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Wes Anderson, the celebrated filmmaker from Houston, is now decorated with an Academy Award.
Anderson, a 54-year-old graduate of Houston's St. John's School and the University of Texas at Austin, was awarded his first individual Oscar on Sunday night. He won in the Best Live Action Short Film category for "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," one of a series of Roald Dahl short-story adaptations that Anderson wrote and directed for Netflix.
Anderson was not at the awards ceremony in Los Angeles to accept his long-awaited bronze-and-gold-plated statue – he had previously been nominated for seven other Oscars without winning – as he and frequent producer Steven Rales were in Germany to start shooting a new movie Monday morning, according to a statement Anderson's publicist provided to Houston Public Media.
"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; our cast and crew; and also: 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," Anderson said.
Wilson, a Dallas-born actor, has frequently collaborated with Anderson and appeared in three of the films for which Anderson has been nominated for Academy Awards – "The Royal Tenenbaums" in 2001, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" in 2009 and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" in 2014. The latter movie won four Oscars and garnered Anderson individual nominations for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
"The Royal Tenenbaums" netted Anderson his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Original Screenplay category, while the 2012 film "Moonrise Kingdom" was nominated for the same award. "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Isle of Dogs," released in 2018, both were nominated for Best Animated Picture.
Anderson did not receive Oscar nominations for one of his first and most well-known films, "Rushmore," the quirky, coming-of-age comedy starring Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman that was filmed in the Houston area and released in 1998. Also going without any nominations was Anderson's most recent feature-length film, "Asteroid City," a 2023 release that is set in a fictional American desert town in the 1950s and features a star-studded cast including Steve Carrell, Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie.
"The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley, among others, and is about a wealthy man who learns to see without using his eyes and parlays that ability into winning money at casinos that he donates to charity. The other nominees in the Best Live Action Short Film category were "The After," "Knight of Fortune," "Invincible" and "Red, White and Blue."