Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is the 11th film by the inimitable writer/director. The story is set in a fictional American desert town in 1955, although there are layers to the story that make it one of Anderson’s biggest swings yet. With a cast of new and recurring collaborators, Anderson has once again delivered the same dry wit and signature aesthetic that has made him into something of a pop culture phenomenon.
An exciting new face—to the world of Wes Anderson, at least—is Hope Davis, who is well-known for her work in Succession as Sandi Furness. As she did in Succession, Davis makes quite an impression in Asteroid City, especially thanks to an unforgettable exchange that her character Sandy Borden has with Scarlett Johansson’s fictional actress Midge Campbell. When discussing one of Campbell’s films, Borden casually states “I don’t know why nobody else liked it.” In a recent interview with Screen Rant, Davis touched on how true that kind of line really is, and relayed a hilarious story regarding how that line relates to her time on Succession. Here’s what she had to say:
Hope Davis: That happens to me every single day. Because of the kind of weird span of my career, people will come up to me every single day and they’ll say, “How do I know you?” Sometimes I’ll say, “I don’t know,” or sometimes I’ll say, “I’m an actor,” and sometimes they say, “No, that’s not it.” But if they say, “What have I seen you in?”… This happened to me the other night with a group of parents. They said, “What have you been in recently?” and I said, “I work a little on Succession.” She said, “I hate that show. I can’t be with those people.”
Hope Davis’ Succession Experience Points To The Downside Of Parasocial Interaction
The most surprising aspect of Davis’ story may be that she wasn’t instead asked for Succession series finale spoilers, but the overall interaction points to the strangeness of parasocial interaction in general. The phenomenon is essentially that audience members may feel unnaturally comfortable in the presence of someone they feel as if they know, simply because they’ve spent time with that person through their work on a film or show. Both Davis and her Asteroid City co-star Stephen Park discussed the often bizarre ways parasocial relationships have played into their lives:
Hope Davis: I mean, every actor has experienced that. It’s like, what do people think they’re doing when they say that to you? Why do they do that?
Stephen Park: I think people, when they meet an actor, kind of imagine that they’re still on the TV set. [They imagine] that they’re not really fully there, so they can say insulting things, [and] it’s not going to hurt them or something.
Hope Davis: They say, “Oh, you’re prettier in person,” or “You look so much older on TV.” You never know what you’re going to get. So generally now when someone approaches me and they say, “How do I know you?” I say I have no idea.
Davis clearly had plenty to pull from in the delivery of her standout Asteroid City line. It’s one of the funniest in the whole film, though Davis shines in every scene in which she appears. Perhaps ironically, Davis’ presence in Asteroid City will likely lead to even more strange interactions in the actress’ future, though they will doubtfully include the phrase “I don’t know why nobody else liked it.”
