Jeff Goldbum Says His 'Grand Budapest Hotel' Character A Cross Between Sigmund Freud & Jack Benny

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by Joe Cunningham
December 12, 2012 11:02 AM
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We really don’t get to see enough of Jeff Goldblum any more. The actor’s last three big-screen appearances were in small roles, in “Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie,” “Morning Glory” and “The Switch,” and that’s just not enough to help sate our Goldblum cravings. That’s why we’re looking forward as much as we are to seeing Goldblum let loose in Wes Anderson’s next movie, “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” He’ll line up alongside regular Anderson collaborators Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson, as well as some Anderson newbs in Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes and Saorise Ronan.

Well Goldblum has been talking to The Huffington Post about his current and upcoming work, and that interview has shed some light on the role he’s set to take in the film. Here’s what he had to say: "This Wes Anderson world I'm currently in is very dreamlike -- wait until you see the set for 'The Grand Budapest Hotel.' They're transforming this old department store in the old German city of Gorlitz into a grand hotel -- it's very dreamy and fantastical. I'm being fitted up with an outfit that's a little bit like Sigmund Freud and Jack Benny in 'To Be Or Not To Be' -- it's beyond real.”

It’s not the first time that Ernst Lubitsch’s “To Be Or Not To Be” has been mentioned in relation to the film, with Anderson recently saying that he would be drawing on the work of Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. It sounds increasingly like Anderson is gearing up to do something ambitious and sophisticated, and perhaps continuing to tiptoe away from his trademark whimsy.

As for Goldblum, he also mentioned during the course of the interview that when choosing his work his first priority was to work with excited, talented and committed people. To that end he specifically mentioned Martin Scorsese and the Coen Brothers, and we implore somebody to make sure this happens as soon as humanly possible.

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