Jason Schwartzman Was Scarlett Johansson's Lifeline On The Asteroid City Set
Wes Anderson's ability to attract top-tier talent is almost unparalleled in today's cinema landscape. Not only does he continue to get some of the best working actors to work on his movies (for probably not that much money comparatively), they continue to come back time and time again to where he's essentially curated his own, ever-growing troupe of traveling players. Most movie posters will feature a couple of notable names on the poster. The poster for Wes Anderson's phenomenal new film, "Asteroid City," features a staggering 21 names, where someone of the stature of Margot Robbie can be 18th billed on the poster. Tom Hanks is third-billed, and that has never happened before in his entire career.
One of the newer members of the Anderson stable is Scarlett Johansson, who came aboard with a voice performance in "Isle of Dogs." Johansson may be a two-time Oscar nominee and one of the more famous actors on the planet, but I believe her versatility as a performer is severely underrated. She can play big, broad comedy brilliantly in pictures like "Hail, Caesar!" and "Don Jon," can tackle drama at its subtlest ("Lost in Translation") and its most fiery ("Marriage Story"), and she of course has a decade of Black Widow under her belt.
Johansson also perfectly slides into the flatly comic yet melancholic world of Wes Anderson. "Asteroid City" marks the first time she has worked on-camera for the director, and her performance as actor Midge Campbell nails that perfect Anderson balance of a hilarious deadpan and a crushingly lonely soul. She also has tremendous chemistry with co-star Jason Schwartzman, who's been collaborating with Anderson since the late 1990s. As it happens, not only was he a great on-camera partner for Johansson, he was a massive help off-camera as well.
The life of a working mother
People who have kids baffle me. I don't know how I could possibly function in the world, let alone focus on a job that I love doing. So, when some people actually manage to do that, it's a remarkable feat that will never compute in my brain. Of course, though, they can't do it without a tremendous amount of help from the people around them that they trust.
Scarlett Johansson was put into this position during "Asteroid City." She gave birth to her second child shortly before heading over to Spain to shoot the film in 2021. Putting that kind of stress on yourself seems unbearable, but luckily for Johansson, she had a wonderful partner in Jason Schwartzman who looked to ease the burden of the work half of the work-life balance for the actor. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Johansson said of her co-star:
"Jason was so helpful ... It was just so quick, and also I had a little baby, so there was a lot going on. My brain was mostly functioning, but he would help me run lines at any moment. He was constantly present and supportive, and I needed him very much. I would say 'Please don't go too far away from me.' I was trying to stay alert, but he was just great. We work very similarly."
Few people understand the Wes Anderson process better than Jason Schwartzman, so if you are going to lean on someone during that process, there's no better choice than him. "Asteroid City" is one of the rare times Schwartzman is first on the call sheet in a movie, and leading a company with that kind of support and dedication is what an actor dreams about. It's wonderful to know he rose to that level.