One of the greatest joys found in Wes Anderson’s play-within-a-play sci-fi film Asteroid City is the unpacking of the hilarious layers of performance. His massive cast—including everyone from Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson to Tom Hanks and Jeffrey Wright, from Tilda Swinton and Edward Norton to Steve Carell and Willem Dafoe—embodies the strange, stagey world of the production. Some, like the exceptional Schwartzman and Johansson, pull double duty to play characters in the Asteroid City world and the actors playing those characters. It’s less complicated than it sounds, and all the more fun for it.
As Asteroid City moves from theaters to our TVs with its home release, we at Paste have an exclusive clip from the special features: A behind-the-scenes clip focused on the cast’s relationship with the set, and how the environment influenced the performers.
Check it out:
“They quickly felt like they were a part of it, I think, because when they were in costume and when they were entering into it, they were of a piece with this whole stage that we created out there,” Anderson says.
The cast, seen navigating the stagey sets, are revealed to be on…actual stages. These interiors were constructed on the local theater stages in the towns Anderson was shooting in. So, just so you have this straight: The film Asteroid City shot its stagey scenes, which are the behind-the-scenes production of the play Asteroid City, on real stages, which were turned into movie sets. Got it?
It’s a ton of fun seeing some of the practical set design that went into making the film’s stagey effects work, and seeing Anderson directing it all. If you’re ready to embrace the meta side of things, this is the way to dive headfirst into the vibe of Asteroid City.
Asteroid City is available on Digital today, 8/11, and hits Blu-ray and DVD on 8/15. It is also streaming now on Peacock.