At Filter Magazine, David Fear interviews screenwriter/director Noah Baumbach about his collaboration with Wes Anderson on the script for The Life Aquatic.
How long did you guys work on this?FYI, the restaurant is Bar Pitti, on Sixth (technically JustAboveHo), but I doubt they're still hanging out there; it's like -100 degrees right now, and no one's leaving their apartments.
About a year. We met every day at an Italian restaurant in Soho. We both keep odd hours, so weíd always plan to meet at 1pm then someone would show up late. Then one of us would anticipate that the other person would be late and the time would consistently pushed back. Then weíd go, "Okay, tomorrow, we actually meet at one!" Naturally, one of us would be late. But weíd stay through dinner, and just keep working on the script. We ended up using a lot of the items on the menu to name the fish. Some of the regular patronsí names ended up in there as well which we used for the crew members and such.Wow, I want to find this restaurant so I can order the jaguar shark!
That actually came from somewhere else.Oh.
Sorry.
Next up for Noah & Wes: a stop-action animation adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox, in collaboration with Henry Selick (the guy behind Nightmare Before Christmas).
The Life Aquatic: A Conversation With Writer Noah Baumbach [filter-mag, via Jason]
Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox [filmforce]
