Meet Wes Anderson’s scene-stealing ‘Asteroid City’ triplets, Ella, Gracie and Willan Faris

Ella, Gracie and Willan Faris landed in Spain two years ago to make their feature film debuts in Wes Anderson‘s “Asteroid City,” and like any first-timers, they were excited to meet their costars.

Woody from the “Toy Story” franchise. Gru in the “Despicable Me” movies. And Marvel’s Black Widow, even though the triplets haven’t seen any of her superhero flicks yet.

“Dad doesn’t let us,” explained Ella, who, like her sisters, turned 8 this month.

These costars were, to be clear, Tom Hanks, Steve Carrell, and Scarlett Johansson, respectively.

Not too bad for a debut film.

‘City’ kids

In “Asteroid City,” Ella, Gracie and Willan often appear with the typically Wes Anderson deadpan mien. At home in Orange, on the first day of the first week of summer break, they were anything but as they chattered away about “Mr. Wes” and “Mr. Tom,” as well as Jason Schwartzman, who plays their father in the film, and Jake Ryan, who plays their older brother.

“He’s our friend; we made friends with him,” Ella says of Ryan, now 19, who was about the triplets’ age when he made his Anderson debut in 2012’s “Moonrise Kingdom.”

“We played Super Smash Bros. with him in the cabin,” Gracie adds, referring to their videogaming sessions on set.

“Asteroid City” is a quintessential Wes Anderson film, packed with most of his usual troupe of actors. In addition to Schwartzman, Anderson regulars such as Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Tony Revolori are in the cast.

Many of them, as well as other stars including Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Margot Robbie, Hope Davis and Matt Dillon, have already done publicity for “Asteroid City.” We, however, arranged our own junket with the Faris triplets, arriving not to a suite at the Four Seasons but to their home in Orange where the young actors were coloring at a child-sized table when we arrived.

Willan, Gracie and Ella gave us a tour of a suspiciously tidy playroom – could parents Colleen and Chris have had a hand in this? – and the bedroom where they scrambled to the top of a triple-bunk bed set.

After a snack of milk and potato chips, we got down to business and asked Ella, Gracie and Willan how they landed the roles of Andromeda, Pandora and Cassiopeia Steinbeck, sisters of Woodrow, daughters of the recently widowed photographer Augie Steinbeck.

A Spanish adventure

As the Faris girls tell it, it sounds easy to get a part in a Wes Anderson movie,

“You audition!” Gracie says. “And then you have some other kids and they audition. And then we said, ‘Can we do it again?’ And then we got it.”

Willan explains further: “The point is to get an audition. If you audition for it and then they think you’re perfect for it and you get it.”

Did they know much about the story or their characters going into the audition?

“We knew that our [characters’] mom died and we were trying to get her back,” Gracie says.

“I had to say, ‘You can let our mom come back alive,” Ella adds, and all three begin to chant the spell they use in the film in an effort to reverse the blow fate has delivered the Steinbeck family.

The trio’s stories jumped around a bit, and all three tended to talk at once, excited to share them about their two months on location in Chinchón, Spain.

“We had to sleep on the plane,” Willan says when asked if they knew how far Spain was from their Southern California home.

“It was allll the way over here,” Gracie adds, making the shape of an imaginary globe in the air before her, and then tracing the path of the plane that carried them there.

“It was different but at least the house had a jacuzzi inside,” Willan says of the lodgings provided to the family.

“It was huge and we got a playroom,” Gracie adds. “And there were balloons and confetti in the clear ones.”

“Yeah, and we popped them,” Willan adds.

“We popped them, and then we had confetti,” Gracie says. “But the bad news was the cleaning lady came and she vacuumed up all the confetti.”

“And we were sad,” Ella says, the tragedy of the vacuumed confetti inspiring a rare, brief moment when none of the three had a word to say.

The early days

For the Faris family, acting has been part of family life almost since Ella, Gracie and Willan were born.

Chris Faris works as a marriage and family therapist, though local music fans once knew him as a founder of the indie rock band Devious Means. Colleen Faris worked as a junior high teacher until the girls were born. Infant and child twins and triplets are valued assets in film and television, and the idea of introducing them to acting arose after Colleen decided to stay home with the kids.

By the time they were 6 months old, the girls had made their debut in a public service television ad for the Bill Gates Foundation. Before they were a year old they’d been cast as babies in TV series such as “This Is Us” and “Superstore.”

When they were a year and half, Ella and Gracie, who, unlike Willan, are identical twins, were cast on “Grey’s Anatomy” to double as Little Ellis, the daughter of Meredith Grey, the character played by Ellen Pompeo. It’s a role they’ve played in nearly 30 episodes in the seven years since.

“What’s nice is during a typical year, it’s maybe four to eight weeks throughout the year where there’s a couple of days in the week for ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ or an audition,” Chris Faris says. “It has an impact on our lives, of course. But it’s been fairly well integrated.”

The girls attend public school, and several of their teachers were among the crowd at a friends and family premiere in Santa Ana. Colleen Faris coaches their softball team and she and her husband try to keep Gracie, Ella and Willan involved in activities with other kids whether that’s soccer or dance or art classes.

For now, all three girls are happy to act, she says.

“On ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ the big pull is the boys – they love seeing their twin brothers,” Colleen Faris says. “And costumes, the hair and makeup people are so sweet. They took an interest in the girls, and our kids would want to go see them.”

Their craft and craft services

Mr. Wes, as the girls call their “Asteroid City” director, was kind and helpful during the shoot, the girls say.

“Before we did it, he said, ‘You know how actors work,’” Willan says, explaining how Anderson told them to focus on their characters’ motivations. “So you have to think in your head what want them to do, and then spread it out to world.’”

It’s hard work, though, and sometimes there are tears, Gracie says.

“So one time, I was on break, because they were gonna see if they got a good one, and then daddy gave me my apple juice,” she says. “I drank it but I spilled it on my overalls and I cried. And then one of the costume people, he let me get in a new pair of overalls. I was worried, but it worked out.”

A favorite scene that all three remembered with great excitement was an outdoor meal during which they were in the background between Schwartzman and Johansson.

“We got to eat real ice cream,” Gracie says.

“And usually it’s pretend food, but I also had chili in one of the last scenes. Willan had a hot dog. Gracie had a hot dog –”

” – with mustard,” Gracie adds.

“And we all got lemonade and chips,” Ella finishes.

Later, Chris and Colleen give the backstory to the hotdog scene, which didn’t make the final edit.

“They’re in the background of the scene while Jason and Scarlett are talking,” Chris Faris says. “This is the most hilarious thing because it’s kind of a more emotionally heavy scene.

“And then you hear Ella or Gracie in the background going, ‘Mr. Wes! We need more mustard! Is there any more chips? Gracie ate her hotdog – you have more hotdogs?’”

The crew all broke up with laughter, Colleen Faris says.

“No one talks to him like that,” she says of Anderson.

An awfully big adventure

The girls talk on, flashes of memories erupting into new stories. During one scene they got to beat up a broken-down car.

“Gracie was throwing glitter at a car,” Ella says. “Willan was throwing a rock at the same car. I was banging the car with a hammer.”

They got to jump on Tom Hanks and mock-fight him. Their on-set studio teacher taught them to flamenco dance, which they promptly leaped off the couch to demonstrate.

“I was walking on the set, and I tripped over a rock and I fell down and I cried,” Gracie says.

It was, all five of the Farises agree, a wonderful adventure, a memory that mattered even more than the movie they made.

“I’ve loved Wes Anderson since I saw his movies,” Chris Faris says. “To them, he’s just this lanky Mr. Wes guy, you know, and he’s the director of me. Like there’s no concept of our adult world for them.

“And that’s exactly as it should be because it’s even more pure when they’re there on set.”