{"id":574847,"date":"2023-05-17T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/its-a-good-time-to-be-fisher-stevens-i-get-to-kind-of-do-everything-at-this-point-in-my-life\/"},"modified":"2023-05-17T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T03:00:00","slug":"its-a-good-time-to-be-fisher-stevens-i-get-to-kind-of-do-everything-at-this-point-in-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/its-a-good-time-to-be-fisher-stevens-i-get-to-kind-of-do-everything-at-this-point-in-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"#It\u2019s a Good Time to Be Fisher Stevens: \u201cI Get to Kind of Do Everything at This Point in My Life\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Given his growing tendency to line up half of Hollywood to app<\/a>ear in\u00a0his films, anyone cast in a Wes Anderson movie might worry just how much screen time they\u2019ll end up getting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Not Fisher Stevens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n After minor roles in The Grand Budapest Hotel <\/em>(a concierge), Isle of Dogs <\/em>(the voice of a mutt called Scrap) and The French Despatch <\/em>(an unnamed magazine story editor), he\u2019s now set to make a similarly background appearance in Asteroid City<\/em>, Anderson\u2019s latest, and featuring arguably the director\u2019s most ludicrous array of top-tier talent to date (a list so long, it may test the wide lenses of Cannes\u2019 red carpet paparazzi when it bows May 23). And very happily so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m around. I mean, you\u2019ll see me in the film. But I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s my Oscar-winning performance,\u201d Stevens tells The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, adding that blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-it or not, his Asteroid City <\/em>role meant he was able to run away with the Wes Anderson circus once again, this time to Spain for several weeks (and to the \u201ccool city\u201d of Chinch\u00f3n).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019ve got to be honest: You do some jobs just to work with certain people,\u201d explains Stevens. \u201cWes hasn\u2019t given me big parts, but he\u2019s given me great opportunities to hang out with him and be part of this ensemble.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Alongside Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Margot Robbie, Steve Carrell, Hong Chau, Tilda Swinton and Jason Schwartzman, this preposterously extended ensemble also included Stevens\u2019 \u201cbest friends\u201d Matt Dillon and Liev Shrieber. He also spent time with Jarvis Cocker and Brazilian musician Seu Jorge (names so far down the cast list, they, like Stevens, didn\u2019t even make the latest Asteroid City <\/em>poster).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut it was just a blast,\u201d he says, adding that, as Anderson\u2019s friend \u2014 a relationship that was borne from the 2005 Noah Baumbach comedy-drama The Squid and the Whale<\/em>, which Anderson produced and Stevens was originally set to produce (until his financing fell through) \u2014 he got to go location scouting with him a few times and see cuts of Asteroid City<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI just think that he\u2019s one of the greatest artists of our time,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n To Stevens, any opportunity to spend time in Anderson\u2019s world is clearly a blessing. He recalls making what he happily describes as the \u201cworst movie of my career,\u201d the infamous sports biopic United Passions<\/em>, about the founding of soccer\u2019s governing body FIFA (which financed the feature, something he says he didn\u2019t know at the time). Atrocious though it may have been \u2014 \u201cI think it was\u00a0the lowest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes\u201d \u2014 the much-derided project brought him to France, where Anderson had moved in 2005, for nine weeks. \u201cAnd I\u2019d say one of the greatest adventures of my life was in Paris when Wes was living there. I hung out with him quite a bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Stevens likens the creative experience of working on an Anderson film \u2014 \u201cwhich is like a travel<\/a>ing theater troupe\u201d \u2014 to that on the set of Succession<\/em>, now coming to an end after four triumphant seasons. Although he admits it\u2019s a \u201cshame\u201d that the show is wrapping up just as the story begins to peer behind the slithery facade of his comms chief and Waystar Royco survivor Hugo Baker \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m starting to get some great shit!\u201d \u2014 he greatly admires writer Jesse Armstrong for making the decision. Not that it wasn\u2019t emotional on the final day of filming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cMost of us wrapped the same day, and we were all just weeping,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were all crying, and that rarely happens. I was only with the show for two and half years, but it was really sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Talk of Succession <\/em>spinoffs has been shut down, but Fisher already has one he wrote for Hugo. Just for himself, mind you. \u201cI do that whenever I get a part, I write a bio,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd yeah, Hugo\u2019s got a plan. I can\u2019t tell you the plan, because I don\u2019t want to give it away. But I think he\u2019s going to succeed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Both Asteroid City <\/em>and Succession <\/em>have, in their separate ways, helped feed the many other facets of Stevens\u2019 impressively wide-ranging output. <\/p>\n

\n A renowned multi-hyphenate who frequently skips back and forth in front of and behind the camera, he has starred in 1980s classics (Short Circuit<\/em>) and contemporary prestige TV dramas (The Night Of <\/em>), directed black comedies (Stand Up Guys<\/em>, starring Al Pacino)
and Broadway shows (John Leguizamo\u2019s Ghetto Klown<\/em>), and produced and exec produced everything from music comedies (Robert Altman\u2019s A Prairie Home Companion<\/em>) and thrillers (Swimfan<\/em>) to cult TV docuseries<\/a> (The Tiger King<\/em>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n In the last decade and a half, he has also become known as a celebrated and award-winning environmental documentarian. In 2009 Stevens produced the Oscar winner for best documentary feature, The Cove<\/em>, highlighting dolphin hunting practices in Japan, and since then directed Before the Flood<\/em>, the Leonardo DiCaprio-fronted feature about climate change, followed by And We Go Green<\/em>, charting the rise of Formula\u00a0E electric car racing, which DiCaprio also produced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n For his latest project, We Are Guardians<\/em>, Stevens\u2019 Asteroid City<\/em>-forged friendship with Jorge led to an assist with the soundtrack. \u201cHe found us [Sao Paulo-based musician] Pupillo, who plays percussion on it \u2026 and that\u2019s all out of meeting Wes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The film, which recently premiered at the Hot Docs festival in Canada, explores the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, following the unique and inspiring efforts of an Indigenous person and an activist as they fight to protect it. There\u2019s doom and gloom about the extent of the destruction, but also positivity and hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re not saying we have all the answers, but there\u2019s definitely things people can do and pressure people can put on,\u201d says Stevens, who produced the film (Indigenous filmmaker Edivan Guajajara directed alongside Chelsea Greene and Rob Grobman). \u201cAnd I do believe that we show a different side of the coin with the loggers and landowners.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n We Are Guardians <\/em>also marks the first film out of the blocks for Highly Flammable, Stevens\u2019 newly launched production company with partners Maura Anderson and Zak Kilberg. \u201cThis is my third film company now, and I feel so much wiser now and know more, and have much more experience, but I\u2019m always learning,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Highly Flammable\u2019s focus will be across the board \u2014 scripted, unscripted, TV, features and more \u2014 and will act as a vehicle for Stevens\u2019 directing and producing work. Upcoming projects include a podcast he recently directed about Argentinian journalist Miriam Lewin, who exposed the atrocities of the country\u2019s military junta (and testified at their trial), with Alexis Bledel playing Lewin, plus a documentary about the Zulu Social<\/a> Aid and Pleasure Club in New Orleans, directed by newcomer Matthew Henderson (which Stevens says is \u201cgoing to be fucking great\u201d and should be ready for summer festivals).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n And the company\u2019s first project now comes with some A-list\u00a0support to help spread its message. Thanks to Stevens\u2019 ongoing friendship with DiCaprio, the star \u2014 also in Cannes with Martin Scorsese\u2019s Killers of the Flower Moon <\/em>\u2014 has just come on board We Are Guardians <\/em>as exec producer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe dream comes when a guy like Leo puts his name on it, and hopefully that\u2019ll help us sell it and, you know, people follow Leo,\u201d he says. DiCaprio, Stevens claims, also knows the Guajajara Indigenous group in the Brazilian rainforest that We Are Guardians <\/em>focuses on. \u201cHe\u2019s done a benefit for them, but just having him attached is great, and he\u2019s been a great partner before,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n It was DiCaprio who actually sparked Fisher\u2019s latest high-profile project as director \u2014 one several worlds away from the Brazilian rainforest and one he says he\u2019s currently a \u201clittle swamped with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n A Netflix doc series peering into the world of David Beckham might seem an unlikely gig for Stevens given his body of work (and as someone from a country where Beckham\u2019s celebrity status hasn\u2019t been under such a prolonged microscope as in the U.K.), and he himself says it\u2019s an \u201cinter- esting choice.\u201d But the Brit soccer star \u2014 who also produces \u2014was given a special recommendation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe story I was told was that\u00a0David was hanging out with Leo, and asked him who he should get,\u201d Stevens says. Beckham had also just watched Before the Flood <\/em>and Palmer<\/em>, the 2021 Justin Timberlake drama that Stevens directed. \u201cHe liked the emotion in the movies and wanted to make something emotional. I also feel like they wanted an American because we don\u2019t have so many preconceived ideas about him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Although Stevens admits to going into the project not knowing anything about Beckham, he has been a committed English soccer fan for at least 20 years, inspired by the first documentary he produced, 2006\u2019s Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n However, in a move that will likely appall even the most casual fan, Stevens has changed teams several times, starting with Chelsea (thanks to Cosmos<\/em> co-producer John Battsek, who also produces the Beckham doc), then across London to Arsenal (\u201cI married into an Arsenal family\u201d), and now Liverpool. As might now sound predictable for Stevens given the caliber of his acquaintances, this somewhat unorthodox (not to mention sacrilegious) team switching came about because he happens to be close with Mike Gordon, president of the U.S. conglomerate that owns Liverpool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cOnce Mike took over at Liverpool I moved \u2026 I just love the team and the stadium,\u201d he says. \u201cBut, yeah, English people hate me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Thanks to Stevens\u2019 new friendship with Beckham \u2014 who, alongside Victoria Beckham, invited him to take his camera deeper into their lives than any have been before (\u201cTheir pitch to me was that \u2018nobody really knows who we are\u2019 \u201d) \u2014 he could well make the near heretical leap from Liverpool to their archrivals Manchester United.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Not that anyone will mind, especially for someone whose boundless creative energy and enthusiasm appears to constantly draw new friends and collaborators into his orbit. And it\u2019s these relationships that have helped ignite such a kaleidoscopic body of work, from docs to features to podcasts to extended trips to Spain with a large assortment of very famous Hollywood stars. <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s really a good time for me in terms of diversifying,\u201d Stevens says. \u201cI\u2019m curious. I like to make change. I like to tell stories. And
I love acting. So I get to kind of do everything at this point in my life. I feel so blessed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n And in Cannes, Stevens might not be anywhere near the top billing for Asteroid City <\/em>(and how the organizers arrange the film\u2019s red carpet photos and seating is anyone\u2019s guess). But it doesn\u2019t matter at all. His wife, the South African filmmaker Alexis Bloom, is also at the festival with her documentary Anita<\/em>, screening in Cannes Classics (the day before Asteroid City<\/em>, on May 22) and exploring the story of Rolling Stones\u2019 muse and \u201960s \u201cIt\u201d girl Anita Pallenburg. Then there\u2019s DiCaprio, whose movie Stevens says he hopes to watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n No doubt more friendships will be made in Cannes, ones that will possibly lead to future filmmaking opportunities or simply small parts in exciting projects that take him on more overseas adventures. <\/p>\n

\n As Steven says: \u201cSometimes you just want to be part of something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n