Mia Threapleton wanted to get her claws into 'Phoenician' nun role

UPI

08-07-2025

1 of 3 | Left to right, Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera and Mia Threapleton star in "The Phoenician Scheme." The movie is available on digital platforms Tuesday. Photo courtesy of Focus Features
NEW YORK, July 8 (UPI) -- The Buccaneers and I Am Ruth actress Mia Threapleton says she spent three months studying Catholicism and creating her own "murder dossier" after Wes Anderson hired her to play a knife-wielding nun for his espionage comedy, The Phoenician Scheme.
"That felt like a very good amount of time to just go and get my 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 [costume] fitting, and, of course, absorbing as much Catholicism that was there, and reading the Bible," Threapleton, the 24-year-old daughter of Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet, said during a recent virtual press conference.
"I did send [Anderson] my little to-do list of things that I was doing and he said: 'Yes, this all looks very, very good. So, carry on.'"
Threapleton recalled how she obsessively read her script through at least five times the first week she had it.
Are you very terribly pure? pic.twitter.com/BFu2u00lE8— The Phoenician Scheme (@phoenicianmovie) June 27, 2025
"Just because of my overwhelming excitedness and just wanting to absorb as much information as I possibly could," Threapleton said, adding she made copious notes like, "That's what that means," and then, "This is probably what subliminally is going on there."
Also during her three months of solitary preparation, she came up with props that would be useful to her character.
"You wanted me to make the dossier, my murder dossier," Threapleton reminded Anderson.
"That came out of many trials and errors, standing on countertops and taking photos of something that looked like a murder investigation on my kitchen floor," she the reporters.
Available for rent and purchase on digital platforms Tuesday, the film co-stars Benicio Del Toro, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend and Hope Davis.
It is set in 1950 and follows Zsa-zsa Korda (Del Toro), an industrialist and arms dealer who wants to bring his estranged daughter Liesl (Threapleton) into his dangerous, top-secret business.
Finally getting to work with Del Toro and Cera in person, on a studio set in Berlin, was nothing short of heaven for Threapleton.
"The thing that we worked on first was Scene 6, which is that big opening scene where we meet all of us, all together," the actress said, noting the trio got to know and trust each other through that, and over the course of many lunches and cups of coffee.
"It was kind of just having fun and, also, talking," she added.
Threapleton had some say into how Liesl looked.
For instance, she rejected the nurse's hat with which she was initially presented in favor of an improvised piece of headwear fashioned out of a linen table napkin.
"It was reaching the end of the day and we were trying to figure out how to make this work," the actress said.
"I looked over to the coffee table and there was a napkin from lunch that was not stained with anything. And, so, I said: 'Oh, my god! Does anybody have any hair pins?' And I quickly pinned this thing to my head. And Wes came over and does a sort of adjustment... and took a photo of it and then that's apparently what happened with the veil."