Jason Schwartzman Talks with Robert Schwartzman (Dreamland) for The Talkhouse Film Podcast

The two multitalented brothers sit down for a conversation about music, movies and much more as Robert releases his first film as a writer-director.

By Jason Schwartzman, Robert Schwartzman, and Talkhouse Podcast

6:00 AM EST on December 1, 2016

For the first time ever on the Talkhouse Film podcast, we have two brothers in conversation as Jason Schwartzman chats with his brother Robert Schwartzman (best known as the frontman of indie band Rooney), whose first film as a writer-director, Dreamland, is out now. In between bouts of fraternal bickering, the two talk about making the jump from music to movies, working with actors,MIDI files and player pianos (cue a serious geek-out from Jason), how Gene Wilder found his way into playing Willy Wonka, crazy real-life experiences with agents and A&R guys, Robert's aptitude with money (at least in comparison to Jason), and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at thetalkhouse.com/film.

The music featured in the podcast is as follows:
1. Intro / outro underscore: “Plastic Man vs. The Giant Red Phase Of The Sun” – Iced Ink

Episode engineered by Susan Valot and edited by Mark Yoshizumi. The Talkhouse podcast producer is Elia Einhorn.

Jason Schwartzman

Jason Schwartzman made his film debut in Wes Anderson's 1998 Rushmore and has since collaborated with Anderson on The Darjeeling Limited (which the pair wrote with Roman Coppola), the short film Hotel Chevalier, his animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom and, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Schwartzman recently starred in Alex Ross Perry's Listen Up Philip and Tim Burton's Big Eyes, and his other movie credits include Judd Apatow’s Funny People, Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees. He currently serves as a co-creator/executive producer and writer of the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle and makes music under the name Coconut Records.

Robert Schwartzman

Robert Schwartzman is a filmmaker and accomplished musician. He formed the band Rooney in 1999 and signed with Interscope/Geffen records in 2002. He studied film at the Oxford Media School and has acted in multiple films, including The Princess Diaries and The Virgin Suicides. He made his directorial debut in 2016 with the drama Dreamland, which he also produced, co-wrote and scored, and followed it up with the comedies The Unicorn (2018), starring Lauren Lapkus and Nicholas Rutherford, and The Argument (2020), starring Maggie Q and Danny Pudi. He has two new films that have premiered in 2023: Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary, about the seminal English rock band, and The Good Half, a comedy drama starring Nick Jonas, Brittany Snow, David Arquette.

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