'Rushmore' star Schwartzman speaks about lm

Jason Schwartzman is living the life these days: appearing on Letterman, tooling around in limos and cushy buses, eating a grilled chicken sandwich, minus bun, with carrots on the side. It might be exhausting waking up at 6 a.m. in an unfamiliar city after driving all night sleeping in a "coffin bunk," doing interview after interview all day long, but he knows it comes with the territory. When the sun sets, he still sings out loud as he walks down the street.

Schwartzman was in town yesterday to promote his new film "Rushmore" and spent a few moments with The Michigan Daily.

Right about now you're probably asking yourself, who is Jason Schwartzman? Alternate on the wrestling team? Founder of the backgammon club? The next big thing that the Hollywood hype machine has to offer us mindless little consumers, perhaps? Nah. H

Courtesy of Buena Vista Jonathan Schwartzman looks bemused in "Rushmore."

e's a regular guy, a kid, really, who just happens to be about to become not a big thing, but a big star thanks to his role as the inscrutably charming prep schooler Max Fischer in "Rushmore," a smart new film about men, women and war from Wes Anderson ("Bottle Rocket"). He looks like he could be sitting next to you in your biology class. He's in a band called Phantom Planet (they have one record out that he urges you all to buy), and if he wasn't busy being an overnight movie sensation he'd be out touring with the band. He likes gum. And he's barely out of high school.

Schwartzman never really intended to become an actor, although he comes from a hallowed line of cinema bigwigs: his mom is Talia Shire, he calls Francis Ford Coppola uncle and Nicolas Cage is his cousin. Schwartzman, like his surname, stands alone as the man about to happen in his famous family. He doesn't mention his relatives much, but he doesn't have to - his own talent is apparent enough without bringing in his family.

The story of his casting is the stuff of fables: Anderson was at wit's end trying to find a suitable actor to play Max and was seriously considering scrapping the entire project until the casting director was introduced to Schwartzman at a dinner party - okay, if you want to get nitpicky, it was a family dinner party. The next day, he auditioned and won the role after almost 2,000 other actors failed to capture Max's enigmatic presence. It was luck of the draw. But still, Schwartzman says, "I wasn't really raised Hollywood, but I was raised in a creative environment. It never crossed my mind once to do a profession that wasn't creative."

Contrary to the confidence and experience he projects onscreen as Max, "Rushmore" is Schwartzman's first movie. And it certainly won't be his last. "I've definitely fallen in love with acting. It's hard, but I love to do it." He relishes discussing his character as if Max was a friend fallen by the wayside. It's no wonder why; Schwartzman brings a lot to the role with brilliantly funny line readings, shifting the next moment to touching indignation. "(Max is) very arrogant, you kind of hate him. So I tried to bring a lovable aspect to him, like you love him and you hate him. You want to kiss him after you slap him."

Max, for all of his brilliance, is still very much a child given to emotional outbursts. Schwartzman seems just the opposite: sure of himself and completely grounded, he exhibits none of the immaturity that his character possesses. "I wanted Max to be self-confident but not cocky," he says.

Working with more established actors like Bill Murray, Olivia Williams and even the much young Mason Gamble was "a treat" for Schwartzman. "Bill Murray was a teacher, someone to watch and learn from, a hero. Wes Anderson was like a brother, a collaborator. Olivia Williams was like a sister." He has a lot of affection for his onscreen relationship with Gamble in particular. "It's like Linus and Charlie Brown. (Dirk is) kind of like a conscience, like Jiminy Cricket."

"Rushmore" seems like the kind of movie that Schwartzman would put in his pantheon of favorite films if he hadn't actually starred in the thing. "I like movies about characters who are slightly off from everyone, who are a little crazy." He especially enjoys movies such as "Barbarella," "The Graduate" and "The King of Comedy." As for "Rushmore," Schwartzman calls it an "eloquent teenage movie that's funny as fuck." He's right.

Schwartzman is still deciding what to do next. When you get right down to it, he's as much of a renaissance man as his big screen alter ego. He's writing a novella "about this teen idol who runs away with a driver and they go up the California coast. It'd be like if David Cassidy ran away from all the fame and he meets tons of girls." He's interested in directing some day, having directed plays and short films when he was younger. Jokingly, he says, "I'm too egotistic to not (want to)." He plans to cut another record with Phantom Planet and is picking his next film project.

He's also attached, along with Bill Murray, to Anderson's upcoming movie, shooting this autumn. Schwartzman describes it as "a movie about a dysfunctional family of geniuses who live in New York. I'm one of the geniuses."

Indeed.

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