The creators of Accidentally Wes Anderson had no idea what was coming when they launched their Instagram page. Wally and Amanda Koval started the account in 2017 to celebrate visually-appealing buildings and landscapes around the world that looked as if they could have inspired Wes Anderson films.
From tiny libraries in New Zealand to, of course, lighthouses in Canada, the Instagram page, with 1.8 million followers, and its accompanying website curate colorful, symmetrical and historic tableaux that might have sprung directly from a scene in The Grand Budapest Hotel or The French Dispatch except theyre submitted by photographers from around the world.
A wildly successful book expanding on the Instagram content followed in 2020, which has since been published in several languages. Now, the Accidentally Wes Anderson world includes a website with suggested travel itineraries, an online shop stocked with well-curated AWA swag, a newsletter and exhibitions in Seoul and Tokyo.
But six years ago, the Kovals had no idea an entire meme kingdom would pop up on TikTok and YouTube borrowing the filmmakers distinctive aesthetic for both whimsical Tiktoks about the creators quotidian pursuits as well as using AI to fuse the Anderson look onto major properties like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
Wally Koval says he isnt quite sure what to make of TikToks #WesAndersonTrend, but he tells Variety he hopes people wont reduce the filmmaker to just his aesthetic, instead of considering the entirety of his work.
A big fan of Andersons latest, Asteroid City, Koval is excited hes been able to help showcase so many photographers and artists, most of whom arent professionals and make AWA into a full-time pursuit for both his wife and himself, who had both been laid off during the pandemic.
How did the Instagram get started?
I never really asked anybody to send us photos in the beginning, they kind of just did. Most of it was sourced from photographers and other Instagram accounts. It was me curating my own places that I wanted to go and visit and tagging photographers.
Were you and Amanda professional photographers?
No, I was working in events and marketing and Amanda was working in corporate catering. We did not have a background in photography. We were not writers.
How big of a Wes Anderson fan are you?
I am a fan of this work, probably not the most intense fan. I know that there are many others out there that know so much more about his movies and can probably talk in a much more intelligent way about things like cinematography. I just look at it and I go, I really like that, that made me feel some type of way, or I enjoyed it.
Whats your relationship with Wes Anderson been like?
He has been incredibly supportive and so incredibly kind to us. In the beginning, I was a stranger. I wrote him a letter and said we have this project, I think it would make a good book. He basically came back and said, OK, you can make the book, but Ill have final sign off. We worked with 180 photographers from 60 different countries while we worked our full-time jobs. It was really something else when I opened that email and not only was he happy with what we had created, but he also penned the foreword for us. Its the most perfectly Wes Anderson intro to the book that we could have asked for.
A spread of Texas photos from Accidentally Wes Anderson What are your favorite Anderson movies?
My rotating cast of top three to five films might change on a six to eight month basis, like it rotates with the seasons maybe. Right nowdefinitely Life Aquatic. I would go back to to Rushmore and honestly, this has nothing to do with all the press and everything, but Ive seen Asteroid City now twice and its kind of crazy how many layers are involved in the film.
What was it like being invited to the Asteroid City premiere?
Its wild. These are amazing events that that we can go to. But honestly, sitting in my tiny two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn where Ive been for 15 years and looking at a stack of eight Accidentally Wes Anderson books, each in a different language, that is absolutely insane to me. I never thought Id have my name on a book, I went to school for food marketing! Its mind-blowing in the weirdest sense.
Whats your favorite place for seeing cool things to photograph?
Its a toss up between so many places, but Im going to go with Tokyo.
How do you feel about all the TikToks and videos using the Wes Anderson aesthetic?
Theres thousands of them now, some better than others, of course. Whether its riding the Long Island Railroad or going to lunch with my family my favorites are the ones that take the mundane tasks and turn it into something more interesting. So if its someone taking a creative look at a mundane task and having fun with it and and bringing a smile to themselves and maybe to others around them, Im all for that. Who wouldnt want to live in a Wes Anderson film? If it puts a smile on your face and its doing something creative, then why not?
What about the AI videos that take popular films like Star Wars and make them into Wes Anderson-style films?
There are certain elements of the Wes Anderson aesthetic that are more high profile, for instance, the color palette, the symmetry, etc. The AI examples that have popped up, they seem to really just focus on that. But I feel like theres so much more to it. After watching The French Dispatch or Asteroid City or even watching Rushmore for the 100th time, theres so many layers.
My hope is that through those things it might inspire them to look a little deeper, to watch them, and maybe dig further to find out more versus just, Oh, I get it, Wes Anderson is about color and symmetry. Theres so much more depth to the characters, to the plot, to the storyline.
So you dont feel responsible for the meme-ification of Wes Anderson?
No, I had nothing to do with it. Our community has nothing to do with what those trends are about. Someone came up to me and said, How did you get this to happen? as if I had a hand in some major ploy to start this trend.
Why do you think Accidentally Wes Anderson resonated with so many people?
There was something very interesting that Wes said to us when we were picking the cover. What he wrote was, What I like about what you do is that its not so much like what I do. I find that theres a lot of meaning in that, because Im not replicating The Grand Budapest Hotel. Im not aiming to replicate what he has done, but rather take this perspective and aesthetic and look out from the perfect world which he creates. Everything in a Wes Anderson picture has meaning and is put there with purpose. And then you turn that lens to the real world, which is imperfect and not symmetrical, and not always very bright. But if you can look at it through that lens just slightly, I think that theres a lot of beauty in that imperfection and a lot that can be taken away from that.
How are you able to help the photographers who contribute get recognition?
Were basically selling their work on their behalf and that has been really cool. A lot of those prints were taken with an iPhone. The fact that weve been able to curate this group of individuals maybe they dont know how to use a DSLR, but that doesnt take away from the fact that they saw beauty and were able to capture it. We send them a check and theyre like, This is insane. They never thought that they would be making money from their photography because theyre not a professional photographer in that sense.
Like the photographer who took that photo thats on the front of of the book, he was 18 or 19. When we chose his photo of the Hotel Belvedere, he didnt know that it had made the cover, he was in the Swiss Army reserves. His local paper did an article on him and he was recognized around town.
Accidentally Wes Anderson puzzle Whats up next for Accidentally Wes Anderson?
We have a puzzle that Wes Anderson has signed off on thats going to be coming out in October, thats made up of some interesting photos.
What would you like people to take away from AWA?
Inspiring photographers and creators and travelers and people who appreciate interesting stories and architecture to take their own adventures and look at their own hometowns and their own excursions through a slightly different lens.
Like, people say Ive always wanted to go to New York and I would say You dont have to live anywhere special. You can literally be in a small village If you go to your Main Street, there is a library, theres a courthouse, theres a post office. Theres something there that has an interesting history. Theres an endless number of stories and an endless number of angles with which you could look at a building or a structure, a person or a community to uncover something new.