Royal Tenenbaums: 10 Best Characters Unrelated To The Family

Wes Anderson – the prince of stylistic whip-pans, Kubrickian set pieces, and production design that makes film tweeters weak in the fingers – is, in spite of his daring strokes, a realist. Time and time again, the noted family dramatist has proven to operate quite well when his principal cast play characters who share the same last name.

The following 10 Royal Tenenbaums side characters provided comedic relief and an argument for a Tenenbaum-less spinoff. One set in a symmetrically-divine, yet aesthetically quaint pub. And narrated by the eldest Baldwin.

10 Raleigh St. Clair

Even as the undesirable husband, whom the disinterested Margot non-verbally blames for their loveless marriage, there is no debating Raleigh’s appeal as a passionate investor in his Dudley-based professional exploits. Additionally, no Anderson die-hard would want anyone other than the newly, fiercely grey-bearded Bill Murray rushing a bleeding Richie to the emergency room.

‘Tis the drawback of taking the stubborn journey Royal did. When one leaves their family for long enough, they miss the big events – both good and bad – and are replaced by Bill Murray.

9 Dudley Heinsbergen

Similarly, no one could offer a muted scream better than two-and-done former child actor, Stephen Lea Sheppard, upon the literal needle drop mid -“Needle in the Hay” following Richie’s suicide attempt.

Fresh off his turn as a “Geek” accomplice in the criminally short-lived Freaks and Geeks, Sheppard blossomed as Dudley, the prodigious subject Raleigh St. Clair pooled all of his calculated faith into for the duration of the film.

8 Eli Cash

“Here I come!” Played by the film’s co-writer, Owen Wilson, the Tenenbaum’s neighbor bears enough of a physical and vocal to Owen’s real-life brother and in-universe compadre, Luke Wilson/Richie Tenenbaum, to lend credence to fan theories alleging the Tenenbaum patriarch may have fathered Eli illegitimately with a royal mistress.

Though it is briefly established that Eli lived across the street with his aunt, and not his mother, anything could have been possible had Pagoda been Royal’s infidelity wingman at the time.

7 The Tennis Announcers

Anderson ascertains he and the third, lesser-known Wilson brother, Andrew, are the live-commentators of “The Baumer’s” downfall. But according to IMDb’s trivia section, fans initially believed the announcer Anderson claims to have voiced was none other than frequent collaborator Jason Schwartzman, fresh off his breakout as the lead in Anderson’s previous film, Rushmore (1998).

Considering the clever friend circle that Anderson keeps, many would not hold it past him and Andrew to have intentionally skewed their natural accents to welcome others to mistake them for Schwartzman and Owen Wilson, respectively.

6 Henry Sherman

A lack of a Lethal Weapon 5 was Anderson’s gain when earning the opportunity to cast the rarely-available action star in a key supporting role.

Danny Glover’s turn as Henry Sherman grows more comforting to the repeat viewer upon each revisit. Easy to sympathize with at the drop of a dime, Henry is gentle, modestly certain, and everpresent. In other words – he’s everything Royal’s not.

5 The Narrator

With his soothing-and-distinct vocal range, Alec Baldwin welcomed the challenge of calling the dog fight without being a dog in the fight himself. To avoid showing any judgment, Baldwin-as-narrator was tasked to strictly report on the facts, old school broadcast journalism-style.

While Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Art Howe failed to recognize the best managers “stay out of the way” in Moneyball (2011), Baldwin knew how to play his voice-only role – and the film would not be the same with anyone else at the helm.

4 The Soundtrack

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday! Who could hang a name on you?

Every so often, a film or TV series comes along that has an inanimate entity, such as an object or the city in which is set, that is so prominent it is almost like a secondary character. When asserting the greater impact of music within the Tenenbaums story, such is the case. With characters galore repressed shoulder-deep in nostalgia, Anderson and company built a time capsule held together by walls lined with The Stones, Cat Stevens, and John Lennon – and that lock can only be picked by Elliott Smith.

3 Margot Tenenbaum

Though obviously raised a Tenenbaum and donning the family surname post-adoption, Margot has long-made it mighty apparent she operates to the beat of a different drum – sometimes even Jamaican bongos.

Nevertheless, Margot’s technical non-relation to the family allows viewers and characters alike to root for her and Richie, while they confront their romantic connection in a taboo-shattering act of bravery.

2 Mordecai

Whether the considerably more white-feathered Mordecai that the film closed with was the same Mordecai at the beginning is beside the point.

The fact remains: in a cold and oft-unapproving world that backed Richie into a suicidally-contemplative corner, it was Mordecai’s disappearance and subsequent return that informed him that his own brighter days were ahead.

1 Pagoda

“What, you two are elevator operators now?” As one half of “Hackman and Robin,” no one since Dennis Hopper in Hoosiers (1986) shone brighter as the ‘yin’ to a Hackman’s ‘yang’ – until now. Though Royal had been gone from the family fold for some time, it was the sly, subtly-situated Pagoda who used his power of lending himself dually as a punching bag and a sage to help keep Royal somewhat in the loop.

In fact, without a friend in Pagoda, Royal would not have learned of Henry Sherman’s marriage proposal to Etheline as quickly. Therefore, Royal may have been denied the chance to ever rescue his family from the wreckage of a destroyed, sinking battleship in the first place.

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