Angelica Huston on The Life Aquatic

At the British Academy Awards, you described Wes Anderson as a genius. That clearly is one of the main reasons why you were happy to work with him but another, I suspect, is that you enjoyed the life on the ocean wave?
I do like the ocean wave. I was born under the sign of Cancer the crab, so I like coastal areas and sunny beaches and such. Although not the wide open and deep sea, which often Bill Murray and Wes found themselves upon in mid-January. But I love working with Wes because he's very intelligent and also I think his movies have, he's an author, and I really like his sensibility, and I think they're really smart. I think they're really beautiful and the whole package appeals to me.

And I'd imagine it's also very flattering when you know that a role has been written specifically with you in mind?
Yes, that is flattering. Particularly after the first time we worked, because people were talking on the set about Wes' next project, which was to be on the open seas which sounded delightful when you were in a small, cramped house in Harlem. So I had a kind of hankering to be wanted for that movie, but I didn't say anything, and then Bill Murray and I had a scene in the movie where we were trying to get into Gwyneth Paltrow's bathroom, and we kind of came up from the keyhole and Wes went, 'mmm, I have an idea'.

Bill Murray seems able to get a laugh even when doing very little. Did you get a chance to observe any kind of method behind his particular brand of comedy?
Well I think, yes, there's method in the man and working with Bill is a bit like being on a high diving board and not knowing quite how deep the water is that you're jumping into. So there are moments with Bill where your trailer door will fly open at 7am and he'll come in with an arm-load of flowers and start your coffee maker and you'll feel like he really truly loves you and then there'll be another day where he invites the entire cast and crew to dinner but not you! And you'll wonder if this has anything to do with, I don't know, halitosis. And so it's a little bit hard to negotiate sometimes that idea, because I think most actors like to be liked. But the thing about Bill I think is because his particular brand of intelligence requires a certain comeback, so sometimes when I felt myself getting a bit trepidatious around him, I think he can kind of run over you like a steamroller; I think he likes you to come back at him and I felt that on the days where I did kind of come back at him he kind of liked me better than the other days. But that was also hard, because those were generally the days when Steve and Eleanor were getting on, so I find him something of a man of mystery, but I find him also extremely charming and really smart.