7 Quirky Behind The Scenes Facts About The Grand Budapest Hotel

All of Wes Anderson’s movies have been well-received by critics, but one that received particular attention from critics, moviegoers, and even Academy voters is The Grand Budapest Hotel, his sprawling tale of a hotel through the Harvey Keitel Slapped Tony Revolori In The Face 42 Times: There’s a scene in The Grand Budapest Hotel in which Ludwig, played by Harvey Keitel, says, “Good luck, kid!” before slapping Tony Revolori’s character Zero across the face. There were no stunt doubles or Hollywood fakery involved in this scene; Keitel really slapped Revolori. Wes Anderson shot 42 takes of this scene before getting one that he was happy with.

On-Screen Newspaper Headlines Secretly Spoil The Movie: All throughout The Grand Budapest Hotel, whenever a character is reading a newspaper and the headlines are visible on-screen, they adhere to the events of the film. In most movies, when a newspaper headline is shown, the content of the articles will have nothing to do with the plot of the film. But Wes Anderson personally wrote every newspaper headline featured in The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The cast and crew all stayed in the same hotel: While filming The Grand Budapest Hotel, the cast and crew all stayed at the same hotel: the Hotel Börse in Görlitz, Germany, where a lot of the movie was filmed. Wes Anderson insisted that all of the wardrobe fittings and makeup application be done in the hotel lobby, too. The owner of the Hotel Börse appears in the final film as an extra, working on the Grand Budapest Hotel’s front desk.

It Took Five Hours To Apply Tilda Swinton’s Old Lady Makeup: Tilda Swinton played an 84-year-old socialite named Madame D. in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes Anderson said that, while his movies are usually shot for modest budgets and he doesn’t have a ton of money to splash out on extravagant services, he decided to get the makeup artists that could command the highest fee when it came to Swinton’s Madame D.

ages. With its unconventional narrative structure, perfectly symmetrical cinematic composition, and performances that walk the line between hilarious and poignant.

The Grand Budapest Hotel Was Shot In Three Different Aspect Ratios: Wes Anderson decided to shoot The Grand Budapest Hotel in three different aspect ratios – 1.37:1, 1.85:1, and 2.35:1 – in order to help the audience to differentiate between the three historical periods in which the film is set (the 1980s, the 1960s, and the 1930s).

Zero Was The Toughest Role To Cast: Casting director Douglas Aibel managed to get a ton of famous faces for the major roles in The Grand Budapest Hotel, but the role that proved the toughest to cast was Zero. Aibel was looking for “a relatively unknown teenage boy, preferably of Arabic origin, to carry the role.” Tony Revolori eventually won the role when he sent in an audition tape that wowed producers.

Stefan Zweig Inspired The Whole Thing: According to Wes Anderson, the biggest influence on The Grand Budapest Hotel was the work of writer Stefan Zweig:

“I just, more or less by chance, bought a copy of Beware of Pity. I loved this first book, and immediately there were dozens more in front of me...They were all suddenly back in print. I also read The Post Office Girl...The Grand Budapest Hotel has elements that were sort of stolen from both these books.”