It’s easy to get star-struck by a Wes Anderson cast. There are Oscar winners, screen legends and blockbuster stars all occupying the same, impeccably ornamented space. It’s an entirely different experience getting star-struck by the Anderson troupe when you are the one leading his films.
“As a performer, it was amazing to play around within the scenes and try different things out and explore things with the sheer volume of talented people that he amasses,” says Mia Threapleton, “On a personal level, it was the most surreal experience of my life, because I’m suddenly stood next to Tom Hanks, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, it’s Woody!’”
Hanks is among the ensemble of The Phoenician Scheme that includes Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch and Riz Ahmed, where Benicio Del Toro, Michael Cera and Threapleton, acting as the starring triumvirate.
“I’ve watched all of these people growing up and have loved their films forever,” says Threapleton. And, now, she is in one.
The Phoenician Scheme, out May 30 via Focus Features, stars del Toro as European tycoon Zsa-Zsa Korda, who has built a globe-spanning empire using dubious business practices. After barely surviving the latest in a litany of assassination attempts, he appoints an heir to his estate, his estranged and only daughter, Liesl, a nun on the verge of taking her vows, played by Threapleton.
It is fair to say that the 24-year-old actress came by her now profession naturally from a young age. She recalls, “I was forever putting on plays in the garden with my cousins. I must have been about 10 when I actually said out loud I want to do.” But, even as the daughter of Kate Winslet, Threapleton notes that she was not familiar with the ins and outs of the entertainment industry, nor the experience of being on set.
(L to R) Actor Mathieu Amalric, director Wes Anderson, actors Mia Threapleton, and Benicio Del Toro on set of THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME.
Roger Do Minh/TPS Productions/Focus Features
“She really kept her work very separate from family life. Her work stayed in her office, and then when she was not in her office, she was ‘Mum,’” says Threapleton, who was landed an agent after being scouted in a high school play. “I don’t think I ever really had the thought of, ‘I’m gonna do this on my own.’ But that seems to have been what happened, and that was something that my mother was really supportive of me wanting to do, because that’s what she did when she was younger.”
But Threapleton hasn’t shied away from an association with Winslet, starring with her mom in Channel 4’s I Am… She has since amassed credits that include Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers and smaller roles in films with Jude Law (Firebrand) and Gillian Anderson (Scoop). The Phoenician Scheme is, by far, her biggest role to date.
It was in May 2023 that the actress got an email from her agents about a new Anderson project. “It literally was just ‘young girl’ that was it, informationally,” says Threapleton, who really clicked into the Anderson oeuvre when she saw Moonrise Kingdom at the age of 12.
The audition process lasted six months over a series of self-tapes, in-person readings, meetings and screen tests, all of which ultimately landed her in the role of Liesel. “We auditioned hundreds, but when she appeared, it was very clear that she was going to work,” Anderson told THR.
Ultimately, The Phoenician Scheme is a story about inheritance, literal and metaphorical. Del Toro’s Zsa-Zsa and Threapleton’s Liesl hold the narrative spokes together with a centered father-daughter relationship that, even with all of the trappings of an Anderson-ian lilt, dives into themes of generational trauma.
Over a week and a half of rehearsals, del Toro and Threapleton, along with Anderson and Cera, had rehearsals and long conversations about character that built the foundation for their months-long shoot at Berlin’s Studio Babelsberg. Leading up to production, the director asked Threapleton to create some of her own props that she used on screen. “He really creates this world, and you’re walking and living and breathing it all day, every day,” she says of an Anderson set. “It sort of felt impossible not to feel like you weren’t in that space in real life, because it was all encompassing.”
Before touching down at the Cannes Film Festival, where The Phoenician Scheme will screen in the fest’s main competition section, Threapleton had a chance to see the movie, solo, in a London screening room. “The opening credits started, and I burst into tears,” she laughs. “And then it was my face and I thought, ‘Holy shit, that’s a lot of my face!’ Then the ending happened, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I did that.’”
