Michael Maggart spends most days running the online tutoring company he founded after a decade working as a math teacher. But every now and then, his high school friend Wes Anderson, the director, contacts him out of the blue, summons him to a film set and sends him to wardrobe.
There’s Maggart playing a security guard in “The Phoenician Scheme,” Anderson’s latest film, which was released in May. Previously, he played a detective in Anderson’s 2023 film, “Asteroid City,” and a hotel concierge in Anderson’s second feature film, “Rushmore” (1998). His credits also include a series of AT&T commercials that Anderson directed, and Anderson’s 2023 short film, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.”
Maggart, 55, who splits his time between Austin, Texas, and New York City, has no formal training or interest in pursuing a career in acting. He has no other acting credits and would never have appeared in movies at all if not for an old friend who happens to be a celebrated film director — one who likes him enough to put him on camera. For Maggart, this has meant hobnobbing, dining and running lines with A-list actors like Tom Hanks, Bill Murray and Benicio Del Toro.
“I do feel a little guilty sometimes because, for example, the scene in ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ that I have is three lines,” he said. “And I’m sure that it would be quite a moment for the career of a young actor or any actor to get those three lines instead of me. But I only think of that briefly and then I just kind of enjoy it.”
Maggart is not certain why Anderson keeps thinking of him for bit parts in his films. Anderson, 56, who did not respond to an interview request, described his old friend as a “crucial collaborator” in a video message for an event in Houston celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Rushmore.”
It may be about comfort for Anderson, who has collaborated with actors like Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Frances McDormand repeatedly over his career.
“He likes bringing back some of the same people for different movies,” Maggart said. “There’s a lot of camaraderie on the set. Everyone’s having dinner together.”
Maggart and Anderson met at St. John’s School in Houston, which was later used as a shooting location for “Rushmore.” There were about 100 people in their class. When they were seniors, Maggart’s independent study project was to write and perform a play. Anderson was the stage manager.
“That’s the last time I was telling Wes what to do,” Maggart said.
After graduating from Davidson College, Maggart returned to St. John’s School to teach math. He and Anderson remained in touch and Anderson showed him early drafts of the “Rushmore” script. Anderson decided to shoot much of the film at their alma mater, and Maggart acted as a sort of liaison between Anderson and the school, helping to find students to play parts. The auditions were held in Maggart’s classroom. The film’s opening scene was shot there, too.
Anderson asked Maggart to audition for the role of a concierge in the film. Maggart was caught off guard: He had acted in plays and musicals in high school, but he hadn’t expressed interest in being in the movie.
The audition went well enough that Anderson put him in the film, in a scene with Murray that was shot in the lobby of what was then the Warwick Hotel in Houston. Anderson was not yet a big enough deal as a director to have the lobby shut down for the shoot, so an actual concierge worked nearby as the scene was filmed.
Maggart recalled that Murray, who plays the wealthy industrialist Herman Blume, arrived not knowing his lines and that he preferred an improvisational style, which put Maggart at ease. Halfway through the shoot, two Catholic priests arrived to check into the hotel. Murray, without warning, approached them for a chat.
“With Bill, it’s always a little out of control, but back then Wes was not going to stop Bill from going and talking to the priests,” Maggart said. “So we just kind of took a little break and then Bill wandered back after a little while.”
The scene, in which Maggart asks Herman how long he is staying at the hotel, took 16 takes. Every couple of months, Maggart said, he receives a royalty check for a few dollars for his work on “Rushmore.”
In 2007, almost a decade after “Rushmore,” Maggart got another call from Anderson. Would he be up for an AT&T commercial? Anderson needed six actors for six ads — each would be the lead of one spot and appear in the background in the five others. After an audition, Maggart didn’t hear back for four days. He thought he had blown it. Then Anderson rang with instructions.
“Go to Don’s Western Wear, get a suede jacket and bring the receipts to Prague,” Maggart recalled Anderson telling him. “I was like, ‘I guess I got the part.’”
Anderson cast Maggart as a businessman, perhaps, Maggart theorizes, because he was starting his own business. Days later, Maggart was filming in Prague. (Maggart appeared in the other spots in roles that included a cowboy, a police officer and a youth soccer referee.)
For “Asteroid City,” Anderson flew Maggart to Spain to play a detective — this time with no audition — alongside another detective portrayed by Fisher Stevens. Maggart suggested he was cast mostly because he is taller than Stevens.
Maggart stayed in Spain for seven weeks, having nightly dinners with the cast, including Hanks, Scarlett Johansson and Jeff Goldblum. After recommending a menu item that Hanks liked, Maggart recalled Hanks telling him, “I’d follow you to hell.” In another dinnertime conversation, Maggart was chatting with Goldblum about struggling with a calf strain. Goldblum recalled that he once had a hamstring issue during a shoot that caused a stoppage in filming.
“He’s like, ‘Well, I was running from these dinosaurs,’” Maggart said. (The film was “Jurassic Park.”)
Maggart is not the only childhood friend Anderson has cast in his films.
Dr. Sanjay Mathew, a professor of psychiatry at the Baylor College of Medicine, met Anderson in the fourth grade at St. Francis Episcopal Day School in Houston and later was among a group of high school friends that included Maggart.
Anderson, Mathew said, “was always sort of creative, very bright, and always reading and introducing folks to things that none of us had heard of, like The New Yorker.”
Mathew was the captain of the St. John’s tennis team, which led to a role in “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001) as a tennis player named Sanjay Gandhi. He had to grow a pencil-thin mustache to play the part, for which he delivered one line.
Years later, Anderson flew Mathew to India to be an extra in “The Darjeeling Limited” (2007). Mathew, who was an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York at the time, had never flown business class before. He surmised that Anderson irritated the producers by bringing him over — an expensive proposition.
“It was little bit of an oddity that an extra would be flown over from New York to do this nonspeaking role,” Mathew said.
Maggart’s casting in “The Phoenician Scheme” also came unexpectedly. He received a request a couple of weeks before shooting began in Germany. At first, Anderson wanted to cast Maggart to play someone who — spoiler alert — gets blown up in the opening scene. Instead, Maggart was recast as a security officer with three lines in a scene with Del Toro, Michael Cera and Mia Threapleton. It was the first time that Maggart had been a centerpiece of a scene.
“You’re not just reciting lines,” he said. “There’s things going on in the background. Everybody has a small part to play. So you really feel like you’re part of this team making a scene.”
It took 20 takes, and he stumbled through a few of them.
“If you’re someone like me, then your part is not as challenging,” Maggart said. “You better do it right all 20 times.”
He recalled apologizing to Del Toro for flubbing his lines.
“We all do it,” he said Del Toro told him, giving Maggart a fist bump.
Despite these rewarding on-set experiences, Maggart insists he doesn’t want to pursue acting further.
“I have this other business,” he said. “It’s kind of fun not to have to audition.”
Sopan Deb is a Times reporter covering breaking news and culture.
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