If you’d told Jason Schwartzman 10 years ago that he’d be going through the normal Hollywood motions of flying to press junkets and doing interviews on morning news programs, he’d probably have thought you had him mistaken for one of his famous family members.
However, today, as the star of cult movies like Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore” and drug drama “Spun,” that’s a totally different story. Now Schwartzman carries himself with the confidence and down-to-earth demeanor of a seasoned pro in the biz. As one of the stars and co-writers of Anderson’s new film, “The Darjeeling Limited,” Schwartzman has even more to talk about.
What was the writing process like?
We went to India and wrote a lot of the movie there, and lived there, and we tried to experience what the characters were going through and act out the movie. We would walk all around India carrying the scripts in our backpacks, and if we had a scene that took place at a temple, we would just take the script out and act it out right there. We’d cut lines, add lines; we did it all just to get into it and to experience it. So, it didn’t seem forced, it just seemed like the most necessary script we had to write.
Did you feel any pressure writing a film for the first time?
I was excited about it because it always felt like none of us had any idea what should happen next. It seemed like the three brothers were real and that they were on this trip, and we were just trying to talk about it and talk about our own lives and see if anything in our own lives could help us figure out what was happening with them.
When Wes [first] brought it up, which by the way I was not expecting, I was totally scared about it and overwhelmed by that prospect.
All he had really formulated was the basic conceit, which is three brothers on a train in India, but what he also had was the way that he wanted to write the movie. He said, “I want to write this movie with you and Roman [Coppola], because I think we need it.” Which kind of sounds like Owen’s character in the movie, “I want it to be a spiritual adventure for us, and I want it to be the most honest script the three of us can write, based on all of the things that have happened to us, I want it to be personal, almost too personal, and I want us to talk about everything in our lives and see what we can make of it.”
I can kind of relate it to my character in the movie who writes these short stories based on what’s happened to him in his life. My character needs to detach from the moment, look at it and then write so he can process it. In a weird way, that’s what we were doing.
What elements of India affected the writing?
Our script was like a kite and India was the wind for that kite, and it just kind of filled it up and gave it a spirit. I don’t think we could have written it or made it without India.
There’s just no way to really understand that place unless you go there. I mean, not really understand it, because as a Western tourist I’ll probably never understand it. I’ll go there the rest of my life and just be a tourist there; you will never be of that culture because it’s just so different.
But it’s so beautiful and amazing. I mean, you’re used to India your whole life, seeing images of the Taj Mahal. But when you get off that plane it becomes three dimensional in a way that I’ve never experienced a country coming alive. The smell, the sound, it’s totally full on.
What was it like acting in a movie where you were more personally involved in the process?
[We knew] the movie we’re trying to make is just not going to be normal, so we’re going to take out [explanatory scenes] except for the most basic things. So when we were writing it we were always trying to write this sparse, concise script, and that was where my focus was.
When it came time to act it, to a fault I had neglected the acting part of it, when it came time to look at it from an actor’s point of view, I felt more nervous and afraid than I’ve felt for a movie ever.
I flew to India eight weeks early just be close to Wes and talk to him about it, and as I began to really think about it and close my eyes, I realized, you know, what all those things we’ve taken out of the script we didn’t take it out character, just out of the script. He said, “They’re still in this guy, they’re still real. All these hundreds of cut out ‘Hotel Chevalier’s,’ and backstories are just as real.”
Then all the writing we’d done, it was like all the living my character had done. It was like it was his backstory. It was his history. So the writing helped the acting big time.
What was it like shooting on a moving train?
We had no where to go; it’s moving and flying down there. There were no trailers, no place to hide. We had to make the most of the train moving because it would stop all the time, like “cow crossing,” “train ahead, slow down,” so we tried to always be efficient. So to encourage that efficiency, Wes was like, “No one leaves this train compartment,” and we were like, “Great.”
What was the reasoning behind including the short film?
It was written completely separately and shot a year before the movie. It was always intended to be a short film; to be a companion piece to the film, but never meant to be a part of it. It was always a prologue.
We were in a little bit of a conundrum because the way that Wes wanted it to be was that you’d show this short movie and then the lights would come up and everyone would have some tea and sandwiches and talk about it, and show the feature film another 20 minutes later.
But you can’t do that. So then Wes decided to get it on iTunes so people could see it before the movie and let it settle, because it really is its own film. But as of this Friday it will be playing before the feature film.
What is it about Anderson that keeps you coming back?
I have no choice, really. I love his movies. I kind of feel like we live in this day and age, and it’s not a bad thing, but most things seem to be made by committee. A director isn’t necessarily always directing. Because the movie will get made and the movie will get taken away from [the director] and other people will edit it and it’s not the movie it was supposed to be. And that’s fine; that’s just part of the way it goes.
But what I like about working with Wes is that you know when you got to make a movie with him, the movie that gets shown is going to be the movie he wants shown. His movies are completely collaborative and very communal feeling, but amongst the creators, they feel that way. It’s totally him. They’re personal. I think it’s refreshing for audiences.
