Funny "Foxy" Jason Schwartzman

Actor Jason Schwartzman hangs with funny buds Owen and Luke Wilson as well as Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill (with whom he starred in the recent Funny People) but his longest BFF relationship seems to be with quirky, visionary director Wes Anderson who cast Jason in his first film Rushmore. That part led to work in The Darjeeling Limited, another Wes comic film about some bros on a train in India and Jason's role as a teeny-bit weird King Louis the 15th in Sofia Coppola's Kirsten Dunst starrer Marie Antoinette.

Jason had heard from Wes about his intended stop-motion animation adaptation of children's author Roald Dahl's popular book "Fantastic Mr. Fox" for a few years so when the director finally was ready to shoot, Jason was thrilled to jump into his first voice work as Ash, a misfit teen fox who feels he can never quite please his dad (Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney!) who uses his foxy animal instincts to save his family and friends from some evil farmers.  

Although most of the voice actor cast of foxes and other animal friends actually worked together on locations that matched those in the film, instead of in a recording studio, Jason was bummed that he didn't get to actually work with Meryl Streep who voices his mom in the film. Instead, he was out in a field recording Ash's dialogue and actually digging in the dirt!

We sat down in the trendy SLS Hotel in L.A. with the cute and shaggy-haired Jason to munch on mini-burgers and talk about his own memories of his teenhood and high school, how much working with pal Wes meant to him, his fun experience of recording his voice with fellow actors like an old-time radio play rather than in a studio recording booth and wazzup with his TV series on HBO "Bored to Death".  Pull up a chair as Jason enters the room, sees the adorable little Ash puppet sitting at our table and says "he's so cool". He turns it around to face him so he can see it better. "I just want to look at him".

TeenHollywood: Did you have a little model or something to look at when you were doing the movie?

Jason: Before I ever recorded anything, Wes took me out to where they did all the animation so I saw my puppet, I saw the sets. Everything was still being built at that time but that was all I had seen.  When I started to record the voice, I never pictured myself animated.  I never imagined the character and imagined him animated when we were laying down the audio tracks, oddly.

TeenHollywood: Why were you attracted to do this "foxy" voice role?

Jason: I decided to be in the movie because Wes Anderson who directed the film is a great friend of mine because we've done two movies together and I've known him for a very, very long time. We have a very good relationship and I think it's very hard in this world, in general, to find people who you can consider your friends and I think it's also really hard to find people that you have a good working relationship with. I worked with him on my first movie ever (Rushmore) and we just got along so well. We have a rapport with one another and I feel very close to him. We are now at the point where we can have dinner and not say anything to each other and it would be okay.

TeenHollywood: Sounds like a perfect match!

Jason: It really is. I was one of the last actors added to this. So, when asked me, I was like 'absolutely! I thought you'd never ask'.  I just wanted to be a part of it. If Wes asked me to just come and carry lights on a set, I would do it.  If he asked me to cook for the actors, I would do it.  I like being part of a community and I like being part of a society of people who are trying to make things.

TeenHollywood: So you know how to cook then?

Jason:  I can grill (we laugh).

TeenHollywood: How about director Wes's kind of unusual way of making a film? Did this include Fantastic Mr. Fox?

Jason:  Yeah. When Wes told me about the movie, he told me how he wanted to do it which is something that I've noticed the three times that I've worked with Wes now, Rushmore, Darjeeling Limited and this film. He has the idea for the film and what he wants it to be about but he also has the way he wants to make it; the process. For the India movie it was 'I have so far a movie about three brothers on a train in India.  That's all I have now.  I'd like all of us to be on a real, moving train, shoot it all in India, no trailers, no hair and make-up department, no craft services, all the actors are responsibility for their own continuity and we shoot it on a train that really goes throughout India.' So, with this movie, he said, 'I want to make a stop-motion animated movie based on Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox"'. I've known that for a long time. Then, he said 'I want to get all the actors together, go away on location and record it all live like a radio play' and that's how we did it. We all, except for Meryl Streep because I think she was busy, for the most part, the majority of my performance was done with Bill Murray and Wally (Wolodarsky) and George Clooney and Wes on different locations holding the scripts in our hands.

TeenHollywood: Like where and what did he have you do?

Jason: If the scene called for us to be outside, we'd go outside and find a place that seemed like it was where the scene was actually taking place and if a scene required us to dig, we all got on our hands and knees and dug in the ground. It was all being recorded with a boom mic.  It was basically like a movie without any crew, just actors, Wes and a sound man. I never imagined myself animated because I was literally working with George Clooney and Bill Murray and it felt like we were just making a movie, or rehearsing a scene.

TeenHollywood: That is unusual for a stop-motion or animated film. How much do you relate to this character Ash; a teen comic book geek who wants his father's approval?

Jason: I related to this character a lot but not specifically those two things.  I felt like I got my dad's approval. I didn't feel neglected. But everyone wants more and more of everything. I wasn't very interested in comic books but I did like girls who tended to like people that I knew and not me (like Ash does).  I was an athlete but wished I was better.  And I think, more than anything, I wasn't as grumpy as my character.  I didn't spit. I imploded a bit more than this guy.  You've wouldn't have known if I was happy or unhappy in high school. You would have just thought I was the same every day.  But, this guy, I feel is a real misfit, really struggling to find people who take him seriously and are interested in what he's doing or just say 'hey, you're great, Ash'. I think if you don't get love after a certain point you can turn a bit prickly.  My character's not a bad person, he just could really use some love and the absence of love can get a bit toxic. He's an outsider.  I felt like an outsider and when I was doing the work on this, I just thought I was playing a 13-year-old kid who felt like he wasn't popular and felt different.

TeenHollywood: Did you see any of your own gestures or movements in the puppet when you saw the film?

Jason: It's odd, we would do these blasts, all the actors together, three days, four days, going through the script like crazy and then part for eight months and then see each other again. You forget in a weird way.  So, when I went to see the movie, it was like I had amnesia. I had no recollection of any of it. But you do kind of remember the day, 'oh that's the day that I ate the donut and I felt really bad' (laughter) but on this movie, I felt like it was so exciting because I collaborated with these animators.  I felt like they brought the character to life, I just put the voice down and they made the twitching ears and spinning and all of that stuff that was so funny and enjoyable. I almost feel like it's not me. I feel like I can be very distant and just watch it.

TeenHollywood: After this experience, would you want to do animation voice/over work again?

Jason: Oh absolutely.  I would do it in this style that we did it in or I would be interested in the more orthodox way of doing it in the recording booth.  That also seems interesting too where you are basically working completely alone.  

TeenHollywood: Did you read this book or any of the Dahl books as a kid?

Jason: Yeah, well they were read to me when I was really little, especially 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Twits' and 'Witches'.  Those were the ones that I loved.  I knew this one and I loved it.  I never, in a million years thought I'd be doing this.  It's weird now to think that I'm part of a Roald Dahl book. It's pretty amazing.

TeenHollywood: When you finally saw the movie done, how close was it to the movie you had in your mind?

Jason: I had no movie in my mind.  I had seen the sets. I had seen the puppets.  I knew the dialogue.  I kind of knew what it would be but still, it's a very unusual animated movie, an unusual stop-motion movie just because a lot of the things you see in it are typically not done, like really long shots. There are shots in this movie that go on for a very long period of time. That's a very atypical thing when you think of stop motion. The animators are really like the actors.  It was very interesting. This was a really great experience and I would totally do it again.

TeenHollywood: So you never got a chance to work directly with Meryl then because she wasn't available?

Jason: No, but I'll tell people that I worked with Meryl Streep! Technically, I can do that.  Now we're on the same IMDB page. Right there.

TeenHollywood: You said you were digging in the dirt like the animals in the movie. Did you also have props? Did you wrap a towel around your neck (as a cape like his character Ash has)?

Jason: I didn't have a cape or a towel but I did eat bagels like you see in the movie and I think, maybe at one time I might have put a sock on my head but not a cape (laughter).

TeenHollywood: Teen Ash really wants to excel at the baseball/cricket-like game Whack Bat. Did you understand the rules to Whack Bat?

Jason: Yeah, Wes invented Whack Bat. The third time I saw the movie I began to get it.  I think the basic rule of Whack Bat is trying to get a lot done. You are trying to run back and forth, hit something, yell 'whack bat'. I don't play or understand it but I think it's up for interpretation.  Anyone can just make it up.
I think it is going to be an Olympic sport, yeah.

TeenHollywood: Let's talk about your TV series. How is "Bored to Death" going?

Jason: It's going great.  We shot it last March to June and then this summer and fall has been an exciting but very scary time because you want people to like it and we worked so hard on it.  The hours are really hard. There's tons of lines.  It's logistically hard. Like every day you're shooting in Brooklyn and you get in vans and go (somewhere else). It's a lot of work.  So much love went into it. It's a really scary feeling, the waiting period.

TeenHollywood: But wasn't the show picked up for more episodes?

Jason:  Yeah. We got picked up for a second (season?). It's an odd thing.  I've never done press before for something that could have a second life. Typically, when I've done press for movies, it's more like doing a eulogy because you're talking about something you're not going to revisit.  The movie will go on to have many lives and find many people but your job as an actor is done but doing a television show, I was more like taking about someone who is in a coma (laughter) because it could make it or not so you're not sure how to talk about it. I'm glad that we're coming back because I think that Jonathan Ames (showrunner and creator), like Wes is such a unique and gifted writer.  His novels are amazing and I look forward to anything his brain can and will concoct.

TeenHollywood: Your character is a writer who has hit writer's block. Do you think he'll get his writing mojo back?

Jason: Yeah, I do. I do. I hope. But, I asked Jonathan, 'what's the worst writer's block you've had?' and he said his second novel.  It took him eight and a half years. But that's a great book, "The Extra Man" and Kevin Kline is in the movie version that's coming out this Fall I think.  It was directed by the people that did American Splendor.