Research

Wes Anderson

But I would say Moonrise Kingdom is a little more... The research for me and Roman, I think, was, "What was it like when we were 12?" Yeah, no, it was recalling those sensations and, you know, those memories of being a kid. And so, yeah, it was just kind of reaching back into your experience well, and not so much what happened, but also what we kind of wished would happen. You know, if you had met a girl and you could run off and have this adventure, you know. But there was a girl who I had the biggest crush on in fourth grade, and she passed me a note once after school. And when I opened the note, it says, "I think you're cute. Call me." And itjust-- Thinking of it, I get goose pimples now. But that's kind of-- And I did call her and I kind of choked. I didn't have anything interesting to ask her or to say. But anyway, I kind of wish that we would have run off together in this way. So we get to do it in the movie.

23:39 · jump to transcript →

Francis Lawrence

So, are you Satisfied? This was an interesting day. So we were actually shooting in the Gellert Hotel, which is a famous old hotel in Budapest. It also has some of the most famous baths and pools in Budapest. Budapest is very famous for its thermal baths and things. It was a relatively straightforward scene. Always kind of fun to do the research on the polygraph tests and see what kind of guinea pig is actually gonna sit and get polygraphed in front of a bunch of people. As we all learn how to operate the machine and how to do it. But it was a night that Jen had not slept for whatever reason. This really rarely happened, but she had not slept at all, and was, you know, had a fair amount of dialogue, even more so than is in the scene now. And it was just driving her crazy, because her mind just wasn't working. I mean, she's usually really, really, really good with dialogue, and doesn't forget anything. but she was getting really frustrated. And surprisingly, that day, for being so tired, the accent really stuck. and that was something that we worked on with everybody. I mean, it was interesting with Jen... My idea for the accent in general was to do a very, very light Russian accent for everybody. So what I did was I first started with my casting director, and we went out and cast some young women who were Russians, but had lived in America for a long time, so who had light accents, and we recorded them speaking. And we got Tim Monich, a dialect coach, involved, and he had some recordings. And we combined all those things and handed them off to Jen, and also hired some men to hand off to the men, and so they had voices that they could listen to. And then Joan Washington was the dialect coach that we used on set. But there was a fair amount of training and reference that we had for everybody in terms of the accents.

1:28:04 · jump to transcript →

We researched the regiment where you see on the shoulder flaps is the number 78. This is the regiment that is from Osnabrück, from the area where Mark grew up. So we researched the area where this regiment fought. And everyone has a different uniform. Like Kat has a uniform that is from the beginning of the war because he's older. He's been there for four years. And the kids, the other kids have a different uniform.

56:37 · jump to transcript →