WES ANDERSON SHOOTS ON A TRAIN

Wes Anderson fulfilled his fantasy of shooting an entire film on a train passing through India.

The inspiration for The Darjeeling Limited came from writer director Wes Anderson’s desire to make a film that involved a train, a sojourn to India and three brothers. Wes who prefers rail travel to air collaborated with Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, playing one of the three brothers rounded out by Owen Wilson, and Adrien Brody on a spiritual quest to find their mother in India.

Shooting on an actual train meant extremely tight quarters so the set had removable walls and compartments with special rigging to shake the train when it wasn’t actually moving.

“The first test run on it was meant to be 20 minutes to 45 minutes, we weren’t sure how much and it ended up being seven hours. And we went on the train at 7 o’clock at night just as a little quick ride before dinner so everybody could see what it was like and we got stuck and we didn’t go far. We ended up actually abandoning the train at a station and getting cars to pick us up.”

Getting permission to shoot on the Indian railways was tied up in a lot of bureaucracy for Wes but persistence finally paid off.

“We went on this train that takes you around Rajasthan, a tourist train. This train is partly inspired by that train. And in fact we hired some of the guys who worked on that train; we borrowed them from the railroad, Palace on Wheels. We borrowed them Palace on Wheels and hired them away for a short period of time so they could help us and sort of teach our cast how things are done.”

The Darjeeling Limited opens in limited theaters Friday, October 5th