‘Isle of Dogs’ Co-Writer Roman Coppola on Becoming Wes Anderson’s Collaborative Secret Weapon

While writer-director Wes Anderson deserves the credit for his chain of impressive features — and his latest, the stop-motion “Isle of Dogs,” marks one of his most vividly charming — he has long relied on a man whom Anderson calls his “Swiss Army knife”: screenwriter Roman Coppola.Anderson and Coppola’s collaboration led to their Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for “Moonrise Kingdom,” but Coppola’s contributions are often lower key; Anderson said he often relies on Roman to keep him on track.“Roman and I have worked together for many years on an awful lot of movies,” wrote Anderson in an email, “first on ‘The Life Aquatic,’ where he shot numerous strange and complicated shots.

Then ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ which we wrote with Jason [Schwartzman].

Then on ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ Roman helped me sort of find a story that I had somehow completely lost track of — and we then dreamed up the whole rest of the movie together.

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