Oscar nominated actor Edward Norton joined an all-star ensemble cast for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. He shares his experience of working with one of his favourite directors
Did you guys decide to work together again after Moonrise KingdomIJ
Yeah. Wes and I had sort of exchanged mutual appreciation a long time ago. He saw me in a play and sent me a really nice letter and I had written to him about some of his films. I think I wrote him a letter about Rushmore, when it came out. We both live in New York. I think we both had this notion that maybe it would be great to do something, but I never pressed on it, just because it has to come from Wes. He has such a specific set of vision and I think you have to fit within it. Now that we’ve worked together, we really enjoyed it. Also, I think Wes likes to work with people and if he feels that you’re at home within the repertory company feeling of what he does, that gives him a good conviction. I think he needs people who have faith in him, and then, in some sense, you can be part of the company. We were barely putting Moonrise Kingdom out at Cannes, when he already had The Grand Budapest script ready. That was in 2011.
What did you make of it when you first read itIJ
I thought it was great. I thought that Gustave was one of the best characters he has ever written. When I read the script, I instantly felt that Gustave was a classic character. I was laughing so hard reading him. His worldview is so funny and so memorable, and all of his righteous indignation. That was my first reaction — that Gustave was one of the best characters that Wes had ever created. And he told me he had had Ralph (Fiennes) in mind, not that he was asking my opinion. I said, “I literally cannot think of anybody better.” I said, “If you’d told me anybody else, I’d bang down your door to say I want to play that part.” But it was so well suited to everything that’s great about Ralph. I just thought it was so funny and touching, as Wes’ stuff often is: There’s a lot of humour, but then there’s poignance underneath. It reminded me of Max Fischer (from Rushmore)or Steve Zissou, who are pressing back against change for an aesthetic vision of the world. Max Fischer’s not fighting change, he’s determinedly fighting against being pigeonholed. He’s fighting for the renaissance view of the world and for a sense of himself as an adult. They are all kind of righteous.
Does everyone talk about work the whole timeIJ
No, I think it’s the opposite. It’s fun. Ralph and I were talking about it and it’s more like life in the theatre. It’s more the rhythm of the theatrical repertory company where you’re doing plays throughout a season but everybody lives in whatever small town you’re in. Everybody sort of switches off and it’s very congenial.
Does Wes allow any improvisationIJ
Having worked with Wes once before, you do have to surrender to the prison of Wes’ precision. You have to surrender to the constrictions. You have to surrender to the idea that your improvisational capacity to put a twist on something is going to be narrowly restricted to the very strict confines of the rhythm that Wes has written it in. I watched Ralph going against is, at times, feeling hemmed in, but — I think he said it today — you come to realise, “Well, I have to creatively think about how much diversity of interpretation I can bring, inside the narrow corridor of the way Wes sees it.” Not to get too technical, but it sort of reminds me of Meisner’s exercises. Sanford Meisner used to say, “Work only with these words, but give me six different intentions, within those words.” And that’s what working with Wes is like. “No, I don’t want you to change a word, I don’t want you to change a comma, I don’t want you to extemporise it, I don’t even want you to put an accent on it. But within that give me everything you’ve got.” It becomes an interesting exercise.
What’s it like for the younger cast coming into that atmosphereIJ
I think Tony (Revolori) was very adept. The kids on Moonrise Kingdom were great, but I think that there’s more of Wes’s hand — I don’t want to say puppeteering, because that’s not the right word — but Wes moulded the clay of those kids. Maybe it’s because Tony’s a little older, but he was also very facile and I mean that in the best way. I would say Wes had an easy time conducting. Tony was very adept at grasping Wes’ rhythms of comedy and delivery. I thought he was impressive. He made life really easy for Wes on this one. Because I think, maybe like Jason (Schwartzman) in Rushmore, he had a very intuitive feeling for the aspirational quality of that young person in this adult world.
Does he show you things before you start filmingIJ
Wes references literature and lots of other films. He usually provides a literal reference library. And then he actually does a lot of animated storyboards of sequences to give you a feeling for it. He even voices the animated storyboards. It’s the most efficient way to get to it, to hear him say it, because he has a very unique rhythm. I actually want to hear him give a line reading sometimes because it’s so funny, and then you’re going to do it and get the credit for it. And then vice-versa. I actually do think even with all of his tight and controlled way of doing things that Wes loves to get surprised by a funny rhythm or delivery. You can get him to change things a little bit around a great idea. There’s always a little bit of room.