From Chinchón to Cannes thanks to Wes Anderson and his troop of famous friends in 'Asteroid City'

It's been a carpet as tumultuous as Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny. More lucid, because the sun finally shines in Cannes this Tuesday after days of rain. And because Asteroid City promised a barrage of stars on the red carpet. The western with Martians in 1955 that Wes Anderson filmed in Chinchón two summers ago has met expectations: so much so, that its large cast has had to arrive by bus to the red carpet of its gala premiere at the French film festival.

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Anderson has arrived on the red carpet accompanied by Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Stephen Park, Matt Dillon, French Damien Bonnard, Maya Hawke, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Steve Carell and Jeffrey Wright. Accompanied by their partners, such as Colin Jost, Johansson's comic partner, or Rita Wilson, Hanks' actress wife. Other teammates, such as veteran Fisher Stevens (now fashionable for Succession), screenwriter Roman Coppola (close friend of Anderson) or French composer Alexandre Desplat, went more unnoticed. And at home more cast members stayed: Margot Robbie, Liev Schreiber, Bob Balaban, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum.

From left, Jason Schwartzman, Jeffrey Wright, Rupert Friend, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Maya Hawke, Adrien Brody, Scarlett Johansson, Matt Dillon, Fisher Stevens, Steve Carell, Stephen Park, Jake Ryan and Hope Davis arrive at the Festival Palace. MOHAMMED BADRA (EFE)

The avalanche of Asteroid City has caused, at the beginning, that the pace of the Kubi team has accelerated, the vibrant approach to samurai cinema of the Japanese master of violence Takeshi Kitano, which has also had a large cast of stars, in his case Japanese, and in the end, that the gala began quite late.

From left, Bryan Cranston, Wes Anderson, Adrien Brody and Matt Dillon on the red carpet. Behind are Fisher Stevens and Scarlett Johansson. Joel C Ryan (Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Inside the Lumière room, they were greeted by the standing stalls, which were waiting for them to see the new jewel of Anderson's audiovisual calligraphy. Asteroid City is an artifice within another: it starts in black and white with the television broadcast of a successful play, which gives the film its title. That's why Anderson has divided his film into three acts with interludes. And from there we go to a town, Asteroid City, in the Midwest, to the summer of 1955, when a group of people meet in a bungalow motel for very different reasons: from a widowed father with four children who has broken his car, to a movie star. Some of them, space cadets and their families, come to observe an alignment of meteorites from an immense crater caused by another asteroid, the great attraction of the town. That night, a Martian lands, steals the piece of space rock in front of everyone, and flees. The next day, the army cordoned off the area and quarantined witnesses.

Wes Anderson directs Jason Schwartzman and Tom Hanks in the Chinchón shoot of 'Asteroid City'.

All that scenario was created on the outskirts of Chinchón, southeast of the Community of Madrid, in the spring of 2021, before filming started at the end of that August. Why Chinchón? No one is able to resolve that doubt, although it is true that Italy was considered – Wes Anderson lives in France and did not want to leave Europe – before arriving in Madrid, in the town where Orson Welles filmed Chimes at Midnight and An Immortal Story. Production needs: good weather and blue skies for mostly outdoor shooting, very close accommodation and a huge smooth terrain to recreate the landscape of the American Midwest.

Construction of sets for 'Asteroid City' in May 2021 on the outskirts of Chinchón.Víctor Sainz

The producer Jeremy Dawson contacted Fernando Victoria de Lecea, head of Meñakoz Films, to do the service – that is, to be the local production company in charge of the procedures, reservation of accommodation, transport and construction of sets – after his good work in the Pyrenees to set Jacques Audiard's western The Brothers Sisters. "They already wanted to shoot in Chinchón, and they were waiting to know if it was possible to get that land to raise the sets, that the Parador agreed to be closed for the team and industrial buildings where to shoot the interiors of the film," recalls Victoria de Lecea. "And yes, we could."

Adrien Brody and Scarlett Johansson joke at the end of the red carpet. YARA NARDI (REUTERS)

The start of production was bumpy: on Three Kings Day 2021, Dawson (who had already begun negotiating in autumn 2020 with the owners of the land) and production designer Adam Stockhausen (who repeats in Cannes, because he is also responsible for this work in Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny) landed in Madrid to confirm on the ground the possibility of filming. That day the storm Filomena began to vent its fury, which kept them locked in the Parador until they verified that Chinchón's proposal met all the conditions. "For that immense desert, a land of 2021 hectares had to be rented throughout 60, actually composed of plots of 140 owners, to whom we paid two harvests," says the Spanish producer. "The first thing was to map the place with surveyors before removing the landmarks and erasing the boundaries: in the end the same plots had to be returned." They analyzed the soil and found in a nearby quarry a reddish sand rich in iron that covered the field and that complied with all environmental guidelines, and that was also removed at the end of the filming so as not to damage future crops.

Wes Anderson and his team step off the bus as they arrive at the Cannes red carpet.SARAH MEYSSONNIER (REUTERS)

In May 2021, when EL PAÍS unveiled the shooting, on the bulletin board of the City of Chinchón, a statement signed by the municipal corporation and Film Madrid, the company in charge of the Community to promote the shootings, assured "the support of the City Council" to the project and asked for the collaboration of all the inhabitants. At that time, immense mountains of porexpán were already being built, seated in mechanotubes. And the Parador was already reserved for three months to accommodate the actors, something that generated another setback: the filming was held during the high season of weddings, and it was necessary to compensate those who had already booked the rooms of the accommodation, converted at that time into the makeup and hairdressing rooms, and in areas of recreation of the stars, who didn't come out because of the coronavirus.

Everyone at the Parador

Because Wes Anderson likes his team to roll and live together. "My way of filmmaking is familiar. If I can, I try to make the whole team live in the same hotel, I like to have lunch and dinner together, that nobody goes home, "he said when he presented Isla de perros in Madrid. " That's why they went from the Parador, by a road and not by the road, to the filming, which was only 10 minutes away, and back, "recalls Victoria de Lecea. For this they used bicycles, mostly, and golf carts. "At that time, the covid protocol also helped the bubble concept." No trailers or caravans were used, but the bungalows erected as decorations were enabled with electricity and air conditioning so that they also served as offices and dressing rooms. In the filming in the theaters of Chinchón and Colmenar de Oreja —where the two ships turned into filming studios were also located— the existing dressing rooms were used.

Rupert Friend and Maya Hawke dance on the red carpet. Behind, composer Alexandre Desplant.LOIC VENANCE (AFP)

The actors were never all at once in Chinchón. That trail of stars came and went according to the shooting schedule between August, September and October, except for two fixed ones: the director, obviously, and Jason Schwartzmann. But whoever was there, communal dinners were organized outdoors. There was only one movement out of the ordinary: when Bill Murray arrived in Chinchón, the actor tested positive for covid and could not film. For once, Murray would not appear in a film by Anderson, who replaced him with Steve Carell. "Actually, our big challenge is that when we leave everything will be exactly the same. That's why we were very careful to offset our carbon footprint and recycle everything that had been used. The Americans understood our concern."

Recreation of a train in the exteriors of Chinchón in the filming of 'Asteroid City' Simon Weisse

An example: the polystyrene mountains, disassembled, were cut with hot thread, so that there were no shavings: on the one hand the reddish painted part went to a waste container and on the other the white polystyrene was pressed. "All the people of Chinchón and Colmenar de Oreja turned to us," says Victoria de Lecea. And they had their reward: when they went to pay the taxes of use of the theater of Colmenar de Oreja they offered the consistory if they preferred to charge it in another way. There is the Czech Ulpiano Museum, because this contemporary painter of Sorolla and the Madrazos, and some of whose paintings inspired the chariot race of Ben-Hur, was born in that town. "There was a painting of him that was going to be auctioned and that the City Council could not afford. So the American production bought the painting and donated it to the Consistory, "explains the producer. After the mandatory repair, since September 2022, the canvas Le Crépuscule, which represents the goddess Aurora, in charge of making way every morning in daylight, hangs in a room of the museum with an adjacent plaque that reads: "Donation made by the film Asteroid City directed by Wes Anderson and produced by POP.87 FILMS".

Construction of miniature houses used at the beginning of the film. Simon Weisse

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