The experience of interviewing Wes Anderson is not unlike the experience of watching a Wes Anderson film. It’s brisk. There are entertaining asides. The material is thoughtful and laced with detail that you will often only recognize in retrospect — sometimes after exiting the theater or, in this case, hanging up the phone.
The occasion of this particular conversation is the Cannes Film Festival. To date, Anderson has premiered three films at the Palais — Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The French Dispatch (2021) and Asteroid City (2023) — and will be back this year with his latest feature, The Phoenician Scheme. Like the other directors The Hollywood Reporter has called a Legend of the Croisette — from Ken Loach to Nanni Moretti — Anderson, a lover of film in addition to a maker, feels inextricably linked to the festival where cinema is at its most venerated.
The Phoenician Scheme, out May 30 via Focus Features, stars Benicio 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 Mia Threapleton. The movie is populated with returning Anderson players like Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bryan Cranston and Tom Hanks, as well as new entrants to the troupe, including Michael Cera and Riz Ahmed.
Anderson, 56, talked to THR about the anxiety of sitting through his own premiere, the familial inspiration of the new film and his bold decision to arrive via coach: “It’s as discreet as a bus with a bunch of movie stars on it can be.”
When did you first become aware of the Cannes Film Festival?
I had probably seen movies that had a little card in front of them when I was in high school. I remember, specifically, Wings of Desire and Sex, Lies and Videotape.
Was any advice given to you before your first Cannes premiere?
No, I don’t think so. But, you know, the thing is, you don’t really have to do anything. When you show a movie in New York, for instance, or at Telluride, you introduce it and you do a Q&A. And maybe you do that a couple of times. You’re there to bring it to the world. Well, when you show a movie in Cannes, you just walk in and sit. They take it from there. There’s no question that when you show a movie at a festival, you feel like you’re on display, and it’s terrifying a bit. And the way they do it in Cannes — they make it big. There’s this giant staircase, and when you go up the stairs and you’ve got your whole gang and your cast and you look out and you see all these people who are so excited about movies. It’s a French thing, too; it’s a national thing. This festival, they know it’s the most important one in the world, and it’s theirs. When you show a movie in a film festival, there’s the second screening that’s for the young people who can’t get in to the big screening; the ones who aren’t invited to the big show. That one’s always more fun. At Cannes, that’s the mood outside [the theater]. The most fun is, really, the walk in, because once the movie starts to unspool on the screen, then you’re auditioning for the whole room full of people. And that’s just nerve-racking.
Well, when you put it like that.
That’s what it feels like. And suddenly you start saying, “Hmm, we didn’t get that bit right.” It’s fun at the end, but it’s not really fun while you sit there and watch the movie. At least for me. I’m just very tense. But the walk is great! And we have a thing we do there where we have a bus and we all enter [the red carpet] together from the bus. At first, I remember Thierry [Frémaux, Cannes Film Festival director] was like, “What is this?” But Thierry has embraced that we bring our own system, and I think he likes it now. We don’t stay right in Cannes. We stay outside of Cannes, and we arrive in this unusual way, but we arrive very happy to be there.
(L-R) Jason Schwartzman, Wes Anderson, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks attend the “Asteroid City” red carpet during the 76th annual Cannes film festival.
Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
Can you talk a little more about the thinking behind arriving by bus?
The French Dispatch was the first premiere where I just said, “Let’s do it this way.” Like so many things, the initial reaction was not tremendous enthusiasm. (Laughs.) Not everybody is dying to go on a bus. But we did it and we liked it. Really, what I am looking for is the thing that is going to make it the most fun, and that’s a fun way to come into this thing, together. The alternative is that you have 17 people in 17 cars, stuck in a long line of traffic that takes 45 minutes to get three blocks, so they can get out one at a time. If you see the bus, it’s discreet. It’s as discreet as a bus with a bunch of movie stars on it can be.
Are you ever able to see other films while you are at Cannes?
It never happens. If you are showing a movie there, then you are inevitably in the middle of a busy time. But this year, I am going to see another movie — a restoration of a Satyajit Ray film, Days and Nights in the Forest. It’s a restoration by the Film Foundation, which I am on the board of, and it’s a movie I proposed for the foundation to restore. It’s an ensemble about this group of 20- or 30-something-year-old men who go on this lost weekend together to this reserve outside Calcutta. But the reason why I proposed it is because, along with being one of my favorite Satyajit Ray movies, nobody has been able to see it. When I first saw it, I got it at a Hindi-language DVD shop.
What a specific store.
They were doing subtitling on their own and they would do the Bollywood musical. [Days and Nights in the Forest] is Bengali, but there was no Bengali DVD store in New Jersey. But that’s how I saw it in the first place, in this homemade version. Now, it is going to be properly done, it will be on Criterion and everything by the end of it.
What made you advocate for this movie?
I love his whole body of work, but this movie — it came out in 1970 — I particularly love the story and these characters. It’s an unusual one; it’s quite novelistic.
Speaking to this year’s Cannes, where did the story for The Phoenician Scheme come from?
I had an idea that I actually brought up to Benicio at Cannes when we showed The French Dispatch. We talked about it briefly, and I didn’t really know what it was, but I had the image of Benicio playing a Euro business tycoon, like somebody in an Antonioni movie. I could just see him in it; I could see him and his sunglasses. But one of the main inspirations — along with a handful of real European businessmen — but the more personal connection is my wife’s father [Fouad Malouf]. He’s Lebanese, and he was an amazing kind of larger-than-life figure, and I really loved him. The thing about him was he was somebody who is wise and very intelligent, but a little bit scary. It was always good to walk into a restaurant with him because everything got taken care of immediately. There are many details of this character that draw on him.
(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
Why did you feel Benicio was the right person to embody this type of character?
What I could say is because it wouldn’t have existed without him. I had Benicio in The French Dispatch because I’d been wanting to put him in something for years. I had him in mind and I had him on an actual list. Both Benicio and Jeffrey Wright were on this list I kept of actors I want to work with. In that movie, the Benicio part was written for Benicio, and the Jeffrey part was written for Jeffrey. In this movie, it wasn’t a choice to cast Benicio. He was the only one I ever considered. There are some actors — if Anthony Quinn had been available, then maybe I would have considered him, but I think he died probably about 25 years ago. I mean, Orson Welles could play this part, and also Toshiro Mifune, he would have been able to do this part, but he didn’t speak English.
You are known for having these amazing casts in your films. When you’re writing for these large ensembles, are you always writing with a single person in mind and hoping they are available?
Usually, the character comes first and the actor comes after. Not always, like when we did Asteroid City, for instance, the role that Jason Schwartzman plays was written for Jason to play. And in The Phoenician Scheme, the Benicio part was written for Benicio, but for [most of] the other roles, the casting came later. The one thing I can say is when I feel certain about somebody for a part, even if it’s not fully written, I usually reach out to them immediately because I want them to block out the time for me. That’s one thing I’ve learned over the years. I try to get there early. We don’t always get who we have in mind, but in a movie like this, we got basically everybody. We had to find Mia Threapleton, who plays this character called Liesl. We auditioned hundreds, but when she appeared, it was very clear that she was going to work.
Benicio and Mia’s father- daughter relationship is the engine of the movie. Why focus on that family dynamic?
There are two personal things that maybe have to do with it, but I don’t really know if they do. One is, I have a daughter. I don’t know, really, whether that relates in any way. My daughter is 9, so there’s not much common territory. And also Fouad, I know his relationship with his daughter, my wife [Juman Malouf], and that dynamic was probably somehow in there. Both have very little direct overlap with these characters. Usually I feel when you’re writing a movie, for me, it’s sort of like the movie is this hidden thing that already exists rather than you’re trying to make it up. It’s more like you’re trying to uncover it and dig it up or something. It’s a bit like the movie tells you what it wants to be. I think that’s a metaphor, because you are making it up, but the experience is more like finding something that exists. It’s an odd thing, so it isn’t always possible to say, “Here’s why we did it.” Part of the answer is because that’s what it seemed to want to be.
I like the idea of filmmaking as an excavation process.
That’s what it feels like to me, anyway.
There is currently a career retrospective of your work running at the Cinémathèque Française. How was it to dive into your past in that way?
The first film I made [Bottle Rocket], everything went to the studio, to their storage. And I went and I visited that storage to find some objects [from set], and I saw that things either weren’t properly stored or protected, or they’d been sold. Some of them were things I’d made, personally, with my own hands. I was very offended that this was how this had been handled, and I started just archiving things myself. First, I would just take them, and later I put it in my contracts that I’m going to look after the costumes and I’m going to be the one who takes these things and is responsible for them. I remember when we did The Life Aquatic, somebody came from the studio to Italy where we were filming to stop me. I took most of the stuff anyway, but the same thing happened — where there are objects in that movie that they took back and that were lost or sold. In doing the process of preparing this exhibition, we had to track down some things that they gave away, or they sold or they traded. But the process of putting together the exhibition was totally fine because it wasn’t me. I kept the stuff and provided it, but a group of other people, including a designer who’s a family friend who’s worked on other exhibitions for us, Abe Rogers, were really in charge.
Still from HE PHOENICIAN SCHEME
Courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features
You said a really interesting thing in an interview when talking about the filmmakers of ’70s cinema: “People are sort of obligated to compete with themselves and everything they do is compared to their earlier work.” As you continue filmmaking, do you feel this about yourself?
Things that connect my movies to each other, which is whatever system I’ve developed and my own visual handwriting, let’s say, the surface has become the thing people sometimes focus on. You can tell it’s me, I totally understand and acknowledge that. There’s no question. But, for me, each one is a different story, a different set of characters, and it’s a whole undertaking. To me, what the movie is is the new thing. I feel like so often people seem surprised that my movies are clearly mine. But I am me, I’m not like me. So, for me, the only thing I want is for people to look at the movie for what it is, not for what it’s like. Not for how it’s done, but what it is, in and of itself. And on that note, I would say, if you can see it twice, it’s always better. (Laughs.) I feel like my movies can be kind of dense, but I make a movie that’s, usually, not that long. I try to make a movie that’s efficient. My whole way of making movies is about clarity and about communicating quickly, and that’s what makes my movies like each other, in a way. Sometimes I feel like the best way to appreciate one of my movies is to have already seen it and to know what it’s going to be. “What is this?” Now, I know and now let me see it again. So, anyway, if you don’t like it the first time, just try to see it again.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
This story appeared in the May 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
