One To Watch: Antonia Desplat On Her Memorable Experience On ‘The Phoenician Scheme' Set: 'It Never Gets Normal Because Wes Is A Genius'

Yahoo

20-05-2025

Over coffee in Soho, Antonia Desplat is describing her journey to Wes Anderson's set for The Phoenician Scheme — the espionage drama that marks his fourth picture to compete for the Palme d'Or.
Desplat was working on French TV drama Made in France when the email arrived: 'Wes wants to know if you want to come to Potsdam next week to play one of Benicio del Toro's dead wives.'
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One year before being beckoned to Germany by Anderson, Desplat had played the female lead in Johnny Depp's Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness, opening in June, which chronicles Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani's rampage through pre-World War I Paris. Desplat plays Modigliani's lover, the formidable writer and poet Beatrice Hastings.
In response to that email request, Desplat says, 'I literally just jumped on a plane, went to Potsdam, then next to Berlin, and had two days on set with these geniuses. I had dinner with Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Mia Threapleton and I was just like, 'What?' I mean, it never gets normal because Wes is a genius. So, seeing him at work is incredible.'
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As Desplat points out, 'Everybody wants to be in a Wes Anderson.' She herself is there as 'a glorified extra', she says. 'I don't even have a line, but I'm just happy to be there. And I think Charlotte Gainsbourg has one line.'
One of Anderson's signatures is his precision. 'Your costumes are magnificent,' Desplat says. 'Milena Canonero, the costume designer, she makes every single costume by hand, even for one frame. It's unbelievable; every little detail. And it's wonderful just to be part of it.'
Breathlessly, she reels off a few more of the cast: Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Cera, Richard Ayoade, Riz Ahmed, Hope Davis, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Watkins and Alex Jennings. 'There's 30-plus ridiculously talented, famous actors on this cast, minimum. It's nuts,' she says. Desplat did her scenes with Del Toro, Gainsbourg and Threapleton.
Murray was hanging about too. 'I was having breakfast, and I was done, and he came to my table. He was like, 'Hi, good morning,' and he just started taking my plate away! He crumbed my table and just walked off. And I was like, 'What the f*ck just happened?'' she says, laughing.
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She already knew some of Anderson's crew, including Sanjay Sami, a grip who worked on the Apple TV+ drama Shantaram, for which she spent four months in India. She describes the experience on Anderson's set as feeling 'like a family'.
'Family' is the key word here. Her father is the composer Alexandre Desplat, who won Oscars for Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water and for Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. The Phoenician Scheme marks the sixth film Desplat pére has scored for the director.
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'I've known Wes since I'm a little girl, all the way back to The Fantastic Mr. Fox,' Desplat says. 'My dad used to have his studio in our house so the directors would come and listen.'
Desplat doesn't for a minute feel sorry for herself but, when pushed, will admit to having had 'quite a hard time with being the daughter of someone,' but nowadays, 'with the nepo baby thing,' she feels 'I've actually come to peace with it, whereas when I was younger, particularly in France, there's such a thing with the daughter of and son of. I think I came here [to the U.K.] to really be my own person.'
Desplat studied acting and contemporary theater at the East 15 school in Essex, and at The Drama Centre, where she startled passersby in a park while practicing writhing around like a lizard, then afterward went to her Shakespeare class caked in mud. 'It's so very much about the craft and where you've trained and not who you know, and by doing that I created my own thing,' she says.
After Depp saw her audition tape for Modi, he was struck by her perfect British accent, and by the fact that she was smoking a 'brown rollie' — a hand-rolled cigarette with liquorice paper — a passion both share. Depp met her on Zoom to tell her she had the part.
Now she's more comfortable with the idea of doing a film where her father is also working on the score. 'That's fine,' she says, 'I think my work speaks for itself.'
And then she's off, riding her Lime electric bike to her next adventure.
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