And as Iâve said previously, Wes Andersonâs âThe Darjeeling Limitedâ is a great movie and one thatâs absolutely worth your time. And for those who donât know the story⦠The film is about three American brothers (played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman) who have not spoken to each other in a year. They set off on a train voyage across
During our interview Jason talked about the writing process, what scenes were based on real things, was he playing himself or a character and a lot more. And if you missed the video interviews I did with Jason and Adrien you can see them here. Or you can watch some clips from the movie here. Finally, you can listen to the roundtable interview by clicking here for the MP3.
âThe Darjeeling Limitedâ is playing in limited release now.
Question: Are you playing yourself in this?
Jason Schwartzman: I think the three characters in the film are a good mix of each of Wes, Roman, and
Which scenes were based on your experiences?
JS: Donât you want something left to the imagination? I donât know. At this point, it got so muddled up. I mean, all of itâs real. And all of itâs happened to me and to Wes and to Roman. But I kind of feel like the characters are all fictional.
Did you know the character in the short film was the same as in
JS: Oh yeah. We knew. Once we were shooting the movie we definitely knew. We knew early on. Hotel Chevalier was intending to be a companion piece to the Darjeeling Limited. It was supposed to be like a prologue to it and I always knew Iâd be Jack Whitman in both and that it would be separate. In other words, I knew it was a contained piece. It was written and had an ending, and scenes werenât supposed to go in front or after. So it was always a short film, and I knew that Iâd be Jack. And it was great for me on many levels to have done the short film, A) it was a gentler way to reunite with Wes professionally, director-actor. Much easier to work two days with him on a short film in a small room with a very small crew. Itâs like, less scary, if that makes sense, that going to work with him after so many years in India with a lot of people walking around with just much more happening. So it was a gentler way to work together again to see how were were with each other. And B) it was great to test out the character, which at that point was still being written because we were only three months into writing the feature when Hotel Chevalier came about. And by the time we shot it we had more of it down. But it was great to grow the mustache out and get the suit and really start to play the guy. It was wonderful and it was also slightly a bit of a mad dash to think, okay, well we havenât finished the feature script, but we are shooting the short, and we know we are going to want to reference things, or we would want to have the flexibility to reference things, so what are we going to want to put in this short that we can use later in the movie? So we had to get the suitcase made and we had to get the suits made and everything had to be kind of, because whatever we chose would be what we would use later. And also when I was in India it was awesome to have done the short because I could just remember Hotel Chevalier and I just knew that was where my character was coming from, where he was in his heart, and how kind of fucked up it all was. And itâs nice to not have to imagine something. Itâs nice just to remember it or just watch the DVD of it. And so it was very helpful and I felt like I had an advantage in a weird way over past experiences of work. I hope from now on that I could do a short movie before every movie that I do. It was so helpful to me. It was great.
What was it like working with Owen and Adrien?
JS: Iâll say one thing, and this is so great for people who write and direct their films. I am not used to this feeling, which is that the moment they walk out in their outfits for the first time, itâs a pretty big thrill. We had been talking about them and these scripts for two years. I felt so close to these characters. And talking about their suits and everything and what they were going through, they just, they were real to me. And then Owen and Adrien put on the suits and Owenâs got the bandages on and Peterâs got the glasses weâve been talking about. Itâs like, wow, this was emotional. So it was a thrill at that moment. Thatâs my initial way to answer your question. And then working with them, well, I respect them both tremendously and I just wanted to be as good as them in the movie. And I loved them. The three of us, the script is one thing. The script is a blueprint, but youâve got to build it. Youâve got to say, okay, here are the plans for the walls and here are the things for the sink and everything, and youâve got to build the house. And I think that the chemistry between the people are the things that build the house. And you just never know if thatâs going to work. You get to
And thatâs fine if actors need to preserve their energy or focus on the scene or whatever, but if you give people places to go, theyâll go there. And there is a tendency, it just becomes less intimate. It becomes bigger, slower, everything. So on this set there was no place to go. There were no trailers. And the actors stayed in the train compartment where we shot all day. Unless you had to go to the bathroom, there was nowhere else to go. So I think that kind of claustrophobia worked to our advantage in that it was like speed-reading. It helped us to get to know each other faster and more intensely. There wasnât just a casual hey, how are you, is your girlfriend good? Tell her I said hi. It wasnât, thatâs not to say thatâs how most movies are, but itâs an example of what could have happened had the circumstances not been like this.
So I think it was great to work with them because we really became friends. And the environment helped us become friends and between takes, like Wes had to stop us sometimes from goofing off because I just loved them so much and I do have a thing where I just love Owen so much. I just want to try to get him to laugh. And I love Adrien so much I want to tell him stories. We really were just always playing games and rehearsing scenes and it was very efficient. The friendship was efficient. And the working was efficient. And also just the way we lived was helpful too. It aided this relationship because we lived in what was technically a hotel, but looked and felt more like a home. It was kind of a big house with 8 rooms in it. Each room looked different, which makes it feel not like a hotel, instantly. Everyone had a different-looking room. All the actors lived there. Wes lived there. And weâd get up, have breakfast together, ride to work, spend 14 hours together on a train, come home. The train goes all around, by the way. If you are late to set, itâs bad, because the set might not be there when you arrive because it was a real train that did have a departure time. Weâd go around all day in
What were some happy accidents that happened?
JS: I would say they are kind of subtle, but I know that no dialogue was changed. Nothing kind of happened spur of the moment dialogue-wise. We were trying to always get the scene the way it was written to be its best. But because it was a moving train, and when you have a moving set, especially a train in
Whatâs it like writing for your own character?
JS: Oddly enough, and to a fault, I had been so focused on the writing, like really just little missions, like so focused on trying to solve certain things about the script. Well, why did this happen? How did that happen? And should this be here? That I forgot about that I would have to act it, and I freaked out about 7 weeks before shooting because I realized, I read the script like for the first time as an actor would approach something. Like, I sound totally like a pompous guy, like, As an ACTOR prepares forâ¦but you know what I mean. So now Iâm going to have to learn my lines and everything. I was going like, Holy shit. I have no idea how to do this! I donât know how to say these lines convincingly. I had no idea who Iâm playing. I called Wes, who was already in