'Asteroid City' star Jason Schwartzman on 'challenging' and 'exciting' father role in new film

When you think of a Wes Anderson film, likely the actor you associate with the filmmaker is his longtime collaborator Jason Schwartzman.

The release of the film Asteroid City marks not only another project bringing Anderson and Schwartzman together, but a story and leading role that Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola crafted for the actor specifically.

Having watched Schwartzman in a number of Anderson films, beginning with the 1998 movie Rushmore, playing a father in Asteroid City is something that stood out as "challenging" but "exciting" for the actor.

In Asteroid City Schwartzman plays Augie Steenbeck, the father of one son, Woodrow played by Jake Ryan, and three triplet girls. Augie is a war photographer but he's also dealing with the death of his wife, which he hasn't told his children about, until they head to the desert town of Asteroid City.

“I think some other characters I've played, there's a sense of ... this energetic kind of dissatisfaction, or restlessness," Schwartzman told Yahoo Canada. "This character sounds so interesting because he's got the same thing, but in a totally different part of his life."

"The way he thinks about things is a new type of thinking for me, in terms of characters. I think just age, his job, being a father, the way Wes wrote it, it just appealed to me to try to play someone who had that much life experience.”

Throughout much of the film, Augie relies on his oldest child. From the beginning of the movie process, Wes wanted Ryan and Schwartzman to really work together as much as possible to create that father-son bond.

“The mind blowing thing to me was, when I had my daughters on the set, the triplets, I realized how essential Jake was not only as an actor, as a character, but how much I relied on him to help be sort of like an ambassador to them,” Schwartzman said. “Because I think it's different for them to have someone to speak to them that's my age, versus a 17-year-old.”

“The way that I spoke to them or acted around them, I wanted them to feel like I was their father. I think there's just a built-in thing, which is that Jake, ... I leaned on him heavily and I realized how much my character would have leaned on him. As a war photographer ... with a 17-year-old kid and his six-year-old daughters, I must have said many times, 'I'm leaving and you're in charge of this.'"

Schwartzman went on to highlight that the Augie character in Asteroid City reminds the actor of his Anderson movie roles of the past, when he was playing younger characters and the older person was on "equal ground."

“So much of the time I feel like I have been a younger person talking to these adults and enjoying the feeling that I don't normally get, which is to just talk to them like they're not adults," Schwartzman said.

“The way Jake is talking to me and the way I'm relating to him is the way that I was encouraged, and glad I was encouraged, and learned how to be with adults on Rushmore and other things. I was on the other side of it, and I loved it.”

Jason Schwartzman thanks Canadian band Sloan for 'incredible' moment

Following a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Schwartzman was widely quoted for saying that Anderson was one of the first adults in his life to care about what he said.

"I was 17 when we met, he was the first person that wasn't in my family, that was over the age of 20, that actually asked me a question and cared what I said, and was curious about what I was interested in, and that was unusual," Schwartzman said in Cannes.

But Schwartzman also highlights the Canadian band Sloan is an exception to that statement, one of his favourite bands and another example of adults who really listened to Schwartzman as a teen.

“I went to go see them play when I just turned 16 and I was at a show, and I ended up talking to them,” Schwartzman recalled. “They were opening for a band, I knew the drummer in the band, ... and through him they said, 'we're going back to this hotel, if you want to come.'"

"I ended up sitting around a pool with Sloan until the sun came up, talking about music. It remains one of the most incredible moments of my life. Definitely the other big standout moment where they were asking me what music I like. I was like wow, ... 'why are they so nice to me? Why are they caring about what I'm saying?' And we've maintained that friendship."

'When I hear something I feel like it can transport me more quickly than any other art form'

Not only is Schwartzman a phenomenal actor but the star is also an incredible musician. Previously the drummer for the band Phantom Planet, which got significant attention when their song "California" was used as the theme song for the popular Josh Schwartz series The O.C., Schwartzman then moved on to his next project, Coconut Records, with tunes like "West Coast" and "Microphone."

While the Anderson visual aesthetic is very unique and specific, the music used in his films is equally as important to really bring the audience into these worlds he creates, something that's also a highlight for Schwartzman.

"It changes but on Rushmore, for instance, I remember he gave me a cassette tape that said 'Rushmore soundtrack' on it, it was all handwritten," Schwartzman said. "At certain times it'd be the music playing on the set, it was really being used to set a mood and such, and in a similar way with [Asteroid City], the music is one of the tools."

"Movies are so wonderful because they employ so many different art forms and senses, so sounds and the sonics is so helpful to tell a story and to paint a picture. ... There's something about music that, more than anything else for me, when I hear something I feel like it can transport me more quickly than any other art form. ... I feel that Wes has a great sense of music and is very musical, and uses music to, I think, also help the actors understand the context and the bigger picture."