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Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and everything else one might expect from the auteur writer/director. In Anderson’s 11th film, the audience is transported to a titular small American town—the set for which was constructed in Spain–in the 1950s. The surreal aesthetic of the smaller-than-life small town is a highlight of the film, evoking the idea of booming 1950s America as well as old Wile. E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons (complete with a roadrunner).
Another highlight of Asteroid City is, of course, the film’s A-list cast. The Asteroid City cast features a number of frequent Wes Anderson collaborators as well as exciting new faces. One returning actor is Rupert Friend, who plays a cowboy named Montana, and an exciting new arrival is Maya Hawke, who takes the role of a schoolteacher named June. Rupert Friend and Maya Hawke spoke with Screen Rant about their work on Asteroid City.
Rupert Friend & Maya Hawke on Asteroid City
Screen Rant: My first question is for Maya. You came into this film in a world where the Wes Anderson aesthetic is so well-known that there are memes about it. Did that color at all how you thought you should approach your character?
Maya Hawke: I only started noticing the memes or seeing them when I started doing press about this movie, and everyone’s asking me about them. I’m not, like, cool, or up on the trends; I had no idea, so the only thing that colored my experience of joining this team was the films I’d seen in the past. And I think that was a perfectly fine thing to have color it.
And Rupert, I know you’ve played guitar on film before, but you had to learn lap steel for this. Was that the most difficult part of preparing for your role?
Rupert Friend: It was the most daunting, that’s for sure. I think playing music live, as Maya does, is a thing that I would hope gets a bit [easier] if you do it a lot. If you’ve never done it, it’s a weird–it’s like public speaking–it has this weird kind of dread around it. Certainly for me, [anyway]. But in the end, the other musicians in the cowboy band were so welcoming and collaborative and helpful that it was fine. It was definitely daunting.
Maya, I noticed that you were one of the few actors, I believe, who have worked with Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino.
Maya Hawke: Is that true?
I think the only other two I saw were Bruce Willis and Harvey Keitel. [Note: Christoph Waltz and Léa Seydoux have also worked with both directors]
Maya Hawke: Wow. What interesting company.
They both have such specific visions, clearly. I’m curious how you would compare both of those experiences.
Maya Hawke: What they share is specific vision, clarity of self-expression, excellent writing, and the joy of filmmaking. They also share a privilege of being one of the very few directors who have the budget, space, and opportunity to make art films on a grand scheme. That’s kind of what they have in common, but they’re very different. Wes is very monk-like and Quentin is very wild, and so their on-set energy is really different. But, fundamentally, they have the same goals that I think most auteurs have, and the same things in common, which is extreme passion for their work.
And Rupert–maybe you can both speak to this–I love the scenes you two have together, especially as you work with this bunch of kids who are really funny as well. Those [scenes] are so much fun to watch. Were they fun to film?
Rupert Friend: Yeah. I mean, those kids were amazing. They leaned into that world, and we’re out in the–albeit manufactured–desert. It was a desert, and it was hot, and there wasn’t much shade or wind, and those kids just turned in take after take and got funnier and funnier with the way that they were doing it. Then, [we] would just get up and let loose with the dancing scene, and they were just up for it in the way that, when kids get into a game, they just commit and say, “Let’s just go go go.” They did that with this.
About Asteroid City
Asteroid City is a dot-on-the-map desert town in the American Southwest. The year is 1955. The town’s most famous attraction is a gigantic meteor crater and celestial observatory nearby. This weekend, the military and astronomers are welcoming five science award-winning children to display their inventions. What begins as a celebration to honor the achievements of the Junior Stargazers receives an unexpected visitor.
Check out our other Asteroid City interviews here:
Asteroid City is now playing in select LA and NYC theaters, with a wide release on June 23.
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