CANNES, France (AP) — When Michael Cera was announced as joining the cast of a Wes Anderson movie for the first time, the prevailing response was: Hadn’t he already been in a Wes Anderson movie?
So seemingly aligned in sensibility and style are Cera and Anderson that you could easily imagine a whole fake filmography. It is, for a slightly more corduroyed corner of the movie world, an actor-director pairing as destined as Scorsese and De Niro — even if “The Phoenician Scheme” is (checks notes one last time) their first movie together.
“I would remember,” Cera deadpans. “I would never have passed up the opportunity.”
“The Phoenician Scheme,” which Focus Features releases Friday in theaters, stars Benicio del Toro as the international tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda, who after a lifetime of swindling and exploiting has decided to make his daughter, a novitiate named Liesl (Mia Threapleton), the heir to his estate.
Cera plays Liesl’s Norwegian tutor Bjørn Lund. And because of the strong leading performances, you couldn’t quite say Cera steals the show, he’s certainly one of the very best things about “The Phoenician Scheme” — and that’s something for a movie that includes Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston playing a game of HORSE. Bjørn is an entomologist, which means Cera spends a sizable portion of the movie in a bow tie with an insect gently poised on his finger.
“He is sort of a bug, himself,” Cera, speaking in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival shortly before the premiere of “The Phoenician Scheme,” says with a wry smile. “And he sheds his skin and becomes his truth self.”
If Cera’s role in “The Phoenician Scheme” feels like a long time coming, it is. He and Anderson first met more than 15 years ago. Cera, 36, was then coming off his early breakthroughs in “Arrested Development,” “Superbad” and “Juno.” A comic wunderkind from Ontario who stood out even among the “Arrested Development” cast as a teenager, Cera had caught Anderson’s attention.
“It was something arranged by an agent in New York and we went to a kind of cocktail party,” Anderson recalls by phone. “We were with Harvey Keitel, too. So it was me and Harvey and Michael Cera — a totally unexpected combination. But I loved him. For years I’ve kind of felt like: Why haven’t we already done something together?”
For Cera, the meeting was even more memorable.
“I remember being very excited to meet him,” Cera says. “I remember him being very disarming. Obviously, he was like a luminary inspiration. He has had a huge impact on my general sense of taste. I discovered his movies when I was a teenager and watched them over and over.”
‘It seemed like it had already happened’
They nearly did come together on a movie before “The Phoenician Scheme.” Anderson had a small role for Cera in “Asteroid City,” but when its production schedule got pushed, Cera had to drop out because of the coming due date for his first son with his wife Nadine.
“I was kind of worried that I blew it,” says Cera, “that I missed the chance to sneak in.”
But even though Anderson and Cera didn’t work together until “The Phoenician Scheme,” they developed a relationship. Cera, who aspires to write and direct his own films, would send Anderson scripts for feedback. “We became friends,” says Cera.
“In the case of this movie, it was everything short of written for him,” Anderson says. “As soon as we had the idea of the character, he was the guy who (cowriter Roman Coppola) and I started talking about. I think we talked to him about it before there was a script or anything.”
“It seemed like it had already happened,” adds Anderson. “And it was a very good fit, a natural thing.”
Adjusting to Anderson’s ways
Cera quickly adapted to Anderson’s unique style of moviemaking, in which the cast collectively stay at a hotel, begin the morning in makeup together and remain on set without trailers to retreat to. “At first, you’re kind of exhausted,” says Cera. “At the end of the first day, you go: OK, I need to eat a bigger breakfast.” As the production went along, Cera often sat right next to Anderson to watch him work.
One very notable characteristic of Bjørn is a Norwegian accent. If there’s anything more fitting than Michael Cera being a Wes Anderson movie, it might be Michael Cera doing a Norwegian accent in a Wes Anderson movie. It’s also a bit that, in “The Phoenician Scheme,” has a touch of spoiler to it. Cera calls it “sort of a jaunty, playful representation of an accent, not purporting to be a home run.”
“When I brought up the accent to Wes, I said, ‘How should we go about this accent?’” Cera say. “He was kind of caught of guard. I think he hears the movie in his head and maybe hadn’t figured that in. It was something Wes had to compute.”
As Anderson describes it, Cera was determined. “I, at a certain point, was a little reluctant, like, I don’t know if we need it,” says Anderson. “He was like: ‘No, let me show you what I’m going to do.’”
A determination in absurdism has long marked Cera’s best performances. Though a private person who has resisted all urges to get a smartphone, Cera is remarkably fearless when it comes to the most awkward moments. It’s a seriousness of purpose that, whether singing “These Eyes” in “Superbad” or waving hello as Allen in “Barbie,” that’s made Cera a favorite of successive generations. Even in a billion-dollar blockbuster, Cera can be unassumingly hilarious.
“I feel like most people don’t know I’m in that movie. I mean, not a in a bad way. It was great for my personal disposition to get to be part of it,” Cera says. “I can say I’m in it, but I can walk around. I’m nowhere near the center of the movie. I’m not on the poster, put it that way. (Laughs) My nephew went and saw the movie with my sister. Afterwards he was like, ‘I thought Uncle Michael was going to be in this movie.’ It was a nice lane for me.”
Cera’s transition to behind the camera
Just before the premiere of “The Phoenician Scheme” in Cannes, it was announced that Cera, after writing a handful of scripts including an adaptation of Charles Portis’ “Masters of Atlantis,” will make his directorial debut with “Love Is Not the Answer,” a film he wrote that has a cast including Pamela Anderson and Steve Coogan.
“You have a little more control over your destiny if you try to create something, even though it’s hard to get it off the ground,” Cera says. “But it’s better than sitting around. You’re like a hired contractor as an actor, and it’s a great thing about it. But I think a lot of actors end up becoming frustrated directors because of how many opinions you have about the proceedings.”
It may have taken many years for Cera and Anderson to finally team up, but it could have come at the right time, just as Cera is — ahem — shedding a skin. In any case, theirs remains an ongoing collaboration. Anderson tapped Cera for an ad they recently shot for Mont Blanc. Does that mean he’s officially part of the troupe?
“That’s up to him,” says Cera. “I would never say no.”
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