Whatever happened to the Hollywood brat? Once upon a time we could rely on a Drew Barrymore or a Sheen brother to turn up and sully the great family name. These days such shameful shenanigans are the preserve of the Lohans-Come-Lately and certain blonde heiresses. The children of the great LA dynasties, meanwhile, are off toiling on their aid work or art.
Take the Coppola clan. Having grown up among the swinging hipsters that surrounded Uncle Francis during The Godfather and Apocalypse Now years, you’d expect them to sit around swapping helicopter keys with children of equal Tinseltown pedigree. Instead, they all work their socks off. Sofia Coppola is the award winning writer and director behind Lost In Translation and Marie Antoinette. Roman Coppola is a music video director known for his work with The Strokes and Daft Punk.
Their cousins are equally industrious. Robert Carmine is the lead singer of the rock band Rooney and star of The Princess Diaries and The Virgin Suicides (for cousin Sofia). And then we have Jason Schwartzman, his brother, who first came to our notice in Rushmore (1998) at 18 and was immediately hailed as the biggest thing to hit town since, well, the rest of the Coppolas.
“Rushmore got such a positive response,” Jason recalls. “It was actually a bit frightening because you just think whatever I do next will be wrong. Suddenly you have something to mess up.”
Nobody, however, gets away from the Family. By 2001, cousin Roman had lured Jason back into movies for a lead role in CQ, Roman’s retro sc-fi fantasy debut. Since then, Jason has also taken orders from Sofia for his role as King Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette. It is something of a tradition with his kin. His mother, Talia Shire, played Connie in The Godfather Trilogy. His cousin Nicolas Cage took early jobs on Rumble Fish and The Cotton Club.
“We’re a really close, tight family,” says Jason. “There are people who get defensive about working with their family and friends but that probably says more about them. I have the greatest brothers and cousins and mom in the world. We grew up together so there’s a shared sensibility and a shorthand. And most of all, my family always want to make it work. So that can only help.”
Beyond the blood ties, we find an extended Schwartzman network including Wes Anderson, David O. Russell and old friend Claire Danes.
“I’m interested in doing everything,” says Jason. “But I guess I’m drawn to a certain indie schmindie aesthetic. The fun thing for me is that me and Wes and Sofia and all those people all know each other so it’s like a community of filmmakers who make these hand made films.”
The community is out in force for The Darjeeling Limited. The acclaimed comedy drama is the fifth film by director Wes Anderson who wrote the screenplay with Roman Coppola and Jason. Mr. Schwartzman also stars as one of three brothers (Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody complete the triumvirate) attempting a spiritual pilgrimage around India where they may or may not find their mother.
“When we started writing, we just had three brothers,” explains Jason. “Wes had written the opening scene and he had a line that said that one brother, asleep on his luggage hears the words ‘Wake up Jack’. That was it. That was all we had. But there’s a lot of trust between us. You can only go deep sea diving with someone you really know. And we knew that Wes wanted to do something different. His movies are a continuation of themes he has been investigating. And I have always liked that continuity. I’m really into concept albums so it makes sense to me.”
In order to create an Indian odyssey, the three writers decided to do the sensible thing and make a similar voyage first.
“We wrote it while we travelled,” Jason tells me. “We went to India together. We had the idea that we needed to make the movie as personal as we possibly could. So every time the question was asked, “What happens next?” we could answer with “this happened to me” or “this happened to him” and come up with something that had details from our own experience. It was the kind of story we wanted to tell. And it was worth the trip. I’ve never been so far away from my home for so long. We’re a small, tight little bundle but we’re strangers in a strange land. It was genuinely life changing for me and life changing for all of us together as a group, as friends.”
It’s hard to picture the alternative. Polite, helpful and chatty as hell, Jason Schwartzman is the very definition of Well Brought Up. You can immediately see his virtues as a travelling companion. He works hard. He writes music every day. As the driving force behind Phantom Planet, he penned ‘California’, the hit theme song from The O.C. He’s equally canny about his acting career, preferring hipper, smaller films like I Heart Huckabees and Shopgirl.
“It’s idealistic but I like to wait for good scripts,” he says. “It’s cocky in a way because so many hands get to touch the wheel but I want to be proud of what I do. I’m lucky. I’m not one of these people who need to do movies to give them an identity or something. I don’t need to make a lot of money. I do just fine. I don’t live a flashy lifestyle and I don’t have expenses. I don’t even have a house.”
We’re walking out from the suite at Claridges when suddenly he finds himself accosted by a gaggle of eager ladies. As they trip over one another to tell him how much they love him, love his work, love The Darjeeling Limited, he smiles and greets them individually as though they were the most important people in the world. And in that brief moment of bubbly hysteria you suddenly recall that he is Hollywood royalty after all.