All Aboard�

All Aboard�
The many talents of 'The Darjeeling Limited.'

By Glenn Kenny

Contrary to what the old song implies, it takes more than one man to build a railroad and make it run. Wes Anderson, cowriter and director of The Darjeeling Limited, would be the first to admit that. Premiere spoke with some of the film's other talents to gain more insight into Darjeeling's evolution and production.

Roman Coppola, son of director-producer-writer Francis Ford Coppola, is the multi-hyphenate on the film: cowriter–coproducer–second unit director. Costar and cowriter Jason Schwartzman plays Jack Whitman, the youngest of the film's three Whitman brothers, a writer with major ex-girlfriend issues. Adrien Brody is Peter Whitman, the middle brother, with Owen Wilson rounding out the trio. While costars Schwartzman and Owen Wilson have collaborated with Anderson before, this was Brody's first time working with the director. Amara Karan, who plays the enigmatic train steward Rita, got her role straight out of drama school in Britain.

I've done comedy, I've done comedy in some more independent — very independent — movies. But I guess because of The Pianist, people identify me more with something of some very serious subject matter. That I was capable of doing that maybe makes them think that I couldn't be capable of doing something so different. And it's been challenging. It's been challenging to find the right kind of comedy and the right people to give me that vote of confidence.

My character, Peter, has this quality of grasping at all the physical remnants of his late father, as a way of keeping him close. All three of the brothers are obviously dealing with their inability to accept the loss of their father, coming with his literal baggage. The way I had seen Peter was that he was living in denial, he was constantly avoiding the emotions that were too difficult to deal with; so he just kept kind of moving forward and I maintaining this façade that everything was very normal, everything was fine in all these odd situations. And ultimately everything was complete chaos, and he was overwhelmed.

When I see the movie, I'm much more emotional in it than I thought I was in the moment. And I feel more connected to it, more aligned with it in my own personality. Not necessarily with what he's going through or his inability to cope with things, but his kind of mannerisms and his way of being, I think they were more like me than most characters I've played. And that was surprising because I felt very different. And Wes had told me when I was trying to kind of pick his brains of something that would enlighten me, that I didn't need what I was asking for. He felt that I possessed those qualities he wanted. While I totally didn't feel that I possessed them at all. I don't know whether I was being insulted or not! But it's interesting. Interesting.

I always see the three brothers as fragments of one complete personality, one whole human being. They're really fragmented boys and then, you know, Owen's character tries to bring some kind of order to our lives. I'm the more emotional one, and Jack [Schwartzman] is kind of the drifter kind of — I don't know — loner.
Our interaction as actors developed quickly and without much conscious effort. You knew when things were just popping, and I think it was early on. I mean I don't remember it being difficult. And timing is very important to Wes. The timing, the choreography. It was something pretty new to me. The pace was very fast, and as soon as you kind of get accustomed to that, and comfortable with that, everything I think had room to breathe, even with all that pace. And so there's a lesson that I learned from Wes, because often directors encourage you to take your time with things, feel it out, give it some thought. This was different. A lot of the timing is there in the writing. I laughed out loud when I read the script, so — it's there.