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BRB, riding off into the friscalating dusklight.
If you're a Wes Anderson fan, you know that there's a lot going on in his films — both on and offscreen.
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Here are some things you might not know about his movies:
1. As of early 2022, Anderson has directed 10 feature films.
Buena Vista Pictures / Via giphy.com
They are:
Bottle Rocket (1996)
Rushmore (1998)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Isle of Dogs (2018)
The French Dispatch (2021)
2. Of those 10 films, seven include his signature slow-motion scenes.
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Buena Vista Pictures / Via youtube.comThe only ones that don't are Bottle Rocket and his two stop-motion movies, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs.
3. Two of Anderson's movies have narrators.
20th Century Fox
Alec Baldwin narrated The Royal Tenenbaums, and Bob Balaban narrated Moonrise Kingdom.
4. Anderson tends to work with the same people again and again.
5. The same goes for costume designers.
Buena Vista Pictures / Via giphy.com
Karen Flack served as costume designer on his first three movies, and Milena Canonero worked on the rest of his live-action movies, minus Moonrise Kingdom.
6. There's also a reason so many of Anderson's films have a signature sound.
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Alexandre Desplat has scored each of them since Fantastic Mr. Fox, and he's scoring Anderson's next movie, Asteroid City, as well.
7. And all but four of Anderson's movies share a casting director too.
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Douglas Aibel did casting for each movie except Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Darjeeling Limited, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
8. Anderson's films have received 15 Academy Award nominations and 4 wins over the past 20 years.
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The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Isle of Dogs were all nominated, and The Grand Budapest Hotel took home Oscars for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design.
9. Wes Anderson and his frequent collaborator, Owen Wilson, met in 1989 at the University of Texas.
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Wes Anderson / Via youtube.comThey released a short called Bottle Rocket together in 1994.
10. In 1996, they released the full-length version of that short, also called Bottle Rocket.
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It was the first of Anderson's feature films.
11. All three Wilson brothers — Owen, Luke, and Andrew — were involved in the first three of Anderson's movies.
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While they all had roles in Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums, Owen stuck to co-writing rather than acting in Rushmore.
12. In Rushmore, Rosemary is romantically linked to two of the Wilson brothers.
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Owen Wilson appeared in photos as Rosemary's late husband, and Luke Wilson plays her boyfriend, Peter.
13. According to the Rushmore DVD commentary, Wes Anderson originally envisioned someone like Noah Taylor — "a young Mick Jagger [with] that slightly uncooked look" — for the role of Max Fischer.
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While the role ultimately went to Jason Schwartzman, Taylor ended up working with Anderson in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
14. Jason Schwartzman auditioned for Rushmore wearing a prep school blazer emblazoned with a DIY Rushmore Academy patch.
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Buena Vista Pictures / Via youtube.comMax Fischer ended up being his first-ever role.
15. Other than being a teenager, Jason actually had a few things in common with Max.
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Overheard With Evan Smith / Via youtube.comIn an appearance on Overheard With Evan Smith, Schwartzman revealed that, like Max, while he was in high school he wrote a play and was in love with an older woman.
16. Rushmore was also technically Gilmore Girls star Alexis Bledel's first role too.
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She was an uncredited extra, appearing as a Grover Cleveland High School student.
17. Though not nominated, Rushmore was included in the 1999 MTV Movie Awards.
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MTV / Via youtube.comIn a series of promos leading up to the awards show, the Max Fischer Players recreated Out of Sight, The Truman Show, and Armageddon.
18. In The Royal Tenenbaums, the hand you see with a BB lodged in it is actually Andrew Wilson's.
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His brother, Owen, shot him when they were kids.
19. The glasses Anjelica Huston wears in The Royal Tenenbaums belonged to Anderson's mother.
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His mom also went on to work in archaeology as a divorcee.
20. The cigarettes Margot smokes in The Royal Tenenbaums are Sweet Aftons, an Irish brand that was discontinued about 10 years ago.
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If you're a Peaky Blinders fan, you may have also noticed Thomas Shelby smoking them.
21. Cate Blanchett was really pregnant during The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
Buena Vista Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection
She wore a fake belly in some of her scenes, but in other scenes we see her actual pregnant belly.
22. Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, animated the stop-motion sea creatures in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
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23. David Bowie was a fan of the covers Seu Jorge did of his music for The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
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Buena Vista Pictures / Seu Jorge / Via youtube.com"Had Seu Jorge not recorded my songs in Portuguese, I would never have heard this new level of beauty which he has imbued them with," Bowie commented in the movie soundtrack's liner notes.
24. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou was heavily inspired by the life of Jacques Cousteau, one of Anderson's childhood heroes.
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You can also see Max reading one of Cousteau's books, Diving for Sunken Treasure, in Rushmore.
25. Natalie Portman went to India to spend 30 minutes shooting what ended up being a 10-second cameo in The Darjeeling Limited.
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Fox Searchlight Pictures / Via youtube.comIt was technically a reprisal of her role as Rhett from Hotel Chevalier, a 13-minute short that served as a prologue to the feature film.
26. Kara Hayward was a fan of Anderson's prior to starring in Moonrise Kingdom.
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She told Rotten Tomatoes her favorite of his movies was The Darjeeling Limited.
28. None of the books Suzy can be seen reading in the movie are real.
Focus Features
Hayward also told Rotten Tomatoes: "The covers were all designed by different artists and they’re very talented; very amazing the way they did that. But no, those were fake books. I wanted to read them."
29. Hayward and Jared Gilman, who played Sam in Moonrise Kingdom, got to keep souvenirs from the set.
Focus Features / courtesy Everett Collection
He brought home Sam's backpack, and she brought home Suzy's kitten.
30. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, the hair used for the human puppets is actual human hair.
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31. The dialogue for Fantastic Mr. Fox was recorded outdoors.
20th Century Fox / courtesy Everett Collection
Back in 2009, Anderson told Vanity Fair: "We went to a farm in Connecticut, which was a really fun way to do it... For scenes that were outside, we did them outside, by a river, or in the woods. We went to different places that corresponded with what’s in the scene."
32. The hotel staff in The Grand Budapest Hotel is played mostly by actual local hospitality workers.
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The owner of the Hotel Börse in Görlitz, where much of the filming took place (and where the cast and crew stayed), appeared as an extra working at the front desk.
33. The fur used for the puppets in Isle of Dogs was made from alpaca and merino wool.
Fox Searchlight Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection
34. At an hour and 41 minutes, Isle of Dogs is one of the longest stop-motion films of all time.
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It also took the longest to make — while the rest of Anderson's films came out within 2–3 years of each other, Isle of Dogs wasn't released until a full four years after his previous film.
35. The role of Zeffirelli in The French Dispatch was written specifically for Timothée Chalamet.
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Wes Anderson told GQ, "I never had the inconvenience of ever thinking of anybody else for this role even for a second."
36. The French Dispatch is Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan's third film together in less than four years.
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They previously starred opposite each other in 2017's Lady Bird and 2019's Little Women.
37. Wes Anderson alums Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, and Jeffrey Wright will all appear in his next film, Asteroid City.
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