Trivia / Asteroid City

• All-Star Cast: The cast is full of recognizable actors, including: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Margot Robbie, Bryan Cranston, Hope Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jeffrey Wright, Liev Schreiber, Matt Dillon, Sophia Lillis, Maya Hawke, Fisher Stevens, Edward Norton, Steve Carell, Willem Dafoe, Rita Wilson, Jarvis Cocker and Seu Jorge.
• Billing Displacement: Despite being one of the most important characters, and arguably the lead, Jake Ryan, who plays Woodrow, is 2nd to last billed, below bit parts like Margot Robbie or Hong Chau.
• California Doubling: The film is set in an American desert, and was shot in Spain.
• Deleted Role: A humorous example in that it happens In-Universe due to real life circumstances, and it's actually an added character. As noted below, Bill Murray was unable to take part in the movie and was replaced by Steve Carell. To compensate for this, as soon as production wrapped on the movie, Wes Anderson created a character for Bill to play in a promotional video (seen here), the In-Universe actor Tab Whitney, who was supposed to play an armaments and aeronautics industry mogul named Jock Larkings.
• Dueling Works: With Oppenheimer, both being mid-century-set All-Star Cast films set in the American Southwest and have nuclear testing as plot elements, as well as make use of both colour and black and white segments for its storytelling, opening within a month of each other.
• Fake American:
  • Rupert Friend puts on an impressive Southern drawl when playing Montana, the singing cowboy. This is an amusing example because it's also the case in-universe: as Friend uses his natural British accent in the acting class scenes.
  • Tilda Swinton is also British, and plays the American Dr. Hickenlooper. It's unknown if the character's actress has the same nationality however.
  • The Australian Margot Robbie uses an American accent while playing the actor who was supposed to be Augie's wife.
• The Other Marty: Bill Murray was first tapped to play the motel manager, but he caught COVID-19 during filming and thus was unavailable. Steve Carell played the role instead, while Anderson had Murray play a new role in a promotional clip.
• Production Posse:
  • This time it would be easier to name the actors who did not previously collaborate with Wes Anderson (which include Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Maya Hawke, Margot Robbie, Hope Davis, Sophia Lillis, Hong Chau and Rita Wilson).
  • Alexandre Desplat composed the soundtrack, once again.
• Reality Subtext: According to Anderson, the sense of stress and uncertainty in the post-alien quarantine was inspired by similar feelings during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Both Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson appear in the film. They're married in real life.
  • Augie's three daughters are played by real-life sisters Gracie, Ella and Willan Faris.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Jake Ryan bears an uncanny resemblance to Jason Schwartzman, making it entirely believable that they are father and son.
• What Could Have Been: Bill Murray was originally cast in the role that Steve Carell would eventually play, but tested positive for COVID-19 before filming could begin, making this one of the very few Wes Anderson films he hasn't appeared in. However, after his recovery Murray came to the film's set in Spain, and Anderson gave him the role of an additional character in a promotional clip for the film.

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