Wes Anderson sat down with Terri Gross to discuss his inspiration of the movie, the casting process, visual design, and his own childhood.

The 38-minute interview is full of great details, like the revelation below:

ANDERSON: Well, I remember – you know, someone asked me in the past week, in Cannes – I don’t – I can’t even remember who it was that asked me this, a reporter. I wish I had noted him, because he asked me something that made me kind of realize what I had wanted to do. He asked if the movie was a memory of a fantasy.

And I thought – at first I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Then I realized that that is sort of exactly what the movie is. It’s – I remember the emotion of feeling like I was falling in love at that age, 12 years old, and how powerful it was and sudden, and kind of inexplicable. And yet in this – you know, I – nothing happened in my case.
[...]
GROSS: Who did you fall in love with?

ANDERSON: Well, I – I don’t – I don’t know if I want to even say the name, because it’s a, you know, a real person who very likely won’t be listening to this, but maybe would be. You know, a girl two rows over and three seats up who was in my class for years, and I never really had much of a conversation with her.

Listen to (or read the transcript of) the interview at NPR.