Wes Anderson Talks About How Jason Schwartzman Inspired ‘Asteroid City’

Wes Anderson spoke about his recent film Asteroid City, and how one of the lead cast members inspired the film. He wrote the script for Asteroid City with longtime collaborator Roman Coppola, but Anderson revealed that Jason Schwartzman played a big role in the creation and ultimate storyline for the film. 

Anderson told Variety, “The movie ends up being about grief, but it evolved into that. Roman Coppola and I started this one with the idea that we wanted to build something around a role for Jason Schwartzman.” 

Schartzman has been acting in Anderson’s films since his debut film, Rushmore in 1998, where Schartzman plays an eccentric teenager in the quintessential Wes Anderson style. Since their first collaboration, Schartzman and Anderson have worked on a number of projects together including, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The French Dispatch (2021), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). 

The idea for Asteroid City had long been in the making for Anderson, who said, “I had long had this idea of doing a story that was about something like the Actor’s Studio, and a story of doing a kind of American desert ’50s movie. We mixed these things together and built it around Jason.” 

Anderson, who is known for developing relationships with actors that span many films, cast many veterans of his movies in Asteroid City, including Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Tom Hanks, and Willem Dafoe. Anderson spoke fondly of the cast saying, “I may have had a better experience with the whole than I’ve ever had before. Even though I loved actors I’ve worked with on all my movies, this one had such a big, great ensemble cast.”