Matthew Gray Gubler: Wes Anderson's hapless intern gives gophering another go in the director's highly anticipated new film

Interview, Dec, 2004 by Sarah Cristobal

"I had to get a perm," explains actor Matthew Gray Gubler of his surreptitious jump from being an intern in director Wes Anderson's New York City production office to playing one in the dowdy filmmaker's new movie, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. "I went from getting mango chutney for these guys to all of a sudden having production assistants and cars," says the 24-year-old Las Vegas native--a New York University film school grad, model, and self-proclaimed children's magician--of his transition to onscreen gopher. "I was just sitting around, relaxing with this perm. It was the ugliest perm in the history of cinema. They said it would be a cool perm, and I was like, 'Are you mad? Perms aren't cool.'"

Yet, Gubler's hair-raising antics in Anderson's office are rumored to be what earned him the spot in The Life Aquatic alongside a roster of bigwigs like Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Anjelica Huston, Jeff Goldblum, and Owen Wilson. "I was maybe the worst intern in history," admits Gubler, recounting sordid tales of attempting to deliver a rather large painting--a gift from Murray to Anderson--after stopping off for a drink, or unsuccessfully shopping for couscous when "I don't even know what couscous is."

To Gubler's credit, whatever he's not doing seems to be working. Since completing The Life Aquatic, he has wrapped production on his own film, a "fairy tale-macabre western-horror movie" called The Cactus That Looked Just Like a Man, and acquired an acting agent. "The toughest acting I've ever done was on those terrible runway catwalks," says Gubler, who was once bestowed the coveted title of No. 46 on the all-time best-male-model list. "These days I can't even walk into cafeterias without feeling self-conscious."

Sarah Cristobal is a New York City-based writer.