Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme has just celebrated its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival.
While at the fest, Rory Doherty sat down to chat with seven of its cast – Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, and Jeffrey Wright.
Being ferried between different hotel suites to talk with seven different, immaculately presented artists over a single hour evokes the experience of being in a Wes Anderson movie yourself: pockets of focused, charming conversation, intermissions of finely managed movement, you’re in a fancy hotel. Conspicuously absent from our conversations about The Phoenician Scheme is the king of quirk himself, but not a minute goes by without one of his ensemble singing his praises.
You never forget that Wes is there, he’s in every molecule
“His presence is completely pervasive at all times. Wes is so energetic as a director too, when he says cut, he comes in giving new ideas and so much positive energy,” explains Michael Cera. “You never forget that Wes is there, he’s in every molecule.”
The Phoenician Scheme is a throwback adventure picture about controversial broker Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) teaming up with his estranged nun daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) and his new eccentric Norwegian tutor Bjorn (Cera) to save his deal-making opus from caving at the last minute, all while dodging assassins and conspirators. To Riz Ahmed, who plays a prince who wants his country to benefit from Zsa-zsa’s industrial plan, this narrative intensity helped him dig deeper into the character.
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“There’s definitely stakes to this one, in a way that really propels the story and grips us,” says Ahmed. “I think it’s always useful, you know, for any character you’re playing to find their problem: what kind of pressure are they under, what are they pushing against, and what’s pushing them? And I think his stories are so well crafted and plotted, so you can kind of find the core of a character, of what their situation is. It’s usually a very rich and clear one.”
If you want to know how Wes gets such illustrious casts no matter the film, the actors think it’s a bit of a no-brainer. (For this interview alone, we spoke to Del Toro, Cera, Ahmed, Threapleton, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, and Jeffrey Wright, but the film also features Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, and Benedict Cumberbatch.)
“People tend to say yes to Wes because he just makes really good films [that are] very distinctive and unique, and everyone has a great time making them, that’s the kind of reputation around these films,” Ahmed explains. “So I think most actors are really excited to get involved.”
There seems to be an even split in the actors sampled here between returning Anderson players and newcomers who said Yes to Wes for the first time. “It’s always such an honour to be invited back,” explains Friend, who previously appeared in The French Dispatch, Asteroid City, and two of Anderson’s Roald Dahl Netflix shorts. “Personally, I’m a big lover of eclecticism, and he’s never asked me to do the same thing twice: a cowboy last time, and now a government bureaucrat guy.”
Ayoade shared how special the experience was on the Henry Sugar shorts. “What was remarkable was just how seamless from rehearsal to filming it was, and that we started rehearsing and rehearsing on set, which was all lit by Robert Yeoman and in costume, and then he just started filming the rehearsals. So it was all done in a very gentle way. And I think that’s how he works. He’s very, in the best way, sort of soft about things, but while being extremely focused and able to drive this huge mechanism along.”
Threapleton is far less established than the rest of the cast, so joining this Wes Fest felt more seismic. After sending off a self-tape, she was invited to meet Wes in person. “I remember standing in front of the door thinking, don’t be sick. It’s fine. It is gonna be fine. He opened the door and gave me a massive hug, and he was wearing stripy trousers, pink socks, hotel slippers and a blue shirt and glasses. And I thought, “Oh, this is gonna be really fun, actually.”
We kind of got to the hour point and he said, “I think we should probably do some acting”
“We just talked for the first hour of the meeting about everything. We probably talked about the clouds, I honestly don’t remember, but it was a gorgeous conversation. I think we kind of got to the hour point and he said, “I think we should probably do some acting.””
Further down the line, Threapleton found out she got the part in an unglamorous environment. “I was on a train, I shut myself in a bike locker, yeah, and burst into tears and made my agent call casting back because I didn’t believe her.”
Like many Wes films before, The Phoenician Scheme is playful with its genre influences—plenty of the industrial espionage and post-war spy motifs of the film feel indebted to classic Hollywood adventure films like North by Northwest. Del Toro confirms that Anderson has encouraged further reading by bringing a selection of relevant films to the cast’s hotel in Berlin. “He has a little library, a collection of movies that you can take into your room and watch.”
Independently of each other, Wright and Cera agree on the openness of Wes’ vision, and how much he transforms his influences into a wholly singular world. “He’s very generous in terms of sharing source material, whether they’re films or pieces of writing,” shares Wright. “It depends on the story. For example, with The French Dispatch, there was a lot of great stuff to read, not just the James Baldwin references, but the A.J. Liebling references, all the reviews from The New Yorker, all this really delicious stuff.”
“I think you’re completely let in,” says Cera. “I don’t think he’s trying to keep anything from anyone. Everybody knows what movie we’re making. Which is a huge benefit. I mean, Wes makes an animatic of almost the complete film as a tool to get everybody on the same page. You know what’s going to be shot the next day. Or, if you don’t know, you can.”
