THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.70 - GARTH JENNINGS & WES ANDERSON

Episode Date: March 31, 2018

Adam travels to Paris to meet his old friend, British director Garth Jennings. After a brief catch up, Garth introduces Adam to his old friend, and fellow Paris dweller, Wes Anderson of Texas, USA.The conversation was recorded in early March 2018 shortly before the release of Anderson’s 9th feature, and 2nd foray into stop motion (after Fantastic Mr Fox) Isle Of Dogs. Set in a dystopian near-future Japan, Isle Of Dogs follows a young boy who goes in search of his dog after the whole species is banished to an island due to an illness outbreak.Adam, Garth and Wes enjoy a rambly chat about the production of Isle of Dogs and stop motion in general, David Bowie (of course), Mary Poppins, cantankerous cast members and other important odds and sods. WES ANDERSON FILMOGRAPHY1996 - BOTTLE ROCKET1998 - RUSHMORE2001 - THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS2004 - THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU2007 - THE DARJEELING LIMITED2009 - THE FANTASTIC MR FOX2012 - MOONRISE KINGDOM2014 - THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL2018 - ISLE OF DOGSBowie Trumps are made by Casey Raymond and currently available on line from Etsy.comThanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support.Music & jingles by Adam Buxton Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. Weather check. Depressing, rainy, grey, cold.

Anyway, welcome to podcast number 70, which features a conversation with British director and friend of the podcast, Garth Jennings. Hey, welcome back, Garth. And Garth's Texan friend, director Wes Anderson. As you'll hear, Garth and Wes both spend much of their time living and working in Paris. So a few weeks ago, with Wes's new film Isle of Dogs about to be released, I managed to wangle myself a Eurostar ticket and I paid them both a visit. We got a screening of the film, me and Garth, the night that I arrived in Paris and then we went and met Wes the following afternoon at his offices, a short cycle ride from where Garth lives.

So the Isle of Dogs, set in a dystopian near-future Japan, Isle of Dogs follows a young boy who goes in search of his dog after the whole species is banished to an island by Mayor Kobayashi due to an illness outbreak. That's the synopsis. You're welcome. Story and screenplay by Wes Anderson, along with his regular collaborators, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Japanese actor and writer Kunichi Nomura, who has worked with Wes before on a couple of things. I think Grand Budapest Hotel he may have been in.

Anyway, Kunichi also provided the voice of the film's villainous Mayor Kobayashi. And he was also tasked with ensuring the accuracy of any elements in the film relating to Japanese culture. Speaking to the Deadline Hollywood website, Kunichi said, Wes had a clear idea of what he wanted to do. I helped make it authentic while keeping his vision. Now, I mention that because there's been a certain amount of grumbling in some quarters about the tone of the film, culturally speaking. Many of the Japanese references in Isle of Dogs certainly are on the obvious side, and they are painted in broad strokes.

I thought they were lovingly and often beautifully painted, but some people have expressed concern that it's a white Western take on Japanese culture, which is reductive and insensitive. Personally I didn't find it any more insensitive than a show like Samurai Jack which was terrific I thought or films like Kung Fu Panda and Kubo and the Two Strings. What do you think Rosie? I found it highly offensive and I was angered by the lack of representation of female dogs. What you wanted

mo bitches? Yeah that's right the only one in there was a really girly dog with a bow and Scarlett Johansson's voice. When everyone knows that real woman dogs like to harass deer and speak with the voice of Adam Buxton. Yeah exactly. Now Rosie you haven't actually seen Isle of Dogs yet have you? No I'm a dog plus I don't really like Wes Anderson because I think his films are too quirky and annoying. Uh-huh. Well, I'd advise you to give it a watch. I actually thought it was less quirky than some of his other films.

I'm doing a poo. Okay, I'll leave you to it. Now, my meeting with Wes took place before anyone had started mentioning cultural appropriation and connection with the film, so I didn't ask Wes about it. Instead, the three of us, myself, Wes and Garth enjoyed a rambly chat about the production of Isle of Dogs and stop motion in general, David Bowie

of course, Mary Poppins obviously, cantankerous cast members and other important odds and sods. But before we went to meet Wes I got a chance to catch up briefly with Garth, back at the end of the podcast for more waffles. But right now, here we go. Ramble Chat Let's have a Ramble Chat We'll focus first on this

Then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew the fat And have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat And find your talking hat Yes, yes, yes La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la

La, la, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la, la Can you set the scene for us, Garth? Right, we're in my flat in Paris. I've been here for five years and that still sounds nice to say that. Yeah. Sounds glamorous. We're sitting in the living room. What's your arrondissement?

We're in the seventh because uh for two reasons school and work yeah the children our four sons go to bilingual schools in this neighborhood and uh that's where they the main ones were it's the only place we could get them in and also it was within walking distance of the studios where i am making sing to at the moment and that's a 10minute walk away from here. So is that a French branch of Illumination Studios? Yeah, it's Illumination MacGuff because MacGuff was an animation studio

and an effects studio back in the 90s and they'd been going for years and they created an alliance with Illumination. So all of the movies are made here in paris all the animators all that everything is made despicable me all of it is done here there's 900 people at the studios now 900 yeah man it's huge whoa and there's usually right now there are four films in production at various stages so one is nearly done one One is halfway. One's just beginning. And then there's mine, which is sort of... When are you slated for release?

Slated for Christmas Day 2020. Christmas Day 2020? Yeah, so I'll be wrapping up in about two years from today. Right. About two years from today, we'll be sort of bringing it to a close. Then over the summer, it will be mixed. That's what Donald Trump's been saying. Really?

Two years today, we're going to bring it to a close. Yeah. We're going to blow it all up. That's what he's chatting with Kim Jong-un about. Yeah. What do you reckon? Two years? He just wants to get a few more rounds of golfing.

So you've got to creep in there before the apocalypse. Before the apocalypse. I figured that Singto's got to be, if it's the last thing you see it's got to be the best i can do it's actually it's funny because it probably it's more than likely going to be the last animated film i get to do because um i don't know what i'll be able to do afterwards i genuinely don't know really so i'm going at this like right i've got to make this like the last thing i'll ever get to do yeah so i came over yesterday on the eurostar was it smooth it's very nice when it works it's brilliant yeah the um film company sorted me out a ticket and uh got a nice little seat to myself that's the dream no one got on at ashford in the

seat opposite me so i was oh you were in a single opposite someone else seat? Yeah. Oh, and then you got the seat? And then I got... I didn't have to stare at any other people. No, that's not nice. Because I hate people. I hate people too.

Awful. Even this is hard. Yeah. Sorry, their snuffles is Fargo the dog. Fargo. Fargo's a rescue dog. Had you met him before? I can't remember. I don't know if I have met Fargo. Fargo is dog Fargo Fargo's a rescue had you met him before I can't remember I don't know if

I have met Fargo Fargo is actually from Spain he was in a rescue home that was overflowing and he was on the death list as in they were just going to start putting the dogs down and there's a rescue team here in France that sort of rescue dogs that are on death row as it were yeah and one of the volunteers works at the studios animation studios was and i and the kids would always talk about getting a dog and then on the monday i went to work and there was a poster about to go up for this who would like to adopt this dog and just before it went up i saw it in the office i was like oh that's our dog and uh and he came home to sort of check it out for four days see if he liked it and he's never left that was two and a half years ago he used to be called franco apparently but the the lady at the office

changed it to fargo for two reasons she wasn't having franco bit too fascist bit too fast and also she's a movie buff he and she both there's a couple there and they're both huge movie buff so that's why he's called fargo yeah and he's great he comes to work with me every day in fact you just missed us cycling down the street he sits in my basket like et yeah he's like et and he makes the same noises like et you know towards the end when he's in the river dying yeah he makes yeah fargo makes those noises you'll hear some of them in a minute he's a french what is he french bulldog french bulldog yeah he's a lovely chap. Yeah. So yes, I had a lovely journey over and then I stayed here last night after we went to the screening

of Isle of Dogs, which we're going to talk about with Wes. Yeah. In the bathroom of the room where I was staying, there was a copy of The World As I See It by Albert Einstein. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. oh yeah yeah that was from my friend's mom's house when she died everyone said come over you're welcome to take anything you want that you know that you would like and i took a couple of her old books and her teacups that we used to drink tea out of all the time yeah and that's why albert einstein came along yeah it's a good one. Yeah. Have you read it? Yeah. No, years ago, though. Yeah. So don't get me.

Sure, sure. It's interesting. It's good. Published in 1949. Various essays, thoughts, interviews and pronouncements from the father of modern physics. Yeah. For example, I do not like it when people say instead of holidays with my family, Holly Bob's with my family holly bobs with my family

hashtag so cringy chapter one which is things that really wind me up yeah basically einstein is sounding off about they filtered out all the stuff that's impossible to understand yes he's talking about yeah yeah it's it's not like here's a maths equation yeah they've just reduced it to like um yeah you know here's my favorite recipe for hobnobs here's my risotto yeah exactly can't go wrong with these eggs. It says the fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement is as good as dead.

A snuffed out candle. Wow, that's interesting. That's really right alongside the alan watts view of the world isn't it the sort of being in the moment the accepting being not knowing trying to promote a state of wonder yeah but also not feeling like you've got to contact it's funny for someone who did chase an answer yeah uh to sort of still feel one uh sense of wonder about it all. And you can't help but think, well, you probably needed that sort of... Curiosity, at least, yeah. Yeah, just to get you there.

I mean, there was a lovely film, it was really enjoyable, called Hidden Figures. Did you watch it? Oh, yeah, yeah. And really it was sort of saying very explicitly, oh, you're all very clever in this room, but what we need is someone who's just going to think outside of the box just just just prepared to just float away with it all bit of blue sky thinking yeah i hate that phrase so much and it's but it's so true and it's always

annoying when you realize something that really works has been already given a label right it's one that i hate everything gets given labels pretty fast. So many things. If one more person says to me to think outside the box. That's in chapter three. I'm going to fucking puke. Yes, I put them in the box and leave them to die.

I come up with the fucking best equation of all time. So fuck you and your box. Actually, maybe it's not the best equation of all time. fuck you and your box actually maybe it's not the best equation of all time if it's going to lead to uh the apocalypse yeah it's true but anyway um so einstein though but yeah the mysterious and that's good isn't it because it's a sort of banal thing to say i suppose but of course that's at the root of so much of what drives art and popular culture and all sorts of things is it's as simple as what's in the box. A lot of the time, it's that thing of what's behind the curtain, what's in the box, what's behind the velvet rope, you know,

just wanting to explore these places that you're not allowed to go or it's impossible to get to. Yeah. Well, that's the sort of Jj abrams yeah formula isn't it is is that like the lost thing which is that you never actually find out no you're constantly guessing and it goes through so many things doesn't it i suppose certainly that i'm thinking in terms of film like the shark if you'd seen the shark all the way through jaws you would not have enjoyed jaws but the fact that you were always thinking oh where is it oh it's just some barrels yeah you know being towed along when your brain starts sort of filling in the gaps i think when you're left a gap and you're comfortable in

that gap and then you're participating that's good isn't it yeah exactly i don't know how you i don't know how it works with someone like a david hopney where there it is there's the painting it's just it is what it is i should have thought this through before i started talking about it because now i'm going to come unstuck i haven't thought about it either so it was mainly an excuse to um pretend to be einstein and say holly bobs with my family lamb how are we doing for time i don't know okay no it's 10 to 2 that's okay we're gonna leave about two o'clock all right we're gonna leave here at two o'clock yeah we're gonna cycle over to wes's offices he's based in paris yeah he's just down the road from here where's and i i think i must have met him in 2005 because we just

that second finished the hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and there was an actress in it called Zooey Deschanel, who was fantastic, and at the time, she was dating an actor called Jason Schwartzman, who'd been in one of, or has been in a few of Wes's films now, but the one I'd seen him in was Rushmore. Which was his first film.

Yeah, which, I've got to say, say when that came out Schwartzman's first film that is not Wes's right Schwartzman's first film Wes's second feature film I remember seeing that film and Rushmore and I think I went back the next day to see it again and I was I loved it so much I was almost angry do you know what I mean where you're like oh it's just like how are you gonna how am I supposed to what's the point yeah and so but you asked me when i met him and it was in 2005 we'd finished hitchhikers jason schwartzman got in touch because i'd gone to paris for a few days in fact my wife had sent me there was sort of said go away for a couple of days because you've just finished it was all the press and everything had been done and i'd never done anything like that before and it does it's such a whiny thing to say

but it does actually play with your brain yeah in a way that's not healthy and um we just had a baby we just moved in and she said why don't you just go away for a few days uh to nigel's place our mate nigel's got his little flat in the middle of paris and just go and be away from everyone so i went on my own not expecting to see a soul and two things happened one you came out i came out and we watched hearts of darkness and got so drunk that both of us were violently ill yeah it wasn't a hangover it was like i don't know it was like that bit in um witches of eastwick when she's eating the someone's eating the cherries that poor woman is hofing them up stand by me that's and oh no that's true witches of eastwick there's a chair that's the cherry pine in stand by me where he eats all the pies and then he yeah it was like that it was like that plus mr creosote everything i mean it was i don't know

what our problem was we both needed to let off steam first we went out for a meal around the corner yeah had steaks i remember and just drank a bottle of red wine each and then probably another one back at the flat while we were watching oh yeah easily darkness on the projector and then i could barely walk to the station the next day no it's horrible and i think it was the next day i'd sort of seen you off and I was feeling rather rough. And I got a message from Jason saying, would you like to meet for a coffee? Because I'm here in Paris. So I sort of got myself together, thought it'd be nice to see Jason. And I went to meet him in a cafe. But what I didn't know, there were other people with him. And one of those people was his mum, Talia Shire, who is an amazingly famous actress.

Adrian. Adrian. She. Adrian. She's in The Godfather. And then opposite her was Sophia Coppola with her partner at the time, who is now a husband and father of the kids, is Thomas from Phoenix. Further along the table. The band.

Yeah, further along the table, we have Steve Gagan, who is a very well-known director. And then at the end there, where's Anderson? And I was wretched and stinking. I hadn't bought any change of clothes except for underwear changes.

And I was really quite repellent. And here's a very well-turned-out bunch of people. You can imagine what they look like, right? And we're in this cafe. They were all very gracious. And I remember being thoroughly impressed by everybody. And then Sophia said rather casually hey I'm shooting Marie Antoinette in Versailles right now you should come along and I thought it's one of

those yeah it's nice it won't follow through but the next day I got a phone call from Wes and he said oh I'm in a car right now. Sophia has sent a car for us. So do you want to come? I'm coming past your flat. So I, again, this whole weekend, it was supposed to be a man on his own, quietly getting his thoughts together, but suddenly going all over the place.

I can't come, I'm afraid. I'm doing some heavy masturbation. Really, really quite intense, yes. And so I got in the car with him, and we went out to this palace of Versailles, and he's really chatty and nice, as you're about to find out. And there we are with all these people dressed in their costumes and Jason Schwartzman on a giant horse galloping around the place. He was in the film or was he just having to be on a horse? He's in the film. He had to be on a horse. That's his thing. It's his rider.

I'm going to gallop around on my horse. I'll just be over here yeah and there were all these other people there like Pedro Moldova what was he doing there I don't know she just sort of

graciously welcomes everyone whilst making the film and then there was someone took some photographs I think Wes has some photos I can't remember but it was really lovely and strange

and then that was that I never saw any of them again for years except except Wes. I used to see Wes a lot. Parasat Moss. Hey Garth, can I just use your pump? Yeah. My tires need some pumping.

A pump that I like for my bike is a big one Cause you get the job done quick Plus you've got the valve adapter To fit the fat boy and the skinny prick And on a big bump you've got a pressure gauge If you're into numbers and shit If the needle drops while a tube's connected Then you've got a hole in it

Alright, we're here. That was quick. Gonna get some audio of you chaining up your bike A needle drops while a tube's connected Then you've got a hole in it Alright we're here! That was quick Gonna get some audio of you chaining up your bike Isn't that nice? How are you doing? La? Primerita? Gush Adam let me introduce you to Wes

Sorry Adam I didn't... I wouldn't have just walked away Adam, let me introduce you to Wes. Sorry, Adam. Hello, Wes. I wouldn't have just walked away. How are you? How are you? Thank you. Is that coffee? Adam and I have known each other. I'm sure I've told you about Adam in the past.

Yes, we have. We've been sort of family, really. Our families, our children have sort of grown up at the same time. Have you stayed in yurts and things like that? Yeah, we've done holidays. We've done all that, yeah. In fact, even Wasn't there a yurt at some point? That was Ed, wasn't it? That was Ed. Ed organized the yurts? Yeah.

Or did you not go to the yurts? I didn't do the yurts. You didn't do the yurts. No. Yeah, he was like, no, that was I'm too snooty for No yurts. Yeah. I would like to stay in a yurt, would I would want it to be a kind of a great yurt yeah

luxury yurt yeah these were lovely and I bet there are nice ones I bet there are loads of nice ones I just haven't looked

into it for years because we haven't done that for years well you've sort of covered it there's something wonderful about all sleeping in a big

round we had all the children with us actually there were only three of them at the time but it was beautiful that thing of

everyone in the same room right just fun it's lovely yeah and when you say

goodnight it's so dark when you blow out the final candle it's like the Waltons yeah it is for us

it's like goodnight yeah you said goodnight Casper that reference even exists in your I mean

I didn't know the Waltons had been translated. They used to show the Waltons of an afternoon in the UK. That was like, I don't know if I should say padding or filler. Would you say that was filler? I'm going to move that. Afternoon filler. Yeah, I mean, I suppose it depends on who you talk to. I mean, for some people it was not filler.

My mother, for instance. She liked that? Yeah. For your mum it was all killer. It was killer. But let's not focus entirely on the waters. Okay, all right. We saw your film last night and we loved it.

Oh, good. Absolutely loved it. And I took the boys along as well. Good. And it was a hit. Asa's the youngest, right? Yeah. And how old is Asa?

He's seven and he's the only one that had a moment. I should have said, by the way, there's a bit of blood. Yeah, but it's not the blood. I'll tell you what the bit was. There was only one bit where he really was squeamish. The sushi scene. Do you remember when, you know that really graphic stripping of the fish and then turning it into sushi? I don't want to give the plot away. Certainly I know it.

Yeah, of course you know it. But that was, he was going, and then when the octopus tentacle comes out still wriggling, I don't want to give the plot away. Certainly I know it. Yeah. Of course you know it. But that was, he was going, and then when the octopus tentacle comes out still wriggling. He didn't find that fun. He was very freaked out by that. But in a good way. You know, it passed by. And he was so in love with the puppies and the dogs and everything else.

So it's fine. That you got him through it. Okay, that's good. It does have some darker moments. Yeah. But, okay, well that's good. Wes, can I, will. Yeah. But, okay, well, that's good. Wes, can I, will it be comfortable if you sort of lean forward a little bit? Yes, it will be comfortable.

Thank you. And, you know, if you get angry and annoyed with leaning forward, it's not the end of the world. But it's optimal. This way, it's like a very intimate experience for the listener. Yes, we're in there. They're in this little circle. Their head is here. They're like the fourth microphone. When we came out of the screening, one of the first things Garth said, of course Garth is working on his second animated movie

aimed at the world of children, but he said, wow, pretty much all those ideas would not get past a big studio. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I loved it. Well, but also, you're making movies that really are genuinely for children. Yeah. That's one of the reasons I loved it. Well, but also, you're making movies that really are genuinely for children. Yeah. And

to be seen by a lot of them. Yeah. I mean, a humongous audience. Our movie, I don't even know if it's for children in the first place. We never really

even thought about it past a certain point. I mean, originally, what I'm going to do now is not promote the film. We intended to make it a short. That's really not, you're not supposed to say it was really supposed to be a short. It grew. A lot of films have come out short films.

You're just anticipating the critics rubbing their hands and saying, this is a film that started out as a short and should have stayed a short. Exactly. Because it's grotesquely overextended at 90 minutes or whatever. Precisely. Because I do,

every now and then I do have a feeling about a movie, maybe it should have been a short. Right. But this one, we felt the opposite. I hope we were right.

We started thinking it was going to be animated, but we never really associated that with it being for children. At one point, our thought was that we would go make the movie in Japan, that it would be animated in Japan, and we'd work with an entirely Japanese production. And in Japan, animated movies aren't necessarily for children. They're for families, but they're much less focused on being for very young people um and in the end i mean there isn't really a japanese stop motion community

of the the place that has the great stop motion world is england i mean oregon in america and england and we're sort of neither we're we're people from both and people from all other places as well who kind of get brought together for the two we've done this a second animated movie that I've done yeah in England and so you did mr. Fox in England yeah we did the same place as Bromley by Bo you've worked at three Mills yeah yes I did an Allison Moyet video there yeah I remember coming down to the set of Fantastic Mr. Fox and it was beautiful. Those lovely models and sets.

Yes. It just makes you want to be part of it. Well, you are in Fantastic Mr. Fox. Did you record, was your voice recorded there? Yes. Yes. Yeah, I did it in, I think it was your office. Yes, that's right.

Yeah. You played a, I think your character was modeled on Prince Harry. It was, yes. Yes. With chocolate around his face. That's right. Yeah. You played a... I think your character was modeled on Prince Harry. It was, yes. With chocolate around his face. That's right. He was... I mean, I don't want to be unfair to Prince Harry, but it wasn't your most attractive character.

He was well played. He was very well played. I loved doing that. But ultimately, I mean, Prince Harry didn't inspire the behavior of the character on any level. It was simply the facial structure let's say

and the colouring and so on because they've also got it looked like you used a waxy material for the faces in this one is it different

to the first one yes with Fantastic Mr. Fox what I enjoyed with the animation of that movie were the animals because they're very kind of

complex sophisticated faces with bones and the animators can work with them in the most intricate ways and they can really make these little bit I mean you we have some here in this room you can see these they're quite small and but they're filled with the faces are filled with little paddles and joints, and you can make them very, very expressive. The human faces in Fantastic Mr. Fox are a similar kind of method, but they're rubber. There's a rubber kind of surface, and they don't hold up that well. They break, they age, they don't, they're just not great. And on this one, we kept the same kind of animation and kind of puppetry for the dogs in the movie. But the humans we used is something that's a little more common now, which is you replace the faces frame by frame.

You use special plugs to replace the mouth or part of the face. Oh, I see. Right. You digitally paint out the seams. And the reason that's particularly popular now is because they can laser print them. They can print thousands of them. And ours, we were going to do it that way, but we ended up just doing them all by hand

because it worked a bit better for us. So we kind of got the disadvantages of both methods. But we did find this kind of resin that had not been used before for these sort of puppets, and they're sort of translucent. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, and we liked it. I mean, also the other thing is we did a thing which is painting a lot of detail under the faces,

which makes it very, very hard to match. It just makes it... At one point I decided we were going to have a limited number of faces, but they were going to be extremely detailed and finely painted which has to be done by hand but then as we are actually doing the scenes we needed more and more and more these faces it wasn't good enough without more expression and movement and so then you're doing it now suppose saying this is exactly what we said we couldn't do we can't do this many faces this detail

but it's too late yeah and we have to just keep going. I feel bad about that, but, you know, we did it anyway. I think most people assume that stop motion is incredibly labor intensive and is probably the most time-consuming way of making a film. Is that still the case? I would say yes, it probably is. I mean, it's... How was it taken? It took...

Well, I don't really know. I don't really keep track of things like months and even years on a movie like this. But I think it was two years or so of shooting. Right. And there's probably, we spent about a year making just the animatic. And that was just me and one storyboard artist named Jay Clark, who lives in Oxford, and one editor named Edward B bursch who lives in pittsburgh pennsylvania and the three of us working for um yeah but it wasn't but was about

a year because working with just a small group like that i remember you just reminded me because when you showed me that animatic and i remember there was a scene and you asked me about it afterwards that wasn't in the film in the end oh yes where am i allowed to say yes all right there was a scene with a dog whether where the bad guys were testing a sort of gas that would kill the dogs yes it's true we had a scene where we gassed this chihuahua which i thought was a reasonably effective scene i remember it was one of those the only time i was watching it was like oh i better say something you know and it's awkward because i've loved everything and i was and then you said uh i think someone else had mentioned it or something yes and uh don't guess the chihuahua i mean you had a great i remember laughing because i remember saying well maybe if

the the heat wasn't suffering and maybe if the gas smelt nice and like a vape yeah and you went all right he could just say smooth and then keel over yeah i mean it was supposed to be a funny scene of the dog being gassed but maybe we just didn't find the way to do that no one's cracked that nut yet you have to get it just right My boys were laughing their heads off when you were showing all the ailments. The dogs would like turn to camera. Yes. Or there was a cut where one was lonely. Right.

Or one was just, there were like an ear hanging off. The ailments were so extreme and funny. Yeah. I don't think I've laughed at diseases as much as I have. Yes. That was so good good it's a bit bleak i think no it's not it's really good that bit i really love it where does it come from what sort of made you determined to make this your next project it was really when we were doing

fantastic mr fox we would draw when i would go to the studio i would see this sign that said isle of dogs um and i'd never been to isle of Dogs. I didn't know what it was. And I'd never heard of it. And before I kind of found out about it, I think I started just imagining what might that be like. And that was the beginning of this movie. Then I kind of gathered a few thoughts that it was going to be an, that the Isle of Dogs was a garbage dump. And it was, and it was sort of this manmade landscape, like nature, but man-made nature, if that makes any sense. And what this pack of dogs were like, that they were all sort of alpha dogs, called Chief, King, Rex, etc. And I told that to Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola, and we started talking about it. But we had another idea, which was that we wanted to do a movie together in Japan so somewhere along the way we sort of mixed them and that's when we

started to come up with a with a story every scene I mean it's like so many of your films particularly Grand Budapest Hotel I remember watching it and and luxuriating in how much you can enjoy every frame you know and obviously you're well known for paying a lot of attention to to the construction of those frames and how they work as like a little art piece in itself really who are the people that you take inspiration from in that way you know we had we had some basic inspirations akira kurosawa his city movies especially like stray dog and high and low and the bad sleep well and Miyazaki particularly how he handles uh how his interest in nature and portraying nature in animation really I mean there aren't that many I mean what Watership Down maybe might have some of this but we don't see American movies where there are montages that are just about leaves and grass.

We don't pause for that. I mean, Jason points out, Jason said the silences of Miyazaki movies were part of our inspiration. Miyazaki Studio Ghibli Maestro. That's the Studio Ghibli Maestro. Yes, Miyazaki. And that's the one. That's the Studio Ghibli Maestro. Yes, Miyazaki.

And that's the one. So I think those who, and we also, there are these Hokusai and Hiroshige, I think you call it Yukio-e woodblock prints. And there was an exhibition here in Paris of those right before we started this project. And then at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, they have a huge collection of these. And we went through all their archives and we just took pictures of these and they became a giant influence I mean more than an influence we were

using these images to make new images really we were stealing from them. It's nice to have a director just not use the word homage and just go for stealing homage suggests the polite way of saying so who did you steal from for this film yeah exactly that's right i think that's more accurate no there's a bit at

the end there's a purple mountain and the owl flying over it and there's one moment that is like you say that you don't have very often in animated films is there just all the blossom cherry blossom yeah just coming off falling off the trees and things like that i suppose bambi did have you know like april shower sequence and things like that did have its moments of yes i mean bambi does have probably i bet i should see bambi again because i bet that does have the expression of nature in a more they were definitely going for it in a way that you probably wouldn't see otherwise these days yeah Yeah. But do watch out if you show it to your child because it does. I can't remember how old she is.

She's two. Right. Yeah. I remember a four-year-old. One of ours was four and it was the most traumatic thing. Bambi's notorious though. I mean, that's the original film that needs to come with a massive trigger warning on the front. Yeah.

You can't watch it until you're 25. Yeah also pinocchio is surprisingly pinocchio when he changes when he transforms is shocking any kind of physical transformation or mutation for a child to see is very upsetting and strange i think well of course in pinocchio they send a load of naughty boys to an island where they get to smoke drink vandalize the property and then they're then they're put into cages and turned into donkeys and sent down salt

mines yeah you can't I would talk about ideas I couldn't pitch anymore that would be one of them I wouldn't be able to get that really Pinocchio yeah what if you said

let's do Pinocchio that could do it yeah yeah that would do it get around don't mention the salt mines and the vandalism. But you'd have to just say we've got a bestseller. Yeah.

Well, no, I think if you've got, because I think someone like Guillermo del Toro was going to do it. You'd do Dark Pinocchio. Go full Christopher Nolan, Dark Pinocchio. Yes. And then it's not even necessarily a children's film. You can't understand what anyone's saying. It's all dark.

It's like. Geppetto turns out to be a kiddie fiddler or something. And that's why he makes it. Let's not even necessarily a children's film. You can't understand what anyone's saying. It's all dark. Geppetto turns out to be a kiddie fiddler or something, and that's why he makes it. Oh, no, let's not do that. Listen, you asked for it. I'm just trying to tackle some real issues with the new Dark Pinocchio. Hey, everybody in the modern time

They got to get themselves a podcast I will do yours and you'll do mine We're sorting out the problems of the world so fast Hey Wes, I got you a gift. Some Bowie Trumps. They're made lovingly by an artist friend of mine from Cardiff. Wow. I didn't know that.

These are David Bowie collectible cards. Do you know the game trumps? No. What is trumps? When we were at school, we played top trumps. And you'd be able to get top trumps, tanks, motorbikes, racing cars, etc. And you'd have different values, various strengths and weaknesses of that type, that model. that type that model and then you would deal out the cards and you say okay i my spitfire's got lots of power points how many is yours i've got the sock with camel it's got less power points

than your spitfire and then you win the card off the other person so we've got bowie trumps all bowie's different incarnations different characters from throughout his life. So, for example, here we've got Aladdin Sane. Yes, that should be a very valuable one. But then you've got more obscure ones, like Paul von Przegorski. What is that one? Oh, that's from Just a Gigolo. Just a Gigolo.

Have you seen that? Yeah. I've never seen it. Don't worry about it. No. No, you're okay. Elephant Man, for example. Oh, Elephant Man on the stage. that? Yeah. I've never seen it. Don't worry about it. No. No, you're okay. Elephant Man, for example. So I've got...

Oh, Elephant Man on the stage. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so I'm going to play my Elephant Man against... Aladdin Sane. Okay, so you've selected Aladdin Sane. I'm selecting Dow Jones. Dow Jones.

Where's he from? Earthling album, 1997. Earthling album. 1997. So that's Bowie with Ginger Goatee. Not one of my favourite Bowie phases. No good luck with that okay here we go let's play i'm gonna pick alien factor elephant man my alien factor is 25 i'm aladdin saying i've got a 44 oh your alien factor is 25 we so i think we both have to give our cards to Wes because Aladdin Sane wins

Aladdin Sane is a very very strong card it's got to be one of the strongest cards sure yes I mean even his he has something

at the bottom which is just called Bowie rating and he's got a 91 oh yeah it's massive I mean that's one of the most iconic

album cover images of all time it's now at that point where it's on people's walls even if they don't know what it is right it's like a Ramones t-shirt

you don't you know you may never have listened to the music but you know that's a good level yeah to have on your shirt

because little children have those t-shirts now yeah and I'm sure some of them have heard Ramones yeah yeah but I'm not sure Piton the brat

yeah Piton the brat that's what they've heard did you meet him? Because I know you had loads of... Johnny Ramone? No, no, David Bowie. I can't remember.

Oh, I did meet him once. Yeah. Very briefly. Was it because of the music? In Life Aquatic, we used David Bowie songs interpreted by Sao Jorge and made his own arrangements and sang them in Portuguese. And he had allowed us to use it, but I never met him along the way after the movie was finished we had a screening for him and then this someone called my mobile phone

and said you asked if I was me and I said yes and said this is I'm this is David Bowie's office and just want you to know to expect a call from him later this afternoon. So I just kept it in front of me until nightfall, but I never rang. I mean, I think he was watching the movie. I think maybe the movie ended. He probably was not sure what he thought, maybe, or maybe he just simply didn't like it. But the best case scenario, I think, would be he just didn't know what to say. We don't know.

But then maybe a year later, I met him for a moment, and he was very nice. But I can't say that I felt very relaxed. Presumably, you're a big fan, were you? Yes. Yeah. And I just kind of thanked him for being himself. Yeah. So if you were going through various Bowie phases,

if you were looking through these trump cards, which would be your favourite Bowie? I think, maybe this one. Thin White Duke? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he really did look... He was horribly underweight then. Baal, you've got that.

Do you know that? Yeah. That was Alan Clark's BBC film. It's Brecht. Bertolt Brecht. Yes. It's really great. Yes. It's well worth a look.

You've seen it, right, Wes? I've seen it, yeah. So Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright, story of this kind of low-life, amoral carouser who goes out, maybe murders someone, drinks a whole lot, treats women badly. And so it's Bowie, uns unshaven with kind of blackened teeth it's Weimar period

right is that right or is it or is it earlier than that that makes sense yes do you know the

Alan Clark movies have you seen many of them Scum oh yes that's Ray Ray Winstone yeah his first role

which was first made for BBC and then they didn't air it they decided we can't put this

on television and he remade it as a feature film they wouldn't let him have the movie to take away but they allowed him

to remake it and now the BBC one is a part of I think maybe it's BFI produced a big

box set he did one with Tim he made Tim Roth's first film which is I confused This is England

and Made in Britain which one is which Shane Shane Meadows' This is England so Made in Britain was the Made in Britain

it must be that that's the Tim Roth which is very very good and a great Gary Oldman one The Firm do you know that early I don't think I've ever seen that that's a great movie that's the Tim Roth which is very very good and a great Gary Oldman one The Firm do you know that early

I don't think I've ever seen that that's a great movie that's one of the last Alan Clark films I feel a little bit embarrassed I haven't seen

that stuff there's such a strange variety of things Rita Sue and Bob oh yeah that's a masterpiece that's his yes

that is a masterpiece that's one of his maybe one of two feature films that he made two or three two maybe

I can quote I feel better now you've brought me back into it with that one maybe one of two feature films that he made, two or two maybe. I can quote lines from that one. I feel better now. You've brought me back into it with that one. Rita Sue and Bob too. I mean, I just love it when he says, I thought I were great. After listening to complaining that he wasn't that satisfying.

Oh, I thought I were great. I just always remember that. Sorry. Oh dear. No, Baal is worth seeing. I just always remember that sorry oh dear no Baal is worth seeing and he recorded an EP in Hansa

it was the last thing that he recorded in that amazing studio in Germany in Berlin and it's really good his singing is right on top

yes he's I mean half of the he's sort of the he's the main character but he's also sort of the chorus I would say and's, I mean, half of the, he's sort of the, he's the main character, but he's also sort of the chorus, I would say. And he sings.

He sings in it as well. Yeah. He sings all through it. He sings almost acapella. Yes. I mean, it's almost like Japanese where you pluck a few strings to set the mood in between the lines. Something like that.

So like set the key and then off you go. Yes. Is that right? Is that sort of accurate yeah I would say and then the EP is all all the songs

and more re-recorded beautifully recorded by Tony Visconti yeah musical settings and his voice is never better his voice is amazing

it's really good yeah it was in that blue month of September silent beneath the plum trees and a shade or something like that.

That's good. And he does it better than that. Sure. But it's really, it's lovely. And I remember at the time, one of them even got into the charts, I think, because... One of the songs from Bob. Yeah. One of the more up-tempo songs, but they're all quite weird.

And it got into the charts. And I remember as a Bowie fan fan I was completely baffled. Is it a compulsion that leads you to explore that leading edge all the time? Yeah, I'm still a curiosity seeker, looking at the idiosyncrasies of things. A mountain or a tree is the manifestation of forces that we are not capable of dealing with. I'm very drunk in this. Do you get the opportunity to listen to music much? Yes.

Well, you know, lately, the music I've been listening to, I've been listening to much more of Mary Poppins. Right. Sound of Music. Okay. Singing in the Rain these have not been traditionally anything I could do but my daughter is absolutely

fixated on these so I really not to just play them over and over again is kind of cruel does Mary Poppins have Let's Go Fly a Kite? yeah sure that's a hit yeah and which is the one Does Mary Poppins have Let's Go Fly a Kite? Yeah, sure. Yes, yes. I mean, that one we listened to a lot.

That's a hit, yeah. And which is the one where the chimney sweeps are doing... Step in Time? Step in Time. Da-da-da, Step in Time. That's the one that's on multiple rooftops, is that right? Yeah, they pop out and everything. And he was about 45 or something when he shot that?

What, Duke Van Dyke? Yeah. Is that right? Yeah, he was well into his 40 when he shot that. What, Duke Van Dyke? Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. He was well into his 40s, I think. Yeah. He was certainly, you know, if I'd been that age, I would not have been stepping in time. No.

I would have been, heart attack, heart attack. I'm going to have a heart attack. That's what it would have been like for me. Oh, it's lovely though just little things and lovely things that like when they climb up smoke staircases yeah they blow the smoke and then they climb up and it's full of lovely the ideas that stand up perfectly yeah so does she watch it or does she only know she's always she hasn't she's never seen it she's only um listened to it and i haven't seen it in a long time I watched it

because when we were doing the a couple of movies ago Moonrise Kingdom that one we had a scene at the end where I wanted to build like I saw this these set rooftop sets I wanted to build these rooftops that's we didn't have the money we didn't have the time we had to sort of we had to come up with another solution which was all right but i mean we really should have built the entire kind of uh was that some did somebody just say no we're not building it it was just it was too late it was it was i added it was i mean i didn't even get to the point to be told we're not paying for this there just wasn't time to build it I've only done one rooftop set

and it was and it was huge yeah and it wasn't I didn't do it right so you couldn't tell that it was expensive yeah

it was underwhelming cinematically which what was it I was in a music video years ago for an artist you won't have ever heard of

which was what oh she was Swedish and I've forgotten her name. Lisa something. Have you done music videos, Wes? I've always wanted to, but I've never managed to actually do one.

I mean, there was one, I almost did one for the Strokes, years and years ago. Now that's probably 15 years ago or maybe more. They decided against my idea in the end. I had something totally unrelated to what they actually were asking me to do and they decided they wanted to do

what they wanted to do, which I think is... That's fair enough. Yeah, that's a reasonably good policy. But you've done loads of short films and commercials. Some short films, yeah. But they're not really commercials, are they?

No, I would and commercials. Sometimes short films, yeah. But they're not really commercials, are they? No, I would say commercials. But they're sort of special occasion commercials a lot of them, aren't they? Kind of. I mean,

sometimes I've done commercials where somebody has said the commercial is do whatever you want, but, I mean, they're commercials.

So you did, was it H&M? Yeah. Yeah, that was brilliant. And Garth Jennings starred in that. Yeah. Adrian Brody

providing some supporting yeah he tried to keep up with me no and I've never seen you directing on set before

and being in that world of those amazing train sets yeah model train sets I mean the sets of trains god it was great so this was a

for people who didn't see it describe it well Wes was making a commercial but it's a short film really isn't it set on a train

it's an H&M commercial everybody's in H&M clothes it's H&M Christmas right they do except me and Adrian Brody

because we're the train staff and I will say you might be the best dressed thank you well I'm not surprised your costume lady Adrian Brody because we're the train staff and I will say you might be the best dressed thank you in the thank you

well I'm not surprised your costume lady was it was Milena um Cannonero yeah

who's won the Oscar so many times she's sort of the best so I walked in I had no idea that that was going to happen and I turned up at that wardrobe fitting

and got the best pair of green trousers I've ever seen in my life and she was amazing yeah you know what Milena's first movie was it was Clockwork Orange no and got the best pair of green trousers I've ever seen in my life. And she was amazing. Yeah, you know what Milena's first movie was? It was Clockwork Orange. No!

Can you believe that? That's her first film. Yes. So she would have been responsible for coming up with those sort of iconic looks? Or was that something that Kubrick would have... Certainly she was responsible for making them. Yeah. I don't know exactly. I have no idea what the process is I I would

there's nothing like that in the book is there there's nothing described like that in the book or is there what is I can't remember well I know from photographs I've seen online that they did like hat tests trying to find the right hats and things so it wasn't like there was a hat no that should be exactly this hat to follow the book so they were clearly testing and trying I mean I think it's safe to say Milena and Stanley Kubrick came up with it yeah what we see yeah anyway so this is that's a amazing for the hunger or something like that or she probably did do the hunger and that but that's that's a Ridley or a Tony the hunger is Tony Scott I miss Tony um butwork Orange, those costumes again

to bring it back to Bowie, everything comes back to Bowie. But that was a huge influence on him. That movie and those costumes and the boots, you know, the romper suits with boots. Yeah, what a look. Yeah, that's what they originally started dressing as, I think the spiders. And then they went more colorful but I remember meeting her and being so impressed and you have like a sort of family don't you because they're sort of people you've worked with a lot yes yeah and well we had to yeah on that one also we had we had Bruno Del Bonel who's a great camera man do you yeah you got to talk to yeah yeah that's great he's

great and we had and then we have sanjay sammy that's the person who's who i remember the most yes sanjay is our key grip is a very unusual thing because normally i mean when you make a movie in south africa or something you might have somebody who's comes out of who worked who somebody who comes from mumbai or something like that who works but in europe and in especially in America you normally can't bring a grip. You know they're unions and it's all regulated and they won't give you a visa for somebody like that to come work. Somewhere along the way we managed to establish we had to get to all we had some senators and we had a whole group of people to

just kind of express his role in our movies ever since we did Darjeeling Limited years ago and he's really a department head of his own he's he's become this great collaborator for me what does the key grip do then what are you responsible for the key grip does a whole variety of things but it's all has to do really with rigging. It has to do with laying track and moving the camera and operating dollies and cranes and building scaffolding and maintaining safety in certain situations. But he's the guy who figures out how...

If the thing is that when the camera goes by, we've got to flip open this wall and we've got to then drop... Then the floor's got to lift up and you know all these things that might have to happen he's involved with how we're going to really do it how it's going to actually work and how it's going to be safe and how it's going to happen quickly during the shot and all those kind of things i remember that he was amazing but then there's this whole train set that would flip open so when when the camera moved, whole parts of the set would just disappear, float away, go up to the ceiling, move back.

It was behind the camera was as impressive as in front of it. It was so nice being in someone else's world for a bit. Yeah, that doesn't happen to us. Especially with the catering was amazing. Have you been on other sets? Very rarely. You didn't visit the Star Wars set? I thought everybody visited the Star Wars. I don't know anyone. Or one of the Star Wars movies. No rarely you didn't visit the star wars set i thought everybody visited

the star i don't know anyone in fact or one of the star wars movies no i didn't i i have a friend who's a director and he got invited to go and sit in the millennium falcon with ryan um jj aprons so it's jj right right and uh so it was edgar wright and joe my friend joe cornish who went and they sat there on the millennium falcon and when joe told me that i was quite angry because they there was such a big deal about how they'd 3d printed all these panels from the original millennium falcon and recreated it like absolutely beautifully so it was all practical you know it was not not just great acres of green screen.

No, it was a real Millennium Falcon. Yeah. He started the movie by saying part four, or whatever it is, at that very first one, he must have known, I'm going to need this Millennium Falcon again.

God. It comes back. Yeah. Yeah. That has been a very useful spaceship. Do you hang on to the sets, like from Mr. Fox and, Yeah,

well, I have all the puppets from fantastic mr fox this one i am archiving more stuff i always archive the the costumes and props and things ever since the you know the first movie i made the studio department of that is in charge of them they were reselling all our things we saw these things being sold for we would have bought everything for the amount that they were getting yeah and we didn't have the chance and and um and even things that we put in prop storage that the studio had we went back to do to reshoot something and it was gone it had been rented to somebody else and they damaged something and lost

something and so from then on i just started keeping everything myself um and archiving it but sets are too big but that's quite you have to be quite clever about that don't you because i've tried moving things people no they know their job is to stop you doing that that's true but yeah you have to kind of establish i mean i i don't claim that I own all these things. They know we trust ourselves to look after these things as well as anybody else. And also that way we know what's going to happen to it. Yeah. And sometimes with these things, they could decide we're going to get rid of some things and they'll make decisions.

And there's just no system for telling you and not necessarily anybody wants to anyway. Were those two puppets there, were they used in the film then? Yeah. and there's just no system for telling you and not necessarily anybody wants to anyway. So it was that. Were those two puppets there? Were they used in the film? Yeah. God, I thought they'd be bigger. Yeah, they probably should have been. I mean, I think we went a bit small on some of the stuff.

No, but the trouble is, though, if they go bigger, then your sets go bigger. Everything gets bigger, right? Yeah, but it probably should have. No, it's nice because you can see that it's real. Yeah. And it's not like a lot of modern stop motion looks like CG because it's so smooth and perfect. Yeah. And it seems to be a bit self-defeating.

And you can see that these things are real. These tiny little puppets are real. Yeah, it's like explosions and things you do and like steam that comes out of a beaker. It's so nice that it's real stuff. Yeah. It really is kind of one of the many, many things. With a lot of stop-motion movies,

they now will do the backgrounds. They'll replace the backgrounds. I mean, the whole sets will be green screen and they're doing CG backgrounds, and so it's really just the puppets that are being animated, and there's so much kind of fine-tuning and polishing that's done in the computer for most. So then that's why they just get so buffed that they look perfect.

But our budget, I don't know. Are both Sing films the same kind of budget, or is the new one bigger even? that they look perfect but our budget I don't know I don't know are both same films the same kind of budget or is the new one bigger even the new one will probably

I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this stuff but I'll say it no no but I think it will be a little bit bigger yeah

the first one was under budget which was good it made under budget we came in under which is great and then but the next one

I think it goes up because for the simple reason that the actors fees are more the same time around that's built into the deal

on the first one right yeah yeah but to movies like to make a movie like Sing is that

can I is that like a hundred million dollar kind of thing Sing was 70, I think. 70. Yeah. Right.

And what sort of budgets are you working with? Ours is like 40. But for, you know, we did Fantastic Mr. Fox for the same as this one. And Fantastic Mr. Fox, this one is much, much bigger. Oh God, yeah. Three times as many puppets and three times as many sets I was going to say sets wise

yeah so this one was a bit of it was a bit of a stretch but we did have a lot of better systems in place on this one but I think that's part of the thing

like our movie is not so positive in part because it's just we don't have that we wouldn't we wouldn't be able to do that even if we wanted to to you know to get everything

to finesse everything. I'm really glad you didn't. And actually, you don't come away going, well, it's very rough. It's the opposite. You come away going, I just saw something beautiful. All those guys on the boats,

I don't want to ruin a plot point, but when they're all on the boats and then when you're following a beacon at one point and it's in time with the drums, it's full of all this delicious stuff, delicious detail, beautiful details. And when they are in professor Watanabe's science lab,

professor Watanabe is trying to formulate this, uh, oh yeah. Vaccine for this disease. The dogs have, and the sci-fi detail of all the machines in there was just great. Have you, is that a genre that you would

ever be into doing a movie in that was a bad sentence but but i think um yes i would i mean i i kind of almost almost any genre some you know if you think of the right characters to go with it or something like that um I would like to, I mean, that one, the set you're talking about is, it's a lot of, let's say,

I would say decorative action that goes into this scene. But, and, but also I think it was something to say, it took so long to figure out what to do. The number of versions of this scene, which I don't even want to, I won't even bother to describe what happens in the scene

because it's just, you know, sort of science experiments or something. But in order to make it actually work in the movie, I don't know. That sushi scene you referred to, that is just disproportionate with the end result. I mean, what went into it.

The end result's pretty good. It's a build- up to an assassination. And in normal, in a kind of thriller, Bourne Identity thing, you would normally see the guy taking the box, opening the gun, taking out the phone, you know, and assembling the silencer on the, you know, you're used to that sense of ceremony in a build up to something that is going to be deadly. But never with fish or octopus never been done this way

you've totally broken the mould that, I just remembered something there was a character in it and she was the assistant to the Yoko Ono, was it Yoko Ono? was actually her doing the voice it is, good work

that's great, yeah I mean you've got a sort of spectacular I didn't know Yoko Ono yeah was actually her doing the voice it is good work that's great yeah I mean you've got a sort of spectacular I didn't know ludicrous voice cast who I mean let's just reel up

well can you reel off a few of the names you've got in there yes we've got well Yoko Ono originally we had a character the one thing that I would say is homage

is that we had named the character Yoko Ono and I thought we'd make her look like Yoko Ono just because I love Yoko Ono and I thought we'd make her look like Yoko Ono just because I love Yoko Ono yeah

and then I thought well maybe Yoko Ono would say yeah I didn't I don't know Yoko I've met her only twice

and anyway she said yes so we have we have but it hurts quite a small part we have Brian Cranston

who has a he has a big part and we've got Liev Schreiber he plays Spots the bodyguard dog yeah

we have Frances McDormand plays an interpreter yeah and she has she probably has more dialogue than anybody else

in the movie except for maybe Brian Cranston we've got Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum and Greta Gerwig whota goig who's the great she's a foreign exchange foreign exchange student radical yes um oh man she's got this great uh white afro there's a cut the first time you see

her head to toe i've really laughed out loud she's standing standing there with her legs apart, sort of very determined and making her pronouncement at the school. And it's such a funny character. The character is really based on, did you ever see An Angel at My Table? Yeah. Yes, that was the inspiration. I mean, the personality is quite different, but the hair is definitely directly from Jane Campion.

Right. Janet Frame, I think is the name of the... That's right. I'd forgotten about that film. That's a great movie. Yeah. The holiday horn, it goes do-do-do. Holiday time.

Have a carrot, have two carrots. Go to the toilet, take your time Holiday time Do you go to Japan regularly these days? No, I've only been to Japan once I'm going next month, or I'm going in May To talk about the movie? To talk about the movie Where did you go when you first went? I went to Tokyo about the movie to talk about the movie where did you go

when you first went I went to Tokyo and I went to Kyoto right have you been to Japan yeah I spent about

10 weeks out there with my comedy wife Jo oh yes in just after my son my first son was born he was very little he was only about

6 months old and I got this job to do a TV show about Japanese popular culture which ended up being called Adam and Jo

Go Tokyo but it was amazing made a huge impression on me I think about it all the time still yeah me too this movie really

comes from the fact that Roman and Jason and I all wanted to be there but that because you've gone around the world with your films. You've sort of had adventures while making them.

Yeah, that's true. And that's like you go to India or you'll go to... Yeah, we wanted to make a movie in Japan. That was really what we wanted to do. And we didn't get the chance with this in the end because we decided to make an animated thing. But Darjeeling Limited, that one was a great, just the making of that movie. And Life Aquatic, those were real adventures. Yeah. had to make an animated thing but um darjeeling limited that one was a great just making that

movie and life aquatic those were real adventures yeah that movie we were we were really at sea often you know the way that literally and metaphorically no both i would say especially metaphorically but um but we were but you know the original plan for the movie was there was a short period of time where we would be on our real boat which are on the water but the original plan for the movie was there was a short period of time where we would be on our real boat which on the water but the weather the way it actually worked out we went out to sea continuously

throughout the whole movie we would work for a few days at the studio which is Chinichita and then we'd say okay the seas are meant to be low on Thursday and we'd go it was the kind of thing where if we could redo it

we could redo it, we could do it so much more efficiently and it was a real struggle. There were so many things that were challenging. I was going to say, I've never been that good on the sea. I'm fine with a nice flat sea, obviously,

but if it gets choppy, I really fall to pieces. Was it like that? I'm perfectly capable of getting seasick I don't I never got seasick during the movie because

probably you just sort of go into a little bit of a zone yeah where you know I mean you're so focused on what you need to get

there's no time yeah other things are making you unhappy hadn't you seen the documentary about Jaws yeah

hadn't you seen how hard it was for Spielberg to get all that stuff he really figured it out though he did make it work yeah in the end but but he still says like have you seen that uh the new spielberg documentary no i don't think so it's good it is that's why it was an hbo one yeah yeah but he he restates there how what what a nightmare it was yeah just not being everything taking 10 times longer than he thought

it would yeah but he had the patience he somehow on some level trusted that he and he knew what things were going to actually work they figured it all out somehow plus he had a cantankerous actor there in the form of robert shaw, who was quite a handful apparently. I can imagine. But you seem to take pains to have a sort of sympathetic family of performers when you do most of your movies. I've had some cantankerous ones along the way. I have had a few bumpy ones. Gene Hackman, when we did the Royal Tenenbaums Gene Hackman has a big part in the movie he's there

for the whole shoot and I never really we worked out some of our we figured out a way to work I could have done

that's like the sea if I had been there before and had enough time to think about it if I had some years to think about it I would go had some years to think about it,

I would go back and I'd do better for him, I think. I feel like I would be able to... I remember one before, in trying to convince him to do the movie because he didn't want to do it, I had said to him, I promise you that you'll be happy during this movie. And at one point during the movie,

he shouted at me, you promised me I would be happy during this movie. And at one point during the movie, he shouted at me, you promised me I would be happy. I know, I remember. Yeah, you know. What's the comeback? Comeback might not be the word. I think I kind of crumbled. Okay.

I think I... If Gene Hackman said that to me... I said something like, I thought you would be. But that's not the same as a promise. Yeah. What would you say, Garth? What, to Gene Hackman?

I'd have gone very Essex. Yeah. Do you want a cup of tea, Gene? Does your voice go wobbly, Wes, when you're in a confrontational situation? I mean, I did have some confrontational situations with him. I don't think i got very wobbly though but at least he was quite straight with you it wasn't like a passive

aggressive thing right he didn't sulk no no i used to have crew that didn't you know if they didn't like something roll their eyes if i was saying oh let's do one more i'd see somebody roll their eyes or something like that i used to hate that stuff yeah that, we're going again. We want to do it again. You've kind of taken yourself outside of that world in a way. And presumably you're keen just to create a nice environment for yourself and the performers. And that's part of the way you make your films. Well, I really, I think I like to have a very comfortable, luxurious, entertaining place for everybody to be after we finish work. What I really want is everybody to stay together while we're shooting.

And then afterwards, I'd rather work on location and have us all stay together and have it something where everybody goes back. And you go home when the movie is all finished, basically basically so would you all get together of an evening while you were doing Grand Budapest Hotel yes we had we all lived in a little that you know we fact when we found a place to shoot we found a town where there was a location that I thought we could make into the hotel which was a department store an abandoned department store and a little hotel not far from it. And we all lived in the little hotel. We took over the whole hotel.

And where was this? It's in a place called Görlitz. It's on the border of Saxony, Germany, and Poland, and very near Czech Republic, that little corner. And yes, so we all, we had a cook that we knew who had come in and there was no restaurant in the hotel, but there was a breakfast kitchen and he made the breakfast kitchen into a real kitchen. And we had the ground floor of the hotel was the costume,

I mean the makeup and hair department and the dinner room. And that's, we all had dinner there every night and then and you know I think really it's we try to do it where we're wrapping and we're going home and dinner's ready in 20 minutes or something or you know very soon and everybody's everybody can be completely relaxed but also you can kind of go up to your room early and be ready for the next day and we always did now we do this thing where the costumes are in the actor's room so when they come up from dinner their costume is ready and they just put that on in the morning rather than going to the set and going to a having a trailers and all that stuff we don't do it where they just go in these in their costumes it's all it's works better for me yeah yeah it's more fun i think too yeah because

i noticed as well with makeup and things like that you don't a bit like we started to do which was just pull back on that constant touching up like whenever you cut people felt the need to rush in and touch things yes and very often you don't need to. No. I noticed you got that. People weren't fiddling around. No, we do the makeup at the hotel and then we try to not have anything happen on the set. Sometimes, sometimes.

Yeah. I was really impressed by that. But that's the thing. I like that you've created a little world around the production. Yeah. I love being part of that. Good. And did you do the same thing that can you

do that with animators no for me it's the exact opposite i mean i did this whole movie from my computer from home i almost never went to the actual set and i'm in touch with all the different with each individual set and with all the different departments but it's all i do it all so what have you got like gopros rigged up so you can see what they're doing on the sets or something yes we do but uh but i almost never use that i mean i i you know i can look through the camera of each set oh i see and i can go from unit to unit but i rarely did that really what i do is people send me quick times i I respond to it. I'm not very often on the telephone with anybody. It's all really just email messages and still pictures or

videos that are being sent back and forth, sometimes recordings, and the whole thing's done that way. It is like a crazy way to work because it means that for 14 hours a day for, you know, six days a week of two years, you have to be prepared to just sit at the computer all day long because there are so many units going at once and so many different people who need something that if you get, if you start to fall behind,

it's just becomes, you know, it's just, we can't afford it. Yeah. Um, but I, but I, then I don't mind. I mean, I'm becomes you know it's just we can't afford it yeah um but i but i then i don't mind i mean i'm you know i'm happy to kind of work from home for a while yeah and um i'm sure it's not very healthy but i was gonna say like do you have a special stand-up desk with a treadmill on

it or something but i move i have a computer in the kitchen a computer and different places i move from place to place. Oh, I see. Wow, you're like a supervillain. No one ever sees the director. He just drifts around. He's probably, he's like the guy in, he's like John Hurt's character in Contact. He's ill and he has to exist in the air only. He's on his private plane.

Do you remember that character? Why does he exist in the air? Is that like a Zemeckis or something? What is it? Contact is. Contact. Is it Zemeckis? Yeah, maybe. The one with Jodie Foster.

Yeah, Jodie Foster. I don't know if I ever saw Contact. Contact is good. Oh, Contact, we're in with aliens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. It's really got some great stuff in it. I should see Contact.

It's one of my favourite films. It's not all great. Anyway. But you are like that. You're like a weird super villain. I'm success. Yes, success.

The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to stop. I'm browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats, listeners, quartermasters, however you identify. Where's Anderson there with Garth Jennings? Thank you very much to both of them for their time and hospitality. That was good fun going out and seeing them in Paris. I love Paris in the springtime or any other time. Felt very lucky to be out there. Incidentally, before I carry on, the Bowie Trumps, I'm sure you want to know, are made by Casey Raymond. I didn't actually name check him there. They are, as I speak, available online from etsy.com, E-T-S-Y dot com. If you go there and type in Bowie Trumps, I think you'll find them. Before I go today, I wanted to mention something else Wes related

that I thought you might find interesting. I found it interesting and I didn't bring it up in our conversation with him because I hadn't met him before and it wasn't really that sort of interview. It was a friendly chat, I suppose, and I was worried that this might be a bit weird to bring up. I'm sure some of you know about this already, but I found online in the course of reading about Wes a little bit this letter, an open letter from Steely Dan, Walter Becker,

no longer with us, sadly, and Donald Fagan, written back in 2006, an open letter to Wes Anderson. So you can search for that. It's there online in various places, and it's quite long, so I won't read the whole thing. But back in 2006, they wrote this letter and posted it on their website. In 2006, they wrote this letter and posted it on their website. Something that I think they've done once or twice before for various reasons. And it's a little bit jokey, but also has quite an edge to it, as you will hear. It starts like this, too. Wes Anderson, maestro.

As you may know, we are founders of the celebrated rock band Steely Dan. If for some reason you don't know our work, check with Owen and Luke Wilson. They're both big fans. Here's something you may not know about us. When not distracted by our day job, composing, recording, touring and so forth, we like to head downstairs into the panelled basement of our minds and assume the roles we were born to play you may have already guessed it by now the roles of obsessive fans of world cinema so they set themselves up as cineasts before saying to wes let's put our cards on the table surely we're not the first to tell you that your career is suffering from a malaise. Fortunately, to the extent that you have not become so completely alienated from the

intellectual and moral wellsprings of your own creativity, we're hoping that we, yours truly, Donald and Walter, may successfully intervene at this point in time and be of some use to you with your latest and potentially greatest endeavor now at this point Wes Anderson had just released The Life Aquatic I think or at least that was his last film and he was about to embark on production for the Darjeeling Limited. The letter from Steely Dan continues, an artist of your stripe could never be guilty of some sort of willing harlotry that befalls so many bright men who take their aspirations to Hollywood and their talent for granted. You have failed or threatened to fail in a far more interesting and morally uncompromised way brackets assuming for a moment that self-imitation and modality dangerously close to mawkishness are not moral failings but rather symptoms of a

profound sickness of the soul close brackets so it's all written in this kind of over-the-top deliberately pompous style but underneath it all all is this genuine vein of quite harsh criticism. They appreciate what he's doing, they feel they get it, and they feel that Wes would probably get them too. And rather than just write something obsequious and anodyne, which could easily be dismissed as just, oh, it's just another fan letter. They think that Wes is going to sit up and take notice if they lay the truth on him, even if it's unpalatable. Towards the end of the letter,

there's a paragraph about the music that Wes has in his films with particular reference to Mark Mothersbar, who's collaborated with wes on a few films bottle rocket rushmore royal tenenbaums life aquatic and he started out as a founder member of the band devo before becoming one of the most sought-after composers in hollywood and um steely dan's letter continues the other change we would have to make would concern Mark Mothersbar. Everyone in Hollywood knows that he's a first-class professional musical supervisor. Obviously, you and he have a lot of great history together,

and we can imagine there's a certain rapport, both professional and personal. But we certainly can't work with him any more than he would consent to work with us. Same thing for the mandolins and 12-string stuff and the harpsichord. They're out. You yourself may be partial to those particular instruments. We're not. Remember, we saw Tom Jones in its original theatrical release

when we were still in high school. We had to listen to Walk Away, René all through college and we fucking opened for Roger McGuinn in the 70s, so all that jingle-jangle morning shit is no big thrill for us, OK? Look, Mark is probably a swell guy, but you, Wes Anderson, must remember that Mark and his music are part of the old way of doing things, the old way of being, the old way that has brought you to the precipice. Mr. Anderson, you must be fearless in defense of your creations and your genius, absolutely fearless, and not give in to sentimental considerations. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We remain your abject servants, W. Becker and D. Fagan, aka Steely Dan. So clearly there's no question that they're big fans of Wes Anderson. The question is, as creative people themselves,

what do they think the point of writing that kind of letter to someone they don't even know is? And yes, presumably on some level they must have thought that he would find it funny and reach out to them and maybe they would collaborate. But it's a weird way of going about it. What kind of artist would he be anyway if he buckled so easily under pressure and got rattled by that letter and said, oh, OK, will you fix my problems then, Steely Dan? I think I would have less respect for him then. I don't know.

I think I would have less respect for him then. I don't know. Rosie has located Donald Fagan hiding in the woods and she's gone after him to teach him a lesson. Anyway, as I say, worth reading the letter. It's quite interesting. And I did find an interview with Wes Anderson from a few years ago where the journalist asked him about the letter and Wes didn't say much which was kind of the reason I didn't bring it up again when we met in Paris because I thought he

would just clam up he he said that he'd seen it he He was a bit mystified by it. He didn't respond because he felt that it didn't really need a response, that, you know, they clearly were amusing themselves. And it must be pretty weird to be Wes Anderson, I would think, to have those kinds of very obsessive fans whose appreciation for his work often spills over into real anger and indignation when he lets them down fans eh i don't know crazy lot aren't they now where is my beautiful dog dog because it's starting to rain now rosie oh there she is but listen that's quite enough this has been a very long podcast congratulations for making it through to the end uh thank you very much indeed once again to Wes Anderson. Thanks to Garth Jennings for his time and hospitality

and friendship as ever. Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support on this episode. Take very good care, listeners. Back with you next week for another Rambly Convo.

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