Editor’s Note: In “Asteroid City” Jason Schwartzman He plays Augie Steenbeck, a war photographer who has to break the news to his children about their mother’s death. He also stars as Jones Hall, an actor who portrays Auggie in the play. This complicated gamble brought a new dimension to Schwartzman’s long-running relationship with Wes Anderson nearly 25 years after the director cast Schwartzman in Rushmore at the age of 19 and launched his career.
Here, Schwartzman explains the personal discoveries that came out of the experience. “Asteroid City” is now in theaters.
There’s a moment in “Asteroid City” when my character, Auggie, reveals to his kids that their mother died, that she’s been dead for three weeks, and they move away. this barely Exactly what happened to my parents and my uncle when they were kids. They lost their mother to breast cancer and my grandfather packed up in Brooklyn and drove across the country to California and didn’t find out that their mother had died until a few weeks later, after they had settled down. It was a sad coincidence. So when I read that part, it was weird, like my dad was part of the scene. It was very emotional.
When my father died, my mother said, “Remember, there’s no wrong way to feel.” I was 13 at the time and didn’t quite get it – but “Asteroid City” helped me understand what you meant.
At one point, Margot’s character told Robbie I had to move on, and I realized Wes was making this really intense observation about grief: It’s okay to feel bad, it’s okay to feel good, and it’s okay to feel bad again. It moves back and forth, because that’s what those feelings are about; You can’t continue to judge him. Don’t feel bad about not feeling sad in bad situations. You judge it so you don’t test it. If everyone is crying and you don’t feel guilty for not feeling clearly upset… don’t ask yourself why you don’t feel sad enough… don’t judge your emotions. I think that’s what my mom meant when she told me there was no wrong way to feel after my dad died. This was the most personal aspect of all of this, but I didn’t really get it until I saw the movie.
Wes has seen me through a lot. Over the years, we’ve lost people, gained people, and seen all kinds of versions of ourselves. Working on these projects is just about sharing things. He called me in 2019 and said he was working on something with Roman Coppola with a part they were writing for me. I didn’t believe it. The last few projects I’ve worked on with Wes and Roman have been more in the “Culinary Story and Character” phase. I hadn’t acted with Wes in a little while, but I didn’t realize that until this movie came out, and it just kind of felt hilarious through me. I forgot how that feels, because our friendship is based on enthusiasm for others. At a young age, he would show me movies, music, and books. No one has actually done that for me. I had no one in this role.
Part of the fun of working with him is seeing how excited he is writing to this person and imagining what that person has to say. I’ve watched his happiness and excitement over the past few years: “Oh my God, Jeffrey Wright says this is going to be great!” So all of a sudden, it was like, “Wow — he’s thinking of me again.”
At first, Wes said, “All I can say right now is think about Kazan.” Oddly enough, I have this book about Kazan next to my bed, so I sent him a photo of it. Then, after Wes called, I went to Chicago to star in Fargo. While I was there, I went to the Music Box Theater because they had “2001” on 70mm playing one weekend – which led me down a little Kubrick rabbit hole, watching clips and documentaries and reading books. Then Wes texts me again out of nowhere and says, “Pause in Kazan, don’t think about Kazan, think about Kubrick!” Next to me this time was the book “Kubrick” by Michael Herr. I sent him that picture too. I still don’t know what the movie is about; I thought I might be playing a director. I just thought it was nice to be somehow, in a way, in a parallel game with the guys.
A year later, Fargo was put on hiatus due to the pandemic. When we were making it, there was a dialogue coach named Tanira Marshall who was working with actors Ben Whishaw and Jesse Buckley on specific accents. While on set, I said to Tanera, “Hey, I don’t have lines I can rehearse with you from the script or a lot of information, but if I were to tell you I wanted to experience a character from that time Kazan or Kubrick, what would that mean?”
She said, “You’re talking about an era of people—one European, one New York.” Then the script came up and there was a line in it that said my character “speaks with a soft accent.” The scenario takes place in the 1950s, which would have put me in a similar generation to my dad, who was from the East Coast. I’d never played a line up with my dad before, so I went over to my mom’s house for the weekend and looked through old videos of my family. There was no cable to watch these videos. I found the exact camera I’m using on eBay so I can play these videos on my TV. Since my dad was filming everything, I was just trying to get a clip of his voice. There was something definite about the way he spoke.
I kept trying to figure out this character and Tanera said I had to learn how to move my face less, which was very difficult. Then, one day, I passed by my wife sitting in the kitchen. You said something and you didn’t really respond to it; You just made a sound. I walked over and said, “What?” She pointed to her face and she had one of those re-hydrating skin masks on. I was like, “Wait a minute, this is how I want to feel!”
I got all this moisturizing facial clay on my face. Maybe it was way too much. Before you know it, my face couldn’t move. Then I took out my script and tried to do all the lines with this mask on my face. I thought it was really fun and exciting, so I sent Wes a video. He wrote back and said, “I think we’re on to something.”
Wes and Julie Dartnell, head of hair and makeup, asked us if there was a topical numbing face cream I could use, or something else that might restrict movement of my face. I was thinking of something along the lines of anesthetizing an actual muscle, but Julie had a great idea for a dental prosthesis. I knew someone from FX in the UK who basically made me a small molar-only guard, which went over my teeth – just one small square for your back molar that clicks both together so it basically closes your jaw. I blew it out and couldn’t move my mouth. I decided to use it for a few weeks to help my business. Then Wes told me to lower my voice a little; I was about B-flat, and Tanera was doing these vocal exercises with me to get me to G. It was incredible.
Since the character was also at war, this whole experience made me think about how someone who’s seen so much death and trauma learns to deal with it when it happens in their family. Auggie literally doesn’t know how to move. It’s a physical display of how uncomfortable it is, and how hard it is to talk about these things. I was left thinking about what the future life of these children might be like, and I thought about my own.
The best part about being around Wes is that he sees something in me that I don’t. That’s what friends do – push each other when they have nowhere else to go. It’s the privilege and responsibility of someone you’ve known for a long time: They’re able to see you and see more of you, too.
As told to Eric Kuhn.
. “Professional creator. Lifelong thinker. Reader. Beer buff. Troublemaker. Evil problem solver.”