From distinct color palettes and shots of perfect symmetry, every frame from a given Wes Anderson film is instantly recognizable. As an auteur, he’s utilized various elements of filmmaking like off-the-wall dialogue and darkly comedic moments to give his pictures a tangible tone that could only be achieved by him. And among the more important traits of his style is his tendency to cast the same actors in his films.
Wes Anderson’s stable of actors, his most frequent collaborators, are some of the biggest names of this era. From Owen Wilson and Bill Murray to Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton — he’s committed to these thespians, and that’s been the case since his very first movie back in the mid-1990s. Without the people detailed below agreeing to work with Anderson at some respective point in time, he likely never would’ve launched into stardom.
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Wes Anderson’s Long History With the Wilson Brothers
Sony Pictures Releasing
At the University of Texas at Austin in 1989, Wes Anderson met fellow Creative Writing major Owen Wilson. In fact, they were roommates. And after they graduated, the pair made a short film in 1994 that they would later adapt into a feature film of the same name: Bottle Rocket (1996).
Wes directed it, while Owen and his younger brother Luke were the stars. Those are the two most famous Wilson brothers, by far, known today for their many comedies with fellow actors Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller. However, Bottle Rocket also featured the third Wilson brother, Andrew. With a career that’s flown entirely under the radar compared to his two younger siblings, Andrew Wilson appeared only as minor characters in each of his collaborations with Wes. In the end, though, he is credited with three roles in Anderson’s first three projects, which obvious makes him a frequent teammate of the auteur.
And those first three projects also mark the only collaborations Wes has with Luke, albeit his characters were vastly more prevalent than Andrew’s. Meanwhile, Owen has appeared in eight out of ten total Anderson films — and there’s only one person that has topped that number.
Anderson Was Responsible for Revitalizing Bill Murray’s Career
Touchstone Pictures
After Bottle Rocket, Wes Anderson moved on to perhaps the most important film of his career: Rushmore (1998). It put the writer-director on the Hollywood map, and once he got on there, he dug up the fossilized remains of Bill Murray and brought his career back to life.
Before Rushmore, Murray was known for his 1980s comedies such as Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), and Scrooged (1989). Then in the nineties, Murray’s trajectory got off to a fantastic start thanks to What About Bob? (1991) and the Harold Ramis comedy Groundhog Day (1993).
After that, though, Murray hit a downward spiral that saw his career go entirely off course. He starred in critical and financial failures like Larger Than Life (1996) and The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997). It seemed as if the pinnacle of his acting prowess had left him stranded in a desert of independent movies and science fiction blockbusters. Then came Wes Anderson, a champion of the former, geared with a location, a crew, and a script for a film called Rushmore that would revitalize Murray’s career.
All three of them — Murray, Owen, and Luke — also appeared in his next film, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). It reached a culmination point for all three, and Wes, and their relationships with one another. Because after this film, the Anderson 13 launched into the cinematic stretches of space and recruited the stars of Hollywood to join his entourage.
Other Frequent Collaborators Have Helped Facilitate Wes Anderson’s Growth as a Filmmaker
Focus Features
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) marked his fourth film with Owen, his third with Murray, and his second with Angelica Huston following her role as Etheline in The Royal Tenenbaums. This was also the project, though, that started his collaborations with both Jeff Goldblum and Willem Dafoe.
Huston would appear in three more Anderson films after Steve Zissou, totaling her collaboration count to five. Goldblum and Dafoe would appear in three more as well, leaving them with a current total of four collaborations. The next relevant film is The Darjeeling Limited from 2007, which marked his second collaboration with Jason Schwartzman and his first with Adrien Brody.
Ever since Rushmore, Jason Schwartzman has been a staple of Anderson’s acting stable. And after Darjeeling, he’d work with Anderson another five times. That quite easily puts him among Anderson’s most frequent of all his recurring collaborators. Adrien Brody, on the other hand, appeared in four subsequent Anderson films. Also among his most frequent.
Then came Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). From Wilson and Murray to Brody and Dafoe, it featured several of Anderson’s most common actors. It has a fantastic cast, but the stop-motion picture didn’t really mark the start of any collaborations. Not like Anderson’s next film, Moonrise Kingdom from 2012.
It featured the likes of Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, and Tilda Swinton — four accomplished actors who would subsequently appear in multiple Wes Anderson movies. And it’s worth noting that all of these actors — Dafoe, Swinton, Goldblum, even McDormand, Wilson, and Norton — are often associated with their quirky, offbeat characters. Which is just what Dr. Anderson ordered. Their respective styles of acting played perfectly into the auteur’s way of filmmaking, and the individual projects as works of art were much better off for the chemistry.
These stars facilitated Anderson’s growth as a filmmaker. They helped put him on the map, and they’ve continued to navigate through the waters ever since, resulting in perhaps the most prolific stable of recurring collaborators in the history of film. There’s a reason he continues to work with them: because, all those years ago, they said yes to working with him.
