Willem Dafoe hallucination. The cameo was suggested by Dafoe, comparing it to the ghost of Hamlet's father visiting his son to ask him to avenge his death. Dafoe was next seen in the comedy-drama "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" (2004), his first of three films with director Wes Anderson. He played the "hilariously doltish" German first mate of a research vessel owned by the eponymous lead character, who is played by Bill Murray. Dafoe then had a small role as a tabloid magazine editor in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" (2004), a biographical film about Howard Hughes starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Also in
The Grand Budapest Hotel particular brand of artificiality that I like to use is an old-fashioned one." He had previously used miniatures in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" and more extensively in "Fantastic Mr. Fox". In designing the hotel, Anderson and production designer Adam Stockhausen did extensive research, looking at vintage images at the Library of Congress of hotels and European vacation spots. Also visited were existing locales such as the pastel-pink Palace Bristol Hotel and the Grandhotel Pupp, both in the spa town of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), Czech Republic as well as the Grandhotel Gellért in Budapest, Hungary. The model used was