Jason Schwartzman, who stars in the new movie Between the Temples in theaters now, has gone on the record with his love for the Strategist. When I spoke to him last week, he showed me the phone case he got after reading Amelia Meath’s “What I Can’t Live Without” and the Pilot Varsity fountain pen he now uses after seeing it in Otessa Moshfegh’s edition. Turns out Schwartzman is also very particular — and thoughtful — about his stuff, making him an ideal celebrity shopping subject himself. Like Amy Sedaris and Debi Mazar before him, he had a story for everything. We talked for nearly three hours over two days about dozens of his favorite things, including the word game that’s always in his pocket, a backpack that opens like a doctor’s bag, and the laminator he pushes to its limit.
When I work, I try not to bring my phone with me. That said, I can’t just concentrate on the one thing I’m doing. That’s not how my brain energy is best dispensed. I bought this version of Boggle that’s basically a one-person Boggle. In this Boggle, each page is a different assortment of letters, as if you had shaken the Boggle box. But because you have unlimited time, to make it more challenging you need a minimum of five letters per word. They tell you how many five-letter words are on each page.
I carry a notebook or index cards on a ring where I keep track of each puzzle. So it’ll be page 42 of the Boggle book, and it’s all the words I’ve gotten so far. I have had this book with me for four years now and I have completed not one of them. I’ve not found every single word they’re saying exists on that page. The answers are on the back, but I will not look. I always have it with me. On Asteroid City, actually, someone in the production office was kind enough to Xerox every page of it, then we blew it up, and I stapled them and gave every actor a packet of it to play between takes. There’s something fun about seeing someone point out a word that’s been right in front of your eyes the whole time. But I do think there are people who just have a knack for seeing things.
I remember one day, my cousin’s wife walked up to me, looked at it and said, “Oh, apartment.” I was like, “You’re kidding me.” I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy. It made me smile because it’s like a magic trick. It just appeared in front of you, but it was there. Boggle Sit & Solve is a pretty important thing to me. It fits in your pocket. And not to mention, I have tons of versions of Boggle. I’ve got one with an electronic self-timer that beeps, I have the world’s smallest Boggle on my key chain. I’m so fascinated. How did they create this game? How did they know what letters to put on what square? How did they do that? It is amazing. It’s probably one of the most important things in my life.
I’ve really come to love magnets. I don’t know if all houses are like this, but in our walls, we have these magnetic studs that are part of the structure of our home. Instead of a Post-it Note, I just magnetize things to my wall. If my child does a piece of art, I’ll put it on the wall with a magnet. It’s really fun because there’s something about not totally being able to choose where it goes. It has to go wherever it’s magnetized. So my son would be like, “I’m going to put this on my wall.” He’s walking around with the magnet running along the wall, waiting for it to just suck onto it. I like that it’s not permanent but it’s quite strong. You can get really strong magnets that could hold your clothes, your hat, whatever, and then just pop it right off. I love that. I also love taking two magnets and pushing them together when they want to repel each other and seeing how close they can get before they flip and suck onto each other. That force, that magnetic field, is incredible. I think it’s one of the most amazing things you can feel as a person, for some reason. I think it probably ultimately comes from having kids because magnets are so fun for magic tricks and come in so handy for games, too. I have tons of magnets. I’ll get all kinds. My son actually got into magnet fishing. This is not something I watch a lot, but he was into it and I was pretty blown away by it. People go with extremely powerful magnets to bridges, throw them over, and then go fishing for metal objects. They pull up crazy stuff, like guns, bicycles, lawnmowers. It is really interesting. It’s important to have magnets of all different strengths and sizes.
I love my laminator and would like to have more laminators. I don’t know if I’ve barely scratched the surface of laminating, but I really love my Blusmart laminator, which has a paper cutter attached to it. Both my son and I love it. We’ll just sit around, make up a fake book, print it, then laminate it. Or we’ll make a fake menu for my daughter’s restaurant or whatever. It makes it feel more important than it might be. I like trying to laminate things you’re not really supposed to laminate. That’s why I’ve gone through so many of them, because I’ve broken them. I’d like to be able to laminate a rope, but I just don’t know how to do this. I’ll always be testing. I’ll be like, Okay, we got the paper in there; we got that done. What happens if we put some more three-dimensional things in? And I’ll just keep adding to see how far I can get.
This is a total game-changing extravagance, but I finally took the plunge. I wanted these for a long time, since 2019 when I first encountered them in a cryotherapy place in Chicago. I find that if I’m looking at the same thing for more than three years, I should maybe get it. I got the whole thing: I went for my legs, my hips, and my arms. I found this to be such a truly helpful thing for me, and it really helps me sleep better. Maybe it has to do with altering your circulation, but I love the feeling of being squeezed by this thing. I could do it all day. If I could, I would just walk around in it. I would go to the movies with these on. It seems like self-care is a big thing these days, in a way that maybe it wasn’t when I was younger. My daughter will say, “Do you want me to show you my skin-care routine?” And it’s so sweet and cool because it is this awareness that if you take care of yourself, it shows that you’re worth caring for. Buying this was a big deal. It was the first thing I ever bought for myself that felt like a luxurious, self-care thing. But I’m really glad I did. I feel guilty sometimes lying there; it’s just so good. But I also feel guilty because I’m not exactly an athlete.
My middle child, Una, has special needs and has what’s called microdeletion syndrome. It plays out in many incredible ways in our life, and she’s the No. 1 person. But when we first found out about this, it was this experience of you walk into a building one way and you leave a totally different way. This book — there’s even a documentary based on it — basically says that maybe the apple should fall far from the tree. Each chapter talks about a situation where the child and their parents have differences and what that experience is like. It’s just a beautifully written book. Intimidatingly huge — it might be over 1,000 pages. But this book has meant so much to me and so many of the people I have given it to. It’s not just about special needs. There’s a few chapters about it but also chapters about musical prodigies where their parents don’t play music at all, to name an example. It’s really a beautiful book about allowing each other to be what we are.
For a long time, guitar companies have been trying to do a hybrid electric-acoustic guitar, and to me, Fender figured it out. When it’s plugged in, for instance, it can be different kinds of electric guitars: This is the cranked-up electric, this is the cleaner electric. It’s very simple. And you can go all the way to having just slight varieties of acoustic guitars. With any type of hobby, the best version of the thing is the thing you can carry around. People will say, “Well, what’s the best camera?” It’s like, “The one you have on you.” With instruments, it’s what you’re walking around the house playing. I love that it’s very light. You can’t really compete with an acoustic guitar as it’s a beautiful, amazing thing. I like the feeling and the body shape of an electric guitar, but electric guitars are much heavier. And honestly, if you’re recording or playing and holding a guitar all day — I sound like such an old man, but, well, it can become uncomfortable. Because of its weight, I feel like it has oddly enough allowed me to play twice as much as I normally would. I’m walking around with an electric guitar that doesn’t need to be amplified because it’s also acoustic and weighs nothing. If I go on a trip, I bring it. It’s perfect.
Here’s one other thing I love so much that’s really kind of dorky. I wanted to learn how to airbrush, and I still suck at it. But while I was working on Fargo, the show, in Chicago, I met Anthony Kosar, who was doing some of the special-effects makeup on the show. He makes his own airbrushes and gave me one of them. It’s called the Phantom Pro, and it’s so great. I love this thing so much. Sometimes, I’ll airbrush something I built based on one of Adam Savage’s “One Day Builds.” Most recently, in our bathroom, some of our wallpaper got a little bit damaged, and my wife, Brady, was like, “You should just draw all over it or do whatever you want on the wall.” And so I got out my airbrush and airbrushed a lot of the wall. It’s really fun. In fact, my son was so into it that I got him a Crayola airbrush. It’s adorable.
Another really helpful thing I love so much that definitely is an essential thing is fabric markers. For some reason, I just get stuff on me, like a coffee drip. I’m not even drinking a coffee, and I’ll have a stain on me. I’m like, What the fuck? If something is stained, what I do is I will take my fabric markers and draw all over the stain or write words or something. And then no one sees the stain, and you can keep the piece of clothing, and it has a second life. There’s all different kinds of markers, and it really depends on what the fabric is, but Sharpie makes some really good ones and so does Tulip. My son, actually, has his own line of T-shirts that he does. They’re on a rack, but they’re not for sale. But it’s adorable because they’re great. We love to draw on stuff like old socks, anything. I just really love fabric markers.
Schostal is a store in Rome. It has everything from pajamas for children and adults, socks, underwear, ties, scarves. I’ve been a customer for ten, 15 years. I know one person who doesn’t buy socks unless they go there. For me, the pajamas for kids are adorable, but I love the button-up shirts. They just fit and feel great and are made well. Now, you can order them online, but the experience of being in the store is part of why I love the shirts. I like that there’s always a story with the purchase. It’s not like I go to Rome all the time, but if I go, I’ll get that shirt. Part of it is trying it on and seeing all the people in there; it’s a combination of the place being special to me. I don’t have a ton of stuff, but it’s like, Oh, I got that when I was there with that person, and I got that there with that person. Or, I remember when we were all there and we all went to Schostal that day. It’s the story, because without the story, then everything’s just a thing.
[Editor’s note: Jason’s exact button-up shirts are not available online, but the long-sleeved polo version of them is. Schostal lists all prices in euros, so the price shown is an approximate conversion in U.S. dollars.]
These Dickies are my favorite. They’re all I own. They came as a natural evolution into fatherhood because this idea of workwear and things being indestructible became important to me. As I’ve said, a stain will find me no matter where I am. With children, too, it’s nuts. Classic Dickies, which I do think are the best, are a little bit wider in the leg and a little bit more high-waisted. They look better on other people but not on me. I happened upon this particular skinny-straight model one day ten or 13 years ago, and it’s all I buy. I get a pair, then I wear them until they get a hole after about a year or so. Then I cut them into shorts. When they finally become deceased, I will order another pair. I know my size, I know my color — boom, done. I get navy blue and brown. They’re just easy. People will be like, “Oh, I’m so sorry I spilled on you.” And I’m like, “No problem.”
I’m a vegan. Sometimes people say to me, “Oh, I couldn’t do it. I just can’t give up cheese.” But the thing is, I don’t like cheese to begin with. I don’t like the real version, but I do like this because it has its own flavor and texture. To me, it’s just the best. The consistency, the way it’s made. I eat it with everything. My wife has been making and honing this insanely amazing salad for years. It’s just so fun because I’ve watched it evolve, and it’s so delicious. It’s got your greens, chickpeas, some celery, apple, pickled vegetables. But a big component of it is this cheese. It seals the deal. It’s so good. I’ll even buy the cheese and a thing of bread and just watch a movie and eat the whole thing. I’ll even eat it off a spoon.
I found this backpack at a store in Rome. I was taken by it because of the way it opens. It’s a backpack, but it opens like a doctor’s bag down the middle. For someone like me who wants to have a lot of things at all times, it’s the ultimate bag. The thing that makes it a backpack is that you could wear it on your shoulders if you so choose. But you can tuck those straps in and make it a duffel bag. It’s great. I bought it last year, and I think I’ll have it forever. Everyone who sees it will tell me later that they ordered one.
I love Daft Punk. Though they are not formally together, they still release merchandise that is pretty great. I had this other Daft Punk hat that I bought years ago. I wore it so much that people thought I had multiples of it. It’s alive, and I could wear it, but it looks like a dying hat. This is my new one. One of the biggest purchase regrets of my life was this table they designed. There was this store across from where I lived when I was making Marie Antoinette in France, and they had this table that had a microphone in it and lights underneath. It looked like a chessboard, and the lights would react to music. I loved it so much I would go to the store on weekends to sit in front of it and talk to it and watch it light up. But I couldn’t get that home. I still think about it. I have Daft Punk Christmas ornaments. I have a Daft Punk snow globe. I have a Daft Punk coaster. I bought a new Daft Punk hoodie earlier this summer but it got lost in a box that I shipped from Atlanta back to L.A.
For Asteroid City, I play a photographer, and I wanted a sense of how a camera works as you do your research. Part of that is trying to understand light better. It’s so tricky; my brain just doesn’t understand it. I bought this light meter. It doesn’t use a battery or anything. I have found that I carry it around with me all the time just to see what the light meter says. My older brother John is a cinematographer, and I envy his ability to look at something and say, “Well, obviously, as you can see, the light’s coming from here. The shadow is this, so that’s going to be a 5, 6 at this many stops, and so on.” And I’m like, “Ugh, I want to learn.” So I carry this light meter in my backpack even if I don’t have a camera.
It started in 2018 or 2019 because I wanted to do something for my daughters. I saw some object and wanted to understand how to do resin art. It was a slippery slope that led me to making my own molds, which led me to glass engraving. Then I got into embossing, then that led to working with clay and then going into mosaic. I’m not trying to make art. I’m so fascinated by all the different materials. I’m just happy to be just doing this, puttering around, doodling or whatever. I think it’s important, at least for my brain, to have another thing to be doing concurrently that’s not being on my phone. I started with Art Resin, which is a nontoxic resin, and I got really into it. It’s a viscous liquid, and you start out buying one little bottle and then the next thing you know, you’re buying it by the gallon. I watched this really great guy on YouTube, ResinAce, and I got really into his videos.
I was working on Fargo, and my apartment in Chicago just had a mattress and a little projector. I also had a drop cloth and resin everywhere. Now, I came to find out you should be working in a more ventilated area. They call it the Windy City, but I was starting to call it Headache City because there were a lot of fumes happening in my room; my room was like a fume party. When you watch anybody on YouTube, they make it look really easy. I got to the point where I almost set my place on fire by accident because one of the ways you can get bubbles out of resin is by using a torch to get the bubbles out. I bought this torch from ArtResin, but I didn’t get the correct butane tank. I don’t know if it was too powerful or something, but when I went to cook all the resin, I forgot my drop cloth was canvas and I fucking ignited my place. It was like, whoosh. But it was fine; it was just a reminder that you got to go slow.
Resin led me to this other company called Smooth-On. This website is a crazy place, but it’s what people use to make molds of all kinds. I started to make my own molds. Then using Smooth-On and resin, I started making stuff for my family and friends. I wouldn’t give someone something saying, “Here’s something I made,” but I do think there’s something fun about making something one of a kind that has something to do with someone and giving it to them. The evolution of all this is Let’s Resin, my latest thing. It’s pretty incredible. Now they have these little UV ovens that cook it faster. You cook it and it hardens in a minute. My kids have done it with me in the past, but the thing I realized is that it’s a hobby I’m still learning. They’re watching me make all these mistakes, and it’s not fun for them. They’re like, “So we’re just, what, your accomplice in this mess?”
Each of these things has led me to something else. I recently got into embossing powder made by this company Ranger. I was just in Atlanta working, and I must have embossed anything I could, like any piece of trash. I would just fucking cook it with this stuff on it. It’s really fun. You write your name, let’s say, with embossing ink, then you take the embossing dust, pour it all over the piece of paper, then lift up the paper, and then funnel it all back into the container. What’s left on the page is the embossing powder that has stayed on whatever you wrote. Then you take a heating gun and you melt or glaze over the powder. I’ll just emboss huge pieces of paper or photos and just put tons of different powders on it.
A lot of my interests stem from Adam Savage’s Tested YouTube channel. Adam Savage is a special-effects designer who worked at Industrial Light & Magic. He’s made every type of building you could imagine in show business. Then he co-hosted MythBusters for years. Then he started this thing called Tested, and it’s a whole network of all these different great people and makers and artists that work with him. It’s a channel for, I guess the term is makers, even though I’m not really a maker, but I love watching these videos. I got really into it during the pandemic. You kind of never know what’s going to be on it, which is why I love it. He lets you in on the process of making things, often by making them in front of you.
It’ll be very complicated things that he’s doing in his shop, but then he also has these videos called “One Day Builds,” and they’re essentially things you can build in one day alongside him. It takes more than a day, I’ve noticed, because I do them more spontaneously, but also because there’s always some part in it where I’m like, Well, shoot. I don’t have a metal bender, which is an essential part of the last part of this thing. But it’s been so fun. It’s really been so fascinating because there’s no wrong way to do something but there are little, tiny things that matter so much.
One of the things I look forward to most is, at the end of the year, they each do a list of their favorite things. And they are the best things. It’s so cool because it’ll go from “This ruler has been just the best ruler I’ve ever had” to someone else who’s going, “Of all epoxy rubbers I’ve tried, this new epoxy rubber is just wonderful. It cures well.” I love seeing their passion and the variety of things they use.
[Editor’s note: The Tested YouTube channel is free to watch.]
I love podcasts. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast is amazing and unique because some of them are four and six hours long. He’ll do multiple episodes on a single topic like the Roman Empire. They’re so thorough. The way he talks about history is intoxicating. All of a sudden, it’s alive. It’s how he weaves the shows together that I think is so cool. He talks about one thing and then goes into a metaphor, back out to a quote from someone from a long time ago, to a modern-day thing, and he just lines it up so well.
I’ll tell you, one of the coolest things I ever got to do in my life was talk to him. He did this episode about pain as entertainment called “Painfotainment.” I was just about to start making the Hunger Games movie. The whole episode was about the Colosseum. I asked the producers of the movie if I could ask him questions about it. He agreed to talk to me and the writer for an hour. It was so generous. It was like his podcast was just talking to me because it was on the phone. He provided me with a lot of stuff that really became essential to the work I tried to do on the movie.
One of my favorite companies in the whole wide world is Universal Audio. It’s one of the legends of recording. It’s right there and has always been right there and is still right there in terms of capturing sound. It makes an audio interface called an Apollo Twin. I have an Apollo Twin, and I also have this other thing called an Apollo Solo. I love them because the Apollo Twin is just easy to use, powerful, and travels easily. The Apollo Solo even more so because it can run off your computer power. It has less inputs and outputs. They even make these new ones called the Volt, and it’s such a good price point for people to be able to make music and to have it sound good. The stuff just works so fluidly with the different DAWs. It’s really nice.
Arturia is another one of my favorite, favorite companies. It makes synths and interfaces as well. It makes a MIDI controller that’s really great because it’s little. It connects via a USB cable, and the way it’s attached to the keyboard is really nice. It clips around the back of it and just goes schwoop, right into it, so that when you’re traveling, it’s not flying around or anything. It weighs nothing, it fits in your backpack, and I bring it everywhere.
This company has been making little sound boxes and noisemaking instruments for a while now. The sounds are fantastic, and the way the controls work is great. As the years go on, it puts out different versions of things, but the one I personally love the most is called an Organelle M. After a long time of thinking, Well, should I get this thing? — and I don’t take these decisions lightly — I bought it. It has really been one of the greatest things I’ve ever bought. I just love it. It’s portable, it runs either on power from the wall or battery power, it has a speaker, you can sample onto it, it has a microphone on it. But what’s really interesting about it is that it’s an open-source world of sounds. So you could go onto the Organelle and make your own sound and put it up there. And then I could just get it.
It’s an ever-expanding thing. Its whole thing is about everyone contributing to it, creating different sounds, and sharing ideas and things. It’s nice. It’s not something I take around everywhere I go, but there’ll be days where I will take the Organelle on the way to go pick up my kids from school, and I’ll get there 45 minutes before school lets out and sit in my car and learn it and play with it. A lot of these instruments are so deep and so fun that you can keep discovering new things about them. A lot of the ways I use things is actually not even to make things; it’s to see how they work.
My wife and her partner, Katy Burgess, have a design company called Wall for Apricots. They do tons of stuff and just made the coolest candles. They have notes of orris, fresh grass, green tea leaves, and mint. I never really was into candles until these. It’s literally just supercool how lucky I am that my wife also made them.
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