Transcribed by iFlicks:

George and Wes – what was the appeal of Fantastic Mr Fox? Why did you want to work on a film, particularly a stop-motion animation, based on that book?

WA: Well, we all grew up with Roald Dahl’s writing. Fantastic Mr Fox was the first book I owned, so it made an impression upon me. I always wanted to adapt the book as stop-motion, using puppets with fur, because there’s something sort of magical about that.

GC: I just did it for the paycheck. The money. [Laughs] But it was also the chance to work with Wes, which really appealed to me.

George, in what ways do you identify with the character of Mr Fox? What did you think of him as a fox?

GC: What I thought of him…as a fox? [Laughs] Well, he’s an optimist, which was really fun to play. I had a lot of fun on the film, working with such a great cast. I didn’t enjoy working with Bill, though. There was a lot of hatred there at first. We’re okay now, though.

The father-son relationship between Mr Fox and Ash is very central to the movie – did that make you feel broody at all?

GC: Broody? That’s a word we don’t understand in America!

You’re in a few films this festival, and you seem to be playing irresponsible characters who then become more responsible. Do you think that’s why you get repeated questions about marriage and children?

GC: That’s a really good question! There’s a real heavy swing on that one. I don’t have an answer for it, though. I mean, I love kids.

BM: Maybe you could adopt?

GC: Yeah, I’ll adopt some kids. I’ll adopt some of Brad Pitt’s. He owes me a couple anyway. [Laughs]

The choice to use stop-motion animation, was that in anyway influenced by its origins, in the films of Czech director Ji?í Trnka? Were you trying to use the medium as a means of political subversion?

[In steps Bill Murray.]

BM: Wow, thank you! That’s the question we’ve all been waiting for. That’s the reason we flew here today! [Laughter] You go get ‘em, Wes…

WA: Well, yeah, we were influenced by old stop-motion films. But politically, I suppose he’s sort of a Robin Hood figure. A kind of communist -

BM: – but also British. Very British. [Laughter]

What do you think the moral lesson of the film is?

GC: Stealing is good. It honours thievery. Theft is a good thing. [Laughs] Ok, let me try again… [Clears throat] Well, we were all about just trying to be true to your animal nature… Is that better?

Would you work on an animated film again?

GC: Yeah, it was great fun. Doing the voices, we just got to muck around for a few weeks and have a good time. But Wes, he was working on it for 1 ½ years, so you really need to ask him!

WA: It’s a very slow process. But I did find that the voices made such a difference. They really helped to create the characters.

What was the highlight of working on the project for each of you?

WW: It was just a lot of fun to work on – I’ve done voice work before with The Simpsons and stuff, but usually in feature films you don’t record with the rest of the cast. Here, we were all alongside each other on a farmhouse having great fun actually doing stuff. You know, where we were running, we actually ran. And when we were hiding behind bushes, we actually hid behind bushes.

JS: I just loved the chance to work with people I really admire. It’s a pleasure to work with them, but also just to take a step back and look at them too, like George. Not just for those obvious reasons, but yeah, I liked to watch them. I know that sounds really strange… [Laughter]

JC: Do I even still have a line in the film? Oh, I do? Well, I put a lot of feeling and preparation into that one line, and I just hope you can feel the pain and effort that went into it… [Laughter]

Felicity Dahl said that Roald Dahl, just in the weeks before his book got published, would get really stressed and angry, worrying that it might be his last book. Can you identify with that?

BM: Well, I was with Felicity just the other day, and she made me feel exactly the same way… [Laughter]

GC: This is your last film?

BM: Yes. Good bye! But yeah, she really makes you feel the fear. Whatever went on in that house between them two stays in that house, you know. The important thing is that he’s safe now – he’s dead! Seriously, Felicity is a lovely person. If I got remarried, I would definitely consider her.

Roald Dahl used to like to scare children. Did you aim to do that with the film?

WA: Well, yeah, I remember his books scared me as a child. In the film, the characters are in constant danger – Mr Fox gets his tail shot off – and if they’re not in danger of getting hurt, they’re in danger of getting killed. It’s exactly the same in the book. We tried not to make it more or less dark, but to keep the film as dark as the book.

How American do you feel the film is, given that it’s based on a British novel?

WA: Well, Noah Baumbach and I, who co-wrote the script, are both American. And we feel we write better dialogue for Americans than for English people; it’s more natural to us. So we made all the animals American, and kept the humans, the farmers, British.

BM: Because they’re the bad guys. [Laughter]

Bill, you do a lot of improvisation – does the animation process help or hinder that?

BM: Well, ultimately, you try to be yourself whatever you’re playing, be it a badger, or a doctor, or a housewife. But pretty much the worser the script, the more improv you end up doing. The best people in the film, for me, though, were Eric and Wally, over there. Their perfomances were incredible. But none of that would have been possible without George, who created such a great character for us to all maypole around.

How did you find yourself connecting with your character? How did you channel the badger?

BM: Channeling the badger?! Well, erm, we all have little critters inside us, don’t we? But my little animal secrets will remain my little animal secrets! I mean, we all burrow deep, deep, deep down to be safe or to get away from other people… This doesn’t really make any sense to you, does it? Look, you know what, if you haven’t played a badger, we can’t have this conversation. [Laughter]

A little book recommendation from that great literary journal South Coast Today (Massachusetts), The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen:

If Wes Anderson were a novelist, this is the novel he’d write.

This is 29-year-old Larsen’s first novel, and he is incredibly, almost supernaturally, gifted.

Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a 12-year-old genius, the son of a silent Montana cowboy born 100 years too late and an entomologist more interested in tracking a rare tiger beetle than in her family.

T.S. is an exceptional cartographer and scientific illustrator, contributing to various magazines, such as Scientific American and Science.

In his color-coded notebooks, he maps loneliness, the way his sister shucks corn, the way his dad drinks whiskey, the plot of “Moby-Dick,” how the parts of a train correspond to the parts of a sandwich, and all the possible outcomes of Cat’s Cradle, among thousands of other phenomena.

When his illustration of a rare beetle is given the prestigious Baird award by the Smithsonian — the institute assumes T.S. is an older gent — he hops a train and hoboes his way to Washington, D.C.

In reviews, you’ll read that this book is “whimsical” — a word I hate, because it’s vague, semi-meaningless, and kinda lame.

Has anyone read this? It reminds me of Eric Chase Anderson’s Chuck Dugan is AWOL.

These are said to be the press notes and credits for Fantastic Mr. Fox. I cannot absolutely confirm their authenticity at this point but have no reason to believe that they are are a fabrication.

–

Based on the beloved story by Roald Dahl, the film tells the tale of the noble, charming and fantastic Mr. Fox, who uses his wits and cunning to outfox three dimwitted farmers who tire of sharing their chickens with the crafty creature.

“Boggis and Bunce and Bean.  One short, one fat, one lean.  These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean.”

Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited) directs the stop-motion animation of Roald Dahl’s much loved children’s book. Fantastic Mr. Fox is voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Michael Gambon, and scheduled for release in the fall of 2009.

VOICES

Mr Fox – GEORGE CLOONEY

Mrs Fox – MERYL STREEP

Ash – JASON SCHWARTZMAN

Badger – BILL MURRAY

Kylie – WALLY WOLODARSKY

Kristofferson – ERIC ANDERSON

Franklin Bean – MICHAEL GAMBON

Rat – WILLEM DAFOE

Petey – JARVIS COCKER

Coach Skip – OWEN WILSON

Weasel – WES ANDERSON

Agnes – JUMAN MALOUF

Beaver’s Son – JEREMY DAWSON

Beaver – STEVEN RALES

Mole – JAMES HAMILTON

Rickity – ADRIEN BRODY

Nathan Bunce – HUGO GUINNESS

Mrs Bean – HELEN McCRORY

Action 13 Reporter – STEVE SMITH

Rabbit – MARIO BATALI

Beans Son – GARTH JENNINGS

Squirrel – ROMAN COPPOLA

CREW

Director / Writer / Producer:

Wes Anderson

Writer

Noah Baumbach

Based on the book by

Roald Dahl

Producers:

Scott Rudin, Allison Abbate

Executive Producers:

Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson

Director of Photography:

Tristan Oliver

Editor:

Andy Weisblum

Animation Director:

Mark Gustafson

Animation Supervisor:

Mark Waring

Animators:

Andy Biddle

Anthony Farquhar-Smith

Brad Schiff

Brian Hansen

Chris Tichbourne

Chuck Duke

Caroline Maure

Daniel Alderson

Elie Chapuis

Jason Stalman

Jeff Riley

Jens Gulliksen

Kim Keukeleire

Leo Nicholson

Malcolm Lamont

Payton Curtis

Tobias Fouracre

Will Hodge

Art Director:

Nelson Lowry

Model Department Supervisor

Roddy Macdonald

Modellers:

Amy Mabire

Angela Kyriacou

Barry Jones

Catherine Stewart

Charles Fletcher

Christine Jones

Clare Kinross

Colin Armitage

Emma Pickard

Gavin Richards

Grant Humberstone

Holly Blenkins

Joe Vettese

Joe Vassallo

John Lee

Jim Barr

Maggie Haden

Marie Parsons

Mark Gunning

Mick Chippington

Paul Marsh

Richard St Claire

Roy Bell

Sam Leake

Sarah Wells

Terry Whitehouse

Thomas Wignall

Tony Travis

William Sumpter

Supervising Modeler

Andy Gent

Wes and Jason were on CBC’s The Hour last night (video). Wes promised that Hotel Chevalier will be added to The Darjeeling Limited print in Canada.

Ain’t It Cool has a great interview with Wes and Jason, including Wes’ confirmation of a Criterion Collection edition of Bottle Rocket. Some highlights:

[about this]. Roman said they are both very smart, and he really liked them. And the old man said that he liked these brothers, that the movie is from their point of view traveling through India. And she doesn’t like them, but she also felt that the film exploited people in India. And I always feel like, that makes me unhappy to hear anybody say that because we went to India because I was fascinated with this country. We fell in love with it. We are tourists there; that’s all we can ever be there. But we’re tourists who are very interested in this culture and learning about it. It’s a place where people who go there and like it tend to love it, and the people who love it tend to want to go back. There is more religion, more variety of religion, more practice of religion, more rituals there than any place else I’ve ever experienced. I think that’s why people go on pilgrimages there because it’s a place where, if you’re open to it and interested it will genuinely have quite and impact on you just because of the intensity of the place. I’ve always found that I had very emotional experiences there, but then you get sensitive and wonder if that sounds kind of naive. I don’t know. I just hate to sound self-protective and defensive; I’d rather just express our real feelings about it….

It’s taken us a long time to get this [Fantastic Mr. Fox] going, but we finally got it going. Noah Baumbach and I adapted it. George Clooney is going to play Mr. Fox. We’ve just started working on it in England, and it’s going. We have a guy named Mark Gustafson directing the animation. Henry [THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS] Selick was going to do it originally but over time that didn’t work out because Henry has his own thing he’s directing [CORALINE, based on Neil Gaiman's novel]….

I think the closest thing to compare it to is that Eastern European stuff, because the animals are going to have fur, and the sets are meant to look kind of like real life. So it’s more in the vein….

[about the Criterion Collection DVD] That’s right. We just have to do a lot of work to prepare it, but that’s in the works. I was supposed to do a bunch of stuff already that I didn’t do yet, so I’m going to get on it though. But some of the stuff is at my mother’s house in Texas, so I have to go to Texas and dig through all my boxes, because there’s materials for the movies that I haven’t looked at in a long, long time. And we want to try and include everything that might be good….

Jason’s new album Nighttiming is available as an MP3 download on Amazon.com. Buy it here — it supports the site.

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