As ‘Asteroid City’ director Wes Anderson does in Cannes

The mega cast of Wes Anderson City of Asteroids — including Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Jeffrey Wright, Bryan Cranston, Matt Dillon, Adrien Brody and Maya Hawke — landed on the Cannes red carpet May 23 in a mega bus, a transportation choice that has become a sort of a tradition for the Paris-based director.

Anderson, known for preferring to have his collaborators travel to the Palais together, last relied on a bus to transport Timothee Chalamet, Tilda Swinton and The French Dispatch colleagues to Cannes in 2021. That’s not the only “bizarre” protocol by Anderson at Cannes, according to multiple sources. Rather than opting for a fast-paced hotel like the Carlton, the Martinez or the Majestic as is de rigueur for most high-profile casts, Anderson chooses to stay in his favorite French hideaway outside Cannes. (“We’re an hour away, but it’s a totally normal life,” he told the AP.)

The sources added that due to the distance, Asteroid cast members traveled by bus from the hotel to Cannes, where they made an hour-long pit stop at the JW Marriott for glam and style before making their way down the Croisette to the Palais. Anderson’s way is also to limit guests to multiple-ones so that no one arrives with a huge entourage and everyone relies on local glam artists.

“It’s like his movies,” the source explained. “The cast stays in the same place, they have dinner together, it’s very family oriented. It’s a level playing field where no one has personal assistants and it creates some experience for the shoot.

During a press conference at the festival, Johansson put it this way: “It’s not the familiar process of being on a stage and going to your trailer to have all this free time, that eats up momentum. It looks very vibrant, just like you are working in the theatre.

This story first appeared in the May 31 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to register now.