Benicio Del Toro: Imagination runs amok in 'Phoenician Scheme'

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1 of 5 | Benicio Del Toro attends the photo call for "The Phoenician Scheme" at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19. Photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo
NEW YORK, June 6 (UPI) -- Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro says writer-director Wes Anderson meticulously plans every scene in his movies, but still welcomes input from his cast.
"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," Del Toro, 58, said in a recent virtual press conference to promote his second collaboration with Anderson, The Phoenician Scheme, in theaters nationwide on Friday.
"You have all this dialogue," Del Toro said, "but you can still bring a piece of yourself into it. And there's room for the imagination, too, to run amok. And you've got to have fun. Even if you're drowning, you've got to have fun."
Co-starring Scarlett Johannson, Michael Cera, Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray and Tom Hanks, the espionage comedy is set in 1950 and follows Zsa-zsa Korda (Del Toro), an industrialist and arms dealer who wants to bring his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) -- a Catholic nun -- into his dangerous, top-secret business.
It's Wes Anderson's world, we're just scheming in it. pic.twitter.com/bOUE0GKmFL— Focus Features (@FocusFeatures) June 6, 2025
"It's layered. It's full of contradictions, which makes it really yummy for an actor to try to bring to life," Del Toro said.
"There is an element of my character wanting a second chance at mending a broken relationship. And I think that in the process in order to achieve that, he has to change and he does change. And I like to think that people can change. Not everyone changes, but I think some people can, and for the better."
After previously working with Anderson on the 2021 hit The French Dispatch, Del Toro is used to the filmmaker's dense, quirky language.
But, this time around, he has a larger role and a lot more to say.
"There were a couple of moments where I went up to Wes and I said: 'Well, maybe we can take this dialogue out.' And, then, I went back to it and it wasn't as good," Del Toro recalled.
"I had to go up to him and go like, 'I think you need to put it back because we're passing information that I think you need.' But that's why I couldn't join these people [in the cast] every day for dinner. I had to go up into my room and talk to myself."
"You had a lot to say," Anderson agreed. "You took the time to absorb everything."
Del Toro said another contribution he made to the project concerned Michael Cera's character Professor Bjorn, the tutor of Zsa-zsa's nine sons, who has a habit of sticking around when sensitive information is being shared.
"I remember telling Wes, 'Well, I'm giving a lot of private information to my daughter and there is this stranger sitting right there. 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 secrecy,'" Del Toro said.
"Wes said to me, 'Well, we'll polygraph him.' And I went, 'Well, OK.' And, very quickly, he came up with this idea of a lie detector, which is a portable pocket polygraph," he added. "In 1950, it was probably the size of this building, but he made it into the pocket version."
Despite the heightened reality, Anderson said this is essentially a father-daughter tale.
"His whole business plan is really a mechanism for him to get back together with her," Anderson said of Zsa-zsa and Liesl.
"He's acting like he's making her his successor and, really, it's more about what's going to happen between the two of them right now," Anderson added. "The business plan almost becomes like a ritual for him to be reunited with his daughter. ... In that sense, his plan goes great."
Anderson first approached Del Toro about starring in this film after they wrapped up The French Dispatch.
"I had a sort of the idea of a Euro tycoon, somebody who would've been in a [Michelangelo] Antonioni movie or something, that visual," Anderson said.
"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."
Over the course of time, however, this fictional man with a plan in a suit started mixing with Anderson's father-in-law Fouad Malouf, who, the filmmaker described as "an engineer and a businessman and he had all these different projects and different places."
"He was a kind, warm person, but very intimidating," Anderson said. "He had all his business in these shoe-boxes. He walked [Anderson's wife] 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.
"And her reaction was what you say in the movie," Anderson turned to Threapleton, who immediately chimed in, "This is just crazy."
"So, yeah, it was a mixture of those two things," Anderson quipped. "Fouad and whatever the first thing I said was."