The Phoenician Scheme director chats about making his new movie around Benicio del Toro, and opens up on the AI copycats of his films.
Anderson is keenly aware that people boil down his films to his signature style, one characterized by bright pastels, meticulous arrangements, and symmetrical compositions. He’s embraced it over the course of his 29-year career, leaning into the dollhouse aesthetic that has come to define his films like The Grand Budapest Hotel and Asteroid City. But he admits that the recognition that his style has earned, and the copycats that he’s inspired, can sometimes put him “on the defensive.”
“It’s almost like my handwriting, [the] visual thing,” Anderson tells Inverse. “It’s the surface of the movie, but I get that it takes people about five seconds before they can say, ‘I know who directed this.’”