The star joins Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton in Wes Anderson's new movie, as he attempts a Norwegian accent. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00And that's how I felt when I read it. I loved it.
00:02Oh, yeah, there's a plant pot over there. Go hide.
00:03If you mess with the words, it's not the same.
00:07Congratulations on the movie.
00:09I've been watching all these kind of junkets and the premiere and stuff coming from Cannes.
00:13You're over in London now. You're straight back into it.
00:15Seems like a lot of work, but at the same time being part of a Wes Anderson cast
00:20always looks like being part of a kind of a quirky, fun, intellectually stimulating family commune.
00:26Does that take some of the burden off the kind of the, you know, all the interviews and the promo tour and everything?
00:34Very specific question.
00:36Hey, I'd love to think about my sprint over.
00:39I love it. I mean, and it's very observant. I mean, it is like that.
00:41Yeah, it's definitely a heightened version of, you know, it's fun.
00:45I've never done this before, so it's lovely to be able to go, what are we doing now?
00:49And then someone will tell me what we're doing and they're like, it's going to be okay.
00:53Just get in the van.
00:54You would never think you haven't done something like this before.
00:58Right.
00:59But we'll get on to that.
01:01I'll be honest, Wes Anderson's on my, on my kind of Rushmore of directors.
01:06No pun intended.
01:07Pun intended a little bit.
01:09Really like Wes.
01:11But his movies always seem so razor sharp, precise, that from an actor's perspective, I always wonder,
01:19is it like, you know, going to actor's summer camp and it's just this wonderful, great thing, or is it actually deceptively stressful when doing something that precise?
01:30Give me, give me all your takes on it.
01:33It did feel like a summer camp, but it also felt like going to school because there was so much learning that I felt like I was doing every day.
01:40And even on my days off, I think I only had about five, I still cycled into work and Wes would say, I would literally turn up in normal clothes.
01:47He'd go, what are you doing?
01:49Well, not dressed as a nun, you're not meant to be on set.
01:51I said, can I just watch from behind?
01:53He was like, oh yeah, there's a plant pot over there.
01:55Or like, oh, there's a table, go, go over there.
01:58It was just too much fun to not want to be there every single day, for me anyway.
02:03I don't know about you, you were on set every day.
02:05No, no, but you know, when Wes Anderson calls, it's a motivation pill of sorts.
02:13It really, you know, the script, the part, it's layered, it's full of contradictions and it's got an arc.
02:25And then there's the cast, all the cameos, Michael, Mia.
02:32But in the end, you know, it's like that saying, you know, may all your wishes come true.
02:38You know, there's a lot of work to do and you got to keep your eye on the ball and, or if not, you're going to get, you know, knocked down.
02:46And, you know, so for me was, I had to like, there was a lot of like, keeping myself focused from the beginning to the end, because I'm quite a bit in the film.
02:58So, and that's an honor, you know, and you just try to do the best you can.
03:03We've seen you chew up some like unbelievable roles over the years from, you know, usual suspects and traffic.
03:09And I wonder from an actor, it's like, if you're, you do all the prep and you watch you in these roles and you're like, okay, he's bringing this to that.
03:16And you think of how many different takes you might have taken to get to that place.
03:20But in this, do you just have to kind of rehearse, set your character out and then, because you only get a finite amount of time.
03:27You only, you know, you might be talking for five seconds and you get so much dialogue out.
03:31There's only so much like improv.
03:32Yeah.
03:33Well, you have to respect the word, you know, with Wes, you really have to like, stick to the, to what's written.
03:41And, and you quickly find out that in his type of cinema, if you mess with the words, it's not the same.
03:51In other scripts, you can take, put, you know, out of a, of a, of a scene and it might help it.
03:58But here, because he's got a structure and from my beat, it's her beat and it just has to come in.
04:05I mean, also you do what you can, you use your imagination, you throw it out there.
04:10And then Wes will sit in the editing room with the editor and pick.
04:13And some things that you thought were terrible, they're okay.
04:17And some things you thought that were good is maybe not as good, you know, but so it's a, you have to, you have to trust them.
04:25And that, you know that before you walk into a Wes Anderson film.
04:31I just want to quickly echo Benedict Cumberbatch's sentiments of like Wes Anderson discovering Michael Cera is like God discovering water.
04:40From a film fan's perspective, it, it just seemed like a, a match made in heaven.
04:45But you do wonder, there's been so many movies, why this has happened, hasn't happened before.
04:49So tell me everything, who came up with the idea of the, the accent, why is it taking so long?
04:56Cause few characters have brought me as much joy, uh, as yours, uh, since maybe, maybe Ruffalo in, in Poor Things.
05:06I liked him in that.
05:07And, and I think like, you've got to have been, you've got to have been loving the experience to kind of project that out to the audience.
05:14So.
05:15And that's how I felt when I read it, I loved it.
05:17I mean, I thought, you know, it's great opportunity, a great character, a great imitation.
05:21I was so excited.
05:22And, um, I mean, you know, it's, it's just like the first time Wes has asked me along.
05:28The second time actually asked me to do like a small thing in Asteroid City.
05:31But, um, I, I, I would always have, you know, of course jumped at the opportunity to work with him.
05:37And, uh, was just, just so excited to, uh, and you know, when Wes said, I have a script, you know, when you read it, I didn't expect the part to be this much fun.
05:45And to have so much, so much great stuff to do.
05:48So, just can't believe it.
05:49It's just like, wow.
05:50The, uh, and let's, let's briefly talk about the accent.
05:53It's a swing for the fences.
05:55And, uh, it must have been, how much of a deliberation was, uh, was there when you guys kind of workshopped that?
06:01Because there'll be this idea of, you know, we know Michael Cera, this is what we expect.
06:05And then within like two seconds, you're like, okay.
06:07And then within five minutes, you're like, well, this is just, this is amazing.
06:11This is who this guy is.
06:12Well, I mean, to me, it was like written that way, you know, I mean, he's a Norwegian entomologist.
06:17So we kind of had to find out how to make that happen.
06:21Um, I was a little nervous, you know, I felt a little bit of nervousness about it from Wes too.
06:26Uh, and, but we kind of slowly like worked it.
06:30We kind of like tiptoed around it.
06:31We were rehearsing.
06:32I was kind of trying it on a little bit and dialing it in a little, reading Wes a little bit, going off his reaction.
06:39But then we had a period to sort of hone and, uh, and then, and then just like picked our lane and ran with it.
06:47What I, what I love about it is kind of, it's a bit like when impressionists do really good impression and they don't just change their voice, but there's a physicality.
06:53And then if, when that changes, if that changes, don't give anything away in the, in the actual plot, but, uh, but like it's, it's, it's so different.
07:01And there's a, there's a, like a childlike joy in that.
07:04Uh, anyway, guys, I have to leave.
07:06So good luck with the 800 other interviews you got to go.
07:09Good luck with the movie.
07:10Good luck with more Wes Anderson movies, cause you know how it looks to keep people together.
07:15And hopefully I'll see you guys back here in a couple of years.
07:17Right.
07:18Cheers.
07:19Thanks a lot.