Wes Anderson Gave Adrien Brody Valuable (And Very Short) Advice

Every director has a different style, with some who give their actors a lot of room to improvise and others who operate much more precisely. Director Wes Anderson, whose beautiful and highly stylized films are designed down to the most minute detail, needs his actors to be meticulous. When there are as many working parts and the visual language is so exact, it's understandable. Anderson's latest feature, "Asteroid City," looks to be one of his most technically audacious films yet, and that means his actors had to really be on their A-game. (You can read our review here!) Actor Adrien Brody is no stranger to acting in Anderson's films, having previously starred in "The Darjeeling Limited," "Fantastic Mr. Fox," "The Grand Budapest Hotel," and "The French Dispatch," so he probably has a pretty great understanding of what it takes to be in a Wes Anderson flick. 

In an interview with Vogue France, the actor shared the best acting advice he ever got from Anderson, and it's unlike any acting advice I've ever heard before. The advice might not apply to many other kinds of films, but for one of his neatly tailored, highly organized films, it's probably pretty helpful. 

When asked about the best advice Anderson had ever given him, Brody said it all came down to "do it faster," because the pacing is so important in Anderson's films. He would apparently tell Brody how long the take took, then how long he wanted it to take, sometimes requiring the actors to work in double time. For Brody, though, that comes with the territory, as he explained: 

"There is an expectation and everyone comes very prepared. To work with Wes, you really have to know the dialogue precisely. There is no room for searching for anything and you have to be malleable to be able to adjust to complex situations because of the camera work. There is a specific choreography so preparation is necessary to be able to navigate all of that and do it efficiently and to the standards and the vision Wes has."

There really is a cadence to Anderson's films, not just in the choreography of movements but in the pace of the dialogue, and it's interesting to think about what goes into making that kind of methodical musicality in each and every scene. The writer-director's dialogue tends to move at a breakneck pace, but it works within the cinematic worlds he's created for himself and his actors to play. Sometimes you just have to up the tempo! 

"Asteroid City" is now playing in select theaters.