ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim spoke with actors Hope Davis (Captain America: Civil War, Synecdoche, New York) and Stephen Park (Fargo, Do the Right Thing, Snowpiercer) about their new Wes Anderson movie Asteroid City.
“In 1955, students and parents from across the country gather for scholarly competition, rest, recreation, comedy, drama, and romance at a Junior Stargazer convention held in a fictional American desert town,” reads the film’s synopsis.
Jonathan Sim: This is a movie that you guys got to work with Wes Anderson on. So I wanted to ask, what is it about Wes Anderson’s directorial style that separates him from other directors that you’ve worked with and made you want to work on Asteroid City?
Stephen Park: Well, he’s very specific in his attention to detail, and the characters he creates are very unique and very eccentric. Um, yeah. It’s just everything he does is so brilliant and so vibrant. So yeah, I just love working with him.
Hope Davis: Yeah. And as a longtime fan of all of his movies, you just fall in love with every single character. And he’s one of the few filmmakers that I wanna watch the films over and over and over again. He makes his own world, and it’s kind of the more beautiful version of wherever we’re living. And so to be a part of that, you just wanna be in it.
What would you say was the most memorable experience that you guys had while you were filming Asteroid City?
Stephen: Hanging out after dinner. Seu Jorge, Jarvis Cocker, all these musicians were there.
Hope: They played the cowboys.
Stephen: And there would be a jam session after dinner, and we’d just be staying up just listening to this incredible music. Uh, and so that was incredible. That was really fun.
Hope: And what about your jet pack?
Stephen: And the jet pack? Yeah, the jet pack. Yeah. I mean, that was really fun. Just being, you know, pulled up and into space and having this huge plume of smoke coming out.
Hope: One of my favorite memories is when the alien comes down and we have the boxes over our heads. And we shot that off and on, I feel like for a few days, where you just saw these, you know, wonderful movie stars with these cardboard boxes over their head looking up.
Stephen: And it was hard, right?
Hope: It was really hard because your neck, after a while, your neck goes–Yeah. And they were shooting it from so many different sides. It was really fun to just watch Tom Hanks with the box over his head, looking up to the alien and that tickled.
Stephen: Yeah. It was really fun. Yeah, of course. And also, we were eating peanuts, I think.
Hope: Yeah, peanuts and root beer.
You mentioned the alien, and I wanted to ask if an alien ever actually did come down to Earth, which movie or TV show of yours would you be proud enough to show the alien, to paint yourself in the best possible light?
Hope: Number one, Asteroid City.
Of course.
Stephen: Show ’em this one.
Hope: The next best one for me might be American Splendor. I might show them American Splendor.
Stephen: I might show them Do the Right Thing, just to let them know.
Hope: That’s a good movie.
It was fantastic.
Stephen: Just to let them know what’s going on in our world.
With Wes Anderson, he’s had this fantastic filmography behind him and my question is if you could take Asteroid City off the table and look at everything else, what would you guys say is your favorite of his filmography?
Hope: I love all of the movies so much. One of my favorites is The Darjeeling Limited. And, uh, Rushmore and Moonrise Kingdom and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Stephen: Everything, but The Grand Budapest Hotel is up there. Yeah, I love that movie.
