Jason Schwartzman had absolutely no problem taking direction from his cousin writer/director/producer Sofia Coppola on the set of Marie Antoinette. The two get along well and because they've grown up together, Coppola could say things such as, "It’s like when you were 5 and you were here...” and Schwartzman would immediately understand the tone of the scene. Schwartzman says it's probably unfair for him to compare her to other directors he's worked with, but admits it was wonderful to work for someone who could so easily relate ideas to him in such a personal way.
The Advantages of Working in Versailles: “They were very welcoming to us and very gracious with their home, basically. I even tried when I went there, I had a goal to go there so many times that I could myself give a guided tour of Versailles. I feel like I got to that point. Like I wanted to be really familiar with it and call it my home, and I felt pretty comfortable there. But I didn’t like sit on the chair, you know what I mean? You don’t just sit on the chairs and stuff. There is a protocol. It is a museum, and you have to work there and inhabit that space with respect for history and everything.
It was a magical place to be. I would look out a window between takes and I could think, ‘Wow, maybe Louis looked out this window.’ You touch a curtain and your mind begins to play around with stuff like that.”
Getting Physically Prepared to Play King Louis XVI: Schwartzman had to pack on the weight to play Louis XVI. “I gained 45 pounds. Sofia had mentioned to me, ‘You know, you should gain some weight,’ and at first I asked her if there was any chance of doing it with prosthetics or pillows or anything like that because they say it’s not healthy to put on weight really quickly for work. What I’ve read for other actors doing it, it was hard on them. But she said, ‘No because your face has to look a certain way.’ She said that they’d get me a doctor to supervise the weight gain because I was going to be gaining 45 pounds in like 6 weeks or 5 weeks or something, but no one ever called me with the doctor’s number.
I remember looking on my calendar thinking, ‘I’m expected to be much heavier in a very short amount of time,’ so I just embarked on a solo one man weight-gaining mission around the holidays. I gained the weight basically just eating everything I could, but I did it all organically. …I would do little tricks like put doughnuts next to my bed and set my alarm for 3 in the morning. I’d wake up and power them down and wipe the jelly off my check and go back to bed, because they say it’s not good to eat in the middle of the night because your body’s resting and not doing anything and you don’t burn any calories. I just stopped all physical activity and I drank beer – organic beer – and just watched DVDs and prepared.”
Jason Schwartzman Also Had to Learn to Ride a Horse: “I had never ridden a horse except one time in Bronson Canyon. That’s not really riding. It’s like fake riding – making people feel like they’re riding. I moved to Paris two months early to learn how to ride and I rode every day. I had a great teacher and I got to choose my horse. I basically just tried to be as an alright a rider as I could in such a short amount of time, and I came to love it. I came to love it and [went] riding in the forest and stuff, so it was a great experience for me. I wouldn’t know how to really ride a horse probably if it wasn’t super-trained and it wasn’t a very responsive horse as they say, but I loved it and I miss the horse. I think of him all the time.”
The Relationship Between Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette: No one can swear they know the truth behind why it took Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette years before their marriage was actually consummated. “The way that we were portraying it in the film,” explains Schwartzman, “and it’s not about connection or attraction, but just that there’s a debate about why they couldn’t consummate their marriage for seven years. The point of view of this film, which is supporting the Antonia Fraser opinion, is that simply he was a shy person and uncomfortable and awkward in his own skin. They were both very young and thrown into bed, literally, basically in front of the entire nation to have to try to produce a male heir, and with people literally watching in the room. And just that it wasn’t a conducive atmosphere to connection as you’d say. That, plus I think that he was an awkward man in the beginning."
Page 2: The Costumes, the Music, and the Bedroom Scenes
