Wes Anderson is an institution. Over the course of his prolific, three-decade career, the American filmmaker has established a signature aesthetic and working style that could convince any actor to beg him for a part — almost any actor.
But one two-time Oscar-winning performer has eluded the ensemble-oriented director.
“Over the years, I had so many movies that I tried to get Jodie Foster to be in,” Anderson revealed in a Tuesday interview with Collider,
“It used to be every movie, we went to Jodie Foster for a part. And I think I did it three movies in a row, maybe four. And I met her, and I liked her. And I thought it was going to get her. And I think she’s just great, Jodie Foster,” said The Phoenician Scheme director, who has an Academy Award of his own.
Anderson is known for his expansive ensemble casts, which have led to a series of acting nominations at major awards ceremonies. Oscar-winning actors like Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, and Angelica Huston have returned to collaborate with Anderson on film after film over the years.
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Anderson said he “loved” Foster in the first movie she directed, Little Man Tate, in which she plays the mother: “She has this real sparkle. She has a lightness in it. It’s just a different kind of character.”
Though he wouldn’t specify which films he offered the industry veteran, who has been acting since she was a child, Anderson said, “I still would like to get Jodie Foster. But I guess after asking few times, I thought maybe I’m not — I think sometimes somebody has an idea of the kind of work they want to do at that time in his or her life, and we weren’t right.”
Even so, Anderson said, “She’s pretty amazing.”
Anderson’s newest film, The Phoenician Scheme, features a panoply performing giants, including Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, and Hope Davis.
Del Toro stars as the wealthy industrialist Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, and though the Puerto Rican star has “been doing movies for a long time,” he told Entertainment Weekly in May that there’s “one sequence in the movie when you see it where it’s like, wow.“
Recalling the film’s hypnotic, slow-motion opening credits sequence, which is shot from overhead, del Toro said, “That’s one of those things that you think you’ve figured it all out. And here I am doing another movie with a great director, and he’s telling me to do this, and I go home, and I’m glad I was a prune for about five days after that sequence. It’s just really a cool sequence.”
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