Wes Anderson has issued a statement regarding his first Oscar win.
On March 10, 2023, the Anderson-directed short film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. While a number of Anderson’s films have been nominated for various awards in the past, the win marks the first time that the director has received an Oscar.
Anderson wasn’t able to attend the ceremony on Sunday night because, as revealed in a statement shared by Netflix’s X account, he’s now filming his next movie.
“If I could have been there, I (along with Steven Rales) would have said ‘Thank you’ to: the family of Roald Dahl, the team at Netflix, Benedict and Ralph and Ben Kingsley and Dev and Richard and Bob and Adam and Jeremy and John and Jim and Rich and Jim and Polly and more.
“And also I would have said: if I had not met Owen Wilson in a corridor at the University of Texas between classes when I was 18 years old, I would certainly not be receiving this award tonight — but unfortunately Steven and I are in Germany and we start shooting our new movie early tomorrow morning, so I did not actually receive the award or get a chance to say any of that.”
What do we know about Wes Anderson’s new movie?
Little is known about Anderson’s new movie at the moment; although, it’s known that it will star Benicio Del Toro (who has worked with Anderson on 2021’s The French Dispatch), Michael Cera, and Bill Murray. Murray has starred in a number of Anderson’s past films, including The French Dispatch, 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums, 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and more.
Based on the 1977 short story by Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar — along with three other Anderson shorts based on Dahl’s work: The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison — is currently streaming on Netflix.
