- Born
- Birth nameWesley Wales Anderson
- Height6′ 1″ (1.85 m)
- Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Texas Ann (Burroughs), is an archaeologist turned real estate agent, and his father, Melver Leonard Anderson, worked in advertising and public relations. He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an event that he described as the most crucial event of his brothers' and his growing up. During childhood, Anderson also began writing plays and making super-8 movies. He was educated at Westchester High School and then St. John's, a private preparatory school in Houston, Texas, which was later to prove an inspiration for the film Rushmore (1998).
Anderson attended the University of Texas in Austin, where he majored in philosophy. It was there that he met Owen Wilson. They became friends and began making short films, some of which aired on a local cable-access station. One of their shorts was Bottle Rocket (1993), which starred Owen and his brother Luke Wilson. The short was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was received so successfully that they were given funding to make a feature-length version. Bottle Rocket (1996) was not a commercial hit, but it gained a cult audience and high-profile fans, which included Martin Scorsese.
Success followed with films such as Rushmore (1998), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and an animated feature, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). The latter two films earned Anderson Oscar nominations.- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous
- SpouseJuman Malouf(? - present)
- ChildrenFreya
- ParentsTexas Ann Anderson (Burroughs)Melver Leonard Anderson
- RelativesEric Chase Anderson(Sibling)Mel Anderson(Sibling)Edgar Wales Burroughs(Grandparent)
- Makes obsessive and comedic use of rostrum camera insert shots, foregrounding the minutiae of books and other documents.
- Has ended all his movies with a slow-motion shot, with the exception of The Darjeeling Limited (2007).
- Just about the entire score of all of his movies, with the exception of The Darjeeling Limited (2007) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), were composed by Mark Mothersbaugh.
- Frequently casts Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Andrew Wilson, Bill Murray, Kumar Pallana, Dipak Pallana, Brian Tenenbaum, Stephen Dignan, Bob Balaban, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Anjelica Huston and Bryan Cranston
- Likes to shoot with extremely wide-angle anamorphic lenses that exhibit considerable barrel distortion.
- Martin Scorsese is a big fan of his movies, even choosing him as the next Martin Scorsese in an Esquire magazine article.
- His great-grandfather was the older brother of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author most famous for his creation of Tarzan and John Carter.
- All of his films since The Royal Tenenbaums have featured a type of shot composition called "planimetric staging" which involves placing the camera at a 90 degree angle with the subject of the shot. This type of shot is one of the main reasons Anderson's films are said to have a unique visual style. Other directors who have used this technique include Buster Keaton, Jean-Luc Godard, Stanley Kubrick, and Yasujiro Ozu, although almost none have used at as frequently as Anderson has (almost every shot).
- While shooting The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) the once pasty and bookish Anderson got a tan, grew his hair long, and got into better shape. His frequent star, Anjelica Huston, noted that Wes had suddenly become handsome.
- Wrote Bottle Rocket (1996), Rushmore (1998) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) with Owen Wilson, whose brother, Luke Wilson, appears in all three movies.
- I want to try not to repeat myself. But then I seem to do it continuously in my films. It's not something I make any effort to do. I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience. I feel I get criticized for style over substance, and for details that get in the way of the characters. But every decision I make is how to bring those characters forward.
- [on developing the historical backdrop of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)] I can't say that I have some new analysis of totalitarianism. I don't want to stay away from anything or steer away from anything or avoid anything. What we know, and the politics and meaning of all this stuff, ought to be in there.
- I wouldn't say that I'm particularly bothered or obsessed with detail.
- That's the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they've never been before. The details, that's what the world is made of.
- I have a way of filming things and staging them and designing sets. There were times when I thought I should change my approach, but in fact, this is what I like to do. It's sort of like my handwriting as a movie director. And somewhere along the way, I think I've made the decision: I'm going to write in my own handwriting.
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