Julien Cadazio (Adrien Brody)
Anderson weirdly seems to be the only major director casting Brody these days, which is disconcerting because the actor has that twiddly-mustache villain role locked all the way down. In Dispatch, Brody appears to be playing the exact same character from his last Anderson collaboration,The Grand Budapest Hotel. Here, he’s playing a shady art dealer (sans facial hair) who wants to buy a nude painting from Moses. If there’s one lesser-acknowledged staple of Anderson’s filmography: it’s nude portraits.
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Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet)
I think it was inscribed in sacred text that Chalamet was destined to be in a Wes Anderson movie. That hair! His somehow tolerable mustache! In The French Dispatch, he’s an older Tracy Walker with an even sharper political edge, playing a student activist who disrupts the French political system. As teased by the stunning poster, you can see him do his best Margot Tenenbaum impression as he smokes a cigarette in a bathtub—it’s the most French he’s ever looked.
Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson)
Just beating out Zeffirelli for the Most Ridiculous Name Prize, Herbsaint is a bicycle-riding journalist at the magazine who brings Wilson’s classic drawl to the streets of Ennui-Sur-Blasé. Wilson looks like he raided Anderson’s closet for his costume—all he needs is a yellow scarf and he’s ready for this year’s Halloween party.
That shade of yellow
Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray)
As arguably Anderson’s most trusted collaborator, Murray has appeared in all of the director’s films except his first, Bottle Rocket, and the actor continues the reliable trend of gentle characters in admired positions: a neurologist (The Royal Tenenbaums), an oceanographer (The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou) or even a concierge (The Grand Budapest Hotel). Murray’s editor-in-chief in The French Dispatch is on the tougher side, much like his stern father figure role in Moonrise Kingdom, but it’s emblematic of the extra touches Anderson is adding to his signature style. Plus, it’s just not a Wes Anderson movie without Bill Murray.
