Acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson has revealed that musicals have become some of his favourite films, a shift he credits to his eight-year-old daughter, Freya.
The director, known for celebrated works like The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, said fatherhood has transformed the way he watches films.
"Your entire life is different once you have a child. You’re watching with different eyes with a kid," Anderson told a media organisation.
In his quest to find movies Freya would enjoy, Anderson began exploring genres he had previously overlooked.
"I started trying to find movies that she would like. She likes old movies. She’ll watch black-and-white films and all sorts of things, but she doesn’t like everything. With her, I’ve seen a lot of musicals I had never seen before,” he said.
“I never really got into musicals before. Now, some of my favourite films are musicals: Meet Me in St. Louis, for instance. I might have caught it on TV as a kid, but I never really focused on it. Or The Pajama Game, The King and ...there’s a whole range of musicals I discovered because of her. We’ve watched them again and again, and some of them are masterpieces,” the 56-year-old director added.
Anderson’s upcoming film The Phoenician Scheme is set to release in Indian theatres on June 6.
The star-studded cast includes Benicio del Toro, Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Mia Threapleton, Tom Hanks, Riz Ahmed, Michael Cera, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Bryan Cranston. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it competed in the main category.