In a 2023 interview with Deadline, Wes Anderson spoke about how Ralph Fiennes got into the character of Roald Dahl: "In our house, we have a recording of Dahl reading Fantastic Mr. Fox. He did record himself doing quite a few of [his books]. There's also a reasonable amount of documentary stuff about Dahl. In fact, when we started filming Henry Sugar, Ralph was on set, in the little space that's a recreation of Dahl's workspace, and I could hear him talking to himself. I said, 'Tell me what you're saying.' It turned out that he'd been observing Dahl from the archival stuff I'd sent him, and he knew Dahl's little rituals. He was acting them out on his own, just in preparation. And I was like, 'Start over, start over! We'll film this!' And so, the movie begins with Ralph completely improvising. Every take was a bit different, because it's Ralph just sort of channeling Dahl getting ready to write. Ralph is so interesting and authentic."
One of four Netflix shorts directed by Wes Anderson and based on stories by Roald Dahl, all released over four days in the same week: September 27-30, 2023.
- Part 1, this film - September 27
- Part 2, Le cygne (2023) - September 28
- Part 3, Le Preneur de Rats (2023) - September 29
- Part 4, Venin (2023) - September 30
Wes Anderson received an Oscar nomination for Best Live Action Short for this film, making him the 15th person to receive Oscar nominations in five different categories, having previously been nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Animated Feature. The first 14 are Dore Schary, Billy Wilder, John Huston, Walt Disney, Stanley Kubrick, Warren Beatty, the Coen brothers, George Clooney, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Alfonso Cuarón, George Miller, Spike Lee, and Bradley Cooper. Of these 15, 3 were nominated in more than five categories: Alfonso Cuarón (7), Kenneth Branagh (7), and George Clooney (6).
At £50,000 a night, or £18.25 million a year, it would take just over 35 years to acrue £644 million.