He is known for his quirky comedies.
But it seems the staff on one of Wes Anderson’s film sets didn’t see the funny side after being served nothing but soup for lunch.
The Oscar-winning director has revealed that workers staged a ‘mutiny’ after he installed folding tables at the side of the set so they could get back to work quickly, rather than giving them a long lunch break.
Anderson said the uprising happened after his longtime key figure Sanjay Sami – who has worked on films such as the 2014 award-winning The Grand Budapest Hotel – became tired of eating nothing but soup while doing physical work every day.
The director relented and gave him steak instead.
In conversation with River Café owner Ruth Rogers’ podcast Ruthie’s table 4, Anderson said, “I don’t like to stop working during the day. With movies you often stop and there’s a really long intermission, and then it takes even longer to get back from the intermission, so the way we’ve done it is we have these little tables that are made to go in suitcases are folded and we place them directly on the side of the set.
Revolt: American filmmaker Wes Anderson says he tried for years to get his staff to eat only soup
Set: The Oscar-winning director has revealed that employees staged a ‘mutiny’ after he placed folding tables on the side of the set so they could quickly get back to work (photo of Wes with Jason Schwartzman, center, and Tom Hanks on the set of Asteroid City)
“And the people who actually work on set, which is a small group, other people who build sets and stuff, they have a different experience, the group on set. We have lunch there and it is brought outside.
‘For years I tried to just make soup out of it and convince everyone that we would just eat soup and then go straight back to work. In Germany we had very good soups, there was a shop opposite the hotel where we lived. made soup for us every day.
‘But most people don’t just want soup and eventually there was a mutiny. In particular, our key person Sanjay Sami said: “You can’t push a doll all day and eat only thin soup”. We started bringing Sanjay his own steak and stuff.”
Sami’s job involved pushing and pulling a camera mounted on a dolly, which can weigh up to 400kg, along hundreds of meters of track built specifically for a scene.
Anderson, 54, joined Mrs. Rogers for the first episode of the third season of her popular podcast. Previous guests have included Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Taylor Johnson and Oliva Colman.
During the interview, the Texas-born director also revealed how Ms Rogers hosted private screenings for The Grand Budapest Hotel and his 2000 film Fantastic Mr Fox at her home, where she cooked for guests.
Anderson’s latest project is an adaptation of four short films based on the stories of Roald Dahl: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Rat Catcher and Poison.
Oh no! He is known for his quirky comedies. But it seems the staff on one of Wes Anderson’s film sets didn’t see the funny side after they were only given soup for lunch (pictured on the set of Asteroid City)