So, when Wes calls, do you just drop everything you’re doing to be in his movies? Do you have a say in what you play?
First of all, let me say this: This is one of my best friends in the whole world and I am very, very lucky for that. There are very few people I could say that are my close people that I really, really care about. And I would say that there are an even smaller amount of them that I could say I actually work with, too. And it’s just very lucky.
I met Wes on Rushmore. We made a movie together. We stayed in touch through the years. And then this weird thing happens to you personally and you talk about it and then you keep talking, and then all of a sudden it’s twelve years older and you’re like, “Wow, this is my best friend.” It just kind of happens behind you in a weird way and you turn around and you can’t believe it. So I have that in my life with him separate to work.
And I never assume that we’re going to work together, you know what I mean? I almost assume that we’re not. Part of the feeling in my mind is like, “If we’re going to be friends like this, you have to be able to sort of separate them a little bit.” That said, when a job presents itself through Wes, it’s never worked out where I have ever been unhappy with the material or wanted something more.
I’m so happy to be a part of it in any way that it’s never even crossed my mind to bring up something. Because he’s very smart and I think he’s got an incredible gut feeling about balance, and it doesn’t always have to be the same balance. But for whatever work he’s done, he just has an innate sense of where things should be. Characters, music, actors, color, whatever, there’s a certain configuration to it all, and it’s all been thought out for a very, very long time. He’s very careful. So if you said, “I’d rather do that,” that’s not the right thing to say to someone who’s thought very long and hard about everything.
Some powerful photo illustrations come with Foreign Policy’s stunning cover feature on the real war unfolding on women in the middle east, written by the awesome and oh-so-brave Egyptian revolutionary Mona Eltahawy. Read it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my own morality lately, along with whether or not it’s okay for me to impose that morality onto the rest of the world, recognizing that what I believe is based on the society in which I was raised. Even so, I consider myself to be a universalist in some respects. One of those universal beliefs is equality between men and women. Historically, in every society, men and women have been regarded differently. Even in the most progressive societies today, this divide still exists, even if it doesn’t seem as extreme as in other areas of the world. Women in western societies are still expected to shave almost all of the hair off of their bodies, they’re still expected to wear dresses and high heels and be make-up to be considered “beautiful”. They’re still expected to be beautiful in the first place. This is not to say that I don’t fall into these traps like everyone else, because I certainly do. I’ve been socialized to believe in these customs, and it’s hard for anyone to separate themselves from what they grew up believing was true.
I know that most people in western societies will look at this article and condemn the gender relations in Egypt without a second thought. And, although I’d reach the same conclusion as most of them, most people don’t really take the time to work out what they believe themselves before passing judgments on others. They don’t take the time to really look at the society they belong to, to question whether or not they agree with everything their own society posits, before taking the stance that what they’re accustomed to is the “right” way to do things.
Of course this shouldn’t be happening in Egypt, and women should have equal rights and social status as men, as human beings. But this is not just a problem in non-Western societies, as articles like this imply. We need to critically evaluate our own community, the discrepancies between expectations for men and women in our own homes, before we begin imposing our own way of life on others.
Wes Anderson’s latest film, Moonrise Kingdom, is now out in theaters! New York and Los Angeles saw their debuts last week, and nationwide roll out is just around the corner.
San Francisco will see the debut of the film on Thursday, May 31st at the Metreon, help us spread the word and enter our official contest for a Moonrise Kingdom gift pack!
To enter the contest, simply reblog this post on Tumblr for your chance to win an official Moonrise Kingdom gift pack, which includes shirts, patches, a canteen and a cooler! Five winners will be chosen at random. View all the prizes here.
If you want to attend the free screening of Moonrise Kingdom at the Metreon in SF tomorrow (Thursday, May 31st) just shoot an email to MoonriseRSVP@gmail.com for free tickets!
Kumar Pallana is known for his roles in Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited. He immigrated from India and opened a small coffee shop in Dallas, Texas. Wes Anderson and his writing partner Owen Wilson lived close by, and would often use his store as a quiet place to work on their screenplays. Anderson decided to write him into the script they were working on at the time. That script eventually became Bottle Rocket, and the two have been working together ever since.
