painkillers get in the way.

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