You know a Wes Anderson movie when you see it — but you also know it when you hear it. While the filmmaker’s idiosyncratic and singular style has evolved over the years, one enduring element of that style has been the rhythm and pace of his dialogue. It’s an approach more than one cast member from his new film Asteroid City compared to a different art form when talking to Consequence: “The way he writes is a little like music,” says Maya Hawke. “And I’m such a fan of Wes’s music.”
Asteroid City exists within different layers of reality, as we see both a 1950s-era television play about a strange extraterrestrial event as well as some of its behind-the-scenes drama, and the tone shifts accordingly from layer to layer. What remains constant, though, is Anderson’s specificity when it comes to what’s happening in every given scene.
“You have the dialogue and it’s sort of set in stone, which is great, because it’s really pretty good, Not much to do there,” laughs Scarlett Johansson, who plays movie star Midge Campbell in the film. “And then you get to fill in all the blanks. It’s like you have the restriction of the dialogue and then sometimes the setting that you’re in, and then the interpretation of it is really up to you. You can really take it wherever you want to go, and Wes is excited to do that with you.”
This is why, Johansson says, “you work the scene so much, because it changes. There’s so much in there, and things that you throw away are also very meaningful things. It’s fun to play within those limitations.”
Knowing what Anderson specifically wants isn’t too tough, because as cast member Hope Davis explains, “he makes an animated film of the movie and he does all of the character’s voices in every scene. You’ve already heard what he wants the scene to sound like, the pace that he wants it to go at, where the joke’s gonna land. And for those of us who are huge fans, you want to just kind of hit those notes.”
Davis plays the parent of a gifted child attending a science convention in the titular town, and describes Anderson’s style like so: “It’s at once both very conversational and very easy to kind of learn and say, but there’s something elevated about it. There’s a level of wit about it that just elevates it from everyday conversations. Reading through the script, I just chuckled on every page — he’s an incredible writer.”
Asteroid City (Focus Features)
