Wes Anderson is on the cover of WSJ. magazine this month, sitting in a vintage floral armchair, wearing a tweed suit, and looking, against pale blue walls with pre-war moldings, not unlike a character in one of his own films. The 44-year-old director is currently promoting his eighth feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, out next month, which WSJ. writer Howie Kahn describes as “the nearest thing to a Wes Anderson blockbuster” — only to be rebuffed by a bristly Anderson, who provides clarification: “It’s more us trying to do a Lubitsch-esque type of thing and maybe a ‘30s type of Hitchcock movie.”
The article also shows off Anderson’s charming attributes, like his “old world way” with people, unquenchable nostalgia, and precious secrets for creating intimacy among the cast: no trailers (all of the actors stay in the same hotel while filming, just like in the movie itself) and no vans. Anderson claims the crew did most of their traveling around the German town where they filmed in Danish golf carts, which sounds pretty cute.
