Known for his uniquely pastel aesthetic and quirk ensemble casts, Wes Anderson returns to cinemas with his 12th feature film, The Phoenician Scheme, an espionage filled dark comedy about wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda (Benecio del Toro), who appoints his only daughter, a nun (Mia Threapleton), as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise, they soon become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists and determined assassins. This zany comedy once again boasts a huge A-list cast, including Michael Cera, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johannsson, Tom Hanks, Riz Ahmed, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
As The Phonecian Scheme hits Australian cinemas on May 29, Nick L’Barrow was invited to the global press conference for the film where Wes Anderson along with Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johannsson, and Bryan Cranston all broke down the film and spoke about their experiences making it!
On the genesis of the film…
Wes Anderson: I had a sort of idea of a tycoon, a Euro tycoon, like somebody who would’ve been in an Antonioni movie or something, that visual. I did have this idea that he was probably hurting, that he was going to be in physical distress. Somehow, that was the image of this guy who you sort of can’t kill. And he has a very expensive watch, you know, something like that. But in the course of time, it started mixing with my father-in-law, my wife’s father, Fouad, who was an engineer and a businessman and he had all these different projects and different places.
And he was a kind, warm person, but very intimidating. And he had all his business in these shoeboxes. He walked her through his work at a certain point, because he thought if he is not able to see everything through, she needs to know what he’s got. So, yeah, it was a mixture of those two things.
On finding the personality of the characters…
Benecio del Toro: Well, we had many conversations, you know, about the story, about the character. But a lot of it comes from Wes’s writing. You know, it’s layered, it’s full of contradictions, which makes it really yummy for an actor to try to bring to life. You know, there was elements of collaboration. I think one that I remember was that at some point, my character, Zsa-Zsa Korda, is meeting his daughter for the first time, played by Mia Threapleton. nd the tutor, played by Michael Cera, is in the room.
And I remember telling Wes, “Well, I’m giving a lot of private information to my daughter. And there is this stranger sitting right there. And you know, I don’t know. I feel uncomfortable as the character, giving all this information in front of a stranger. I’m telling her about my bank accounts and my everything, deals with like secrecy.” And Wes said to me, “Well, we’ll polygraph him.” And I went, “Well, okay.” And you know, very quickly, he came up with this idea of a lie detector, which is a portable pocket polygraph.” And in 1950 it was probably the size of this building, but he made it into the pocket version. And he called it the lie detector. And so that’s kinda like, you know, I’m kinda like looking at it like being in the place in the moment.
Mia Threapleton: I had, I think, three months from the time of finding out that I had been offered the job and from when I landed into Berlin. So, that felt like a very good amount of time to just go, okay, get claws deep into this as much as I can. Which included but was not limited to talking to a deacon of a Catholic church. Going to Rome, because I had to go there for a fitting so of course, absorbing as much Catholic that was there, Catholicism that was there. And reading the Bible, chatting with Wes about portions of the Bible, going though, going down. I did send you my little to-do list of things that I was doing and he said, “Yes, this all looks very, very good.”
And recording, I sort of went though my script. I think I read it about five times in the first week that I had it. Just because, like, you know, overwhelming excitedness and just wanting to absorb as much information as I possibly could. And through doing that, many notes of just, okay, well that’s what that means and then this is probably what subliminally is going on there. And then there’s this, this, this, this, and this. And it kind of just all meshed together into this thing. And then we did virtual rehearsals as well. I had a little system where I would record my lines, record other characters lines, change the pitch and tone of the other people’s lines. Block out my own, and then record the whole thing live and then send it through to Wes, who mistakenly thought that I had five other people in the room doing it with me. There was no one else in the room, it was just me.
On matching actors to their characters…
Wes Anderson: Yes. I mean, you know, the part for Scarlett we did think, okay, if Scarlett will do this, then that, you know, we had her in mind for that. Bryan and Tom Hanks together, I think the characters partly came out of imagining them as much as it was the other way around. And Benicio’s, obviously, too. So, yeah, a lot, yeah. Many of the roles we sort of cast ’em as we go, and I tend to also, as soon as we have the idea, I tend to send the email. And say, you know, this could be like maybe October or something like that and try to kind of get on the books if they’ll have me. I mean, you know, Isle of Dogs we had you in mind very early in the writing process of that. And did we talk about it before there was a script? Do you remember? It’s too long ago.
Bryan Cranston: We did. Yeah, you, yeah. You sent me an email and said this is coming. And this is what we’d be working with and the same thing here. I mean, it was, you did actually say we were thinking of calling it the Sacrament Consortium. And I thought, well, then it’s about us, but then you quickly switched over. You know, Tom and I arrived at the same time in Berlin, at Babelsberg, and, you know, until you see the cartoon, as Wes puts it, the animatic, the full animatic, film that he voices all the characters on, until you actually see that, it’s not always clear where he’s going, when he’s going, because the scripts are very dense in detail. And so there is no skimming in a Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola script.
And oftentimes, I have my fingers back and I go, wait, what was that? What was that? What was that? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. If you miss one little bit, it’s not gonna track, so you have to really read them carefully to understand. That’s probably why you read it three or four times.
On finding freedom in the seemingly mechanical style of Anderson’s filmmaking…
Benecio del Toro: Well, I think you know, I think the approach is the same approach that I do on any movie I do. Just I think Wes wants you to be in the moment. He wants you to tell the truth, whatever that means. But we try as actors to do that, and I think he expects that, you know? So from there, he can block it and you have all this dialogue, but you can still bring a piece of yourself into it. And there’s room for the imagination, too, to run amok. You gotta have fun, even if you’re, like, drowning. You gotta have fun.
Scarlett Johannsson: But I also think ’cause you’re enjoying it so much. I mean, you can hear Wes enjoying it, and that’s helpful because you — actually, I think it’s really motivating to try new things. Even though the blocking may be, you know, specific to what it is, and the camera moves are specifically what they need to be, and, you know, there’s sometimes a timing element to it, which is a little bit more, I don’t want to say restrictive, but it’s just particular, I guess. But then the performance pieces, I think you’re very playful within that, because you’re just enjoying it and encouraging variety, you know?
I’ve gotten some questions when we’ve done press for Wes’s films, and it seems that it comes across that everything is so calculated. But I think the actual process of it, it doesn’t feel that way at all. I mean, the physicality, maybe again because the camera moves are very calculated, and sometimes there’s specific prophage and all of that stuff, and the edit is very sharp, so it gives it a feeling that it’s so calculated, but I don’t think the performances are. I think if it becomes so calculated it doesn’t work, because then it feels like it’s a schtick or something.
Mia Threapleton: Yeah, ’cause I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that it is very planned, because you know what you want, you know what you’re looking for, and you have that full plan, and you have the animatic. And then because we have all of those things, we know what we’re doing the next day. We know what we’re gonna be doing, you know, for blocking and stuff like that. Maybe we’ve rehearsed it, maybe, you know, maybe we’re finding out something on the day. And yeah, you have to hit your marks, not just for what you want, but for camera movement, for the grip team.
And, you know, it’s, like, it’s all important, but because we know the plan and because it’s so clear and because Wes is so clear and clearly having so much fun doing this, you kind of just don’t think about the plan, ’cause it’s happening around you. You’re just in the thing, in the moment that’s happening with you. And you’re not leaping your imagination somewhere else because you’re also actually in that world. Adam Stockhausen and his entire team of amazing people are so — I don’t know how they did it.
But, like, you’re walking into a dam, or you’re walking into a train or a very good tunnel or somewhere. You’re just there, and you’re playing and you’re having fun while you’re doing it. And you’re being told what to do by somebody who knows exactly what they want and how to do it.
Thank you to Universal Pictures and Focus Features for inviting us along to the global press conference, and you can read Alasdair’s review here! The Phoenician Scheme is in cinemas now.
