This is a very big year for Benicio Del Toro and, trust, Benicio Del Toro has had a lot of big years. An Oscar winner for 2000’s “Traffic,” the Puerto Rican-born actor has worked with filmmakers such as Peter Weir, Terry Gilliam, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Sofia Coppola, Denis Villeneuve, and Rian Johnson, among others, over a remarkable 30+ year career. 2025 finds him reuniting not just with Wes Anderson, with whom he first collaborated on the now underrated “The French Dispatch,” but his “Inherent Vice” helmer, Paul Thomas Anderson, as well. As Del Toro remarked during a quick catch-up this week, “This is the Anderson year for me.”
First up is Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenican Scheme,“ which earned positive reviews out of Cannes earlier this month. Set in 1950, Del Toro plays industrialist and corporate schemer Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, a man who somehow keeps surviving one assassination attempt after another and too many plane crashes to count. As he attempts to facilitate one more financial “scheme” in the fictional nation of Phoenicia, he is also intent on making amends with his one daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who has joined a convent. The movie ultimately is about the detrimental aspects of a material existence and forgiveness, with some textbook Wes Anderson levity thrown in for good measure. And, yes, more incredible production design from Adam Stockhausen.
Del Toro will follow that up with Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which debuts in September. But if you want to find out how deep Del Toro is in the action for that highly anticipated Leonardo DiCaprio thriller, you’re going to have to read below.
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The Playlist: You had already worked with Wes on “The French Dispatch.” How did he let you know that he was writing a leading role for you in a movie not that far down the road?
I would say by the drop. Little by little. Never said, “I’m writing you a lead for my next movie and you’re going to be in every scene.” He never said that, and I’m glad he didn’t because I’d still be shaking. He just sent me the first 20 pages, then he sent me another 20 pages, and little by little, I just realized, “Oh my God,” I got that fear. But it’s also motivation to get in gear, so to speak.
I cannot remember the last time I heard an actor say that the director sent them the first 20 pages of a script, let alone Wes Anderson. That’s rare, right?
That doesn’t happen unless you’re producing, but that’s not the case here. It is rare. And I tell you, when I got the first 20 pages, because I had done “The French Dispatch” before, which was just one story, I felt maybe this was going to be a movie like that, like an anthology movie in a way. But then he sent the next 20 pages, and I’m still in it, and then the next 20, and I’m going, “Uh oh, still in it.” And there’s a lot of talking and a lot of homework that I’m going to have to do. But you get motivated. You get very motivated.
When you work with a director like Wes, is he someone who talks about the themes he wants the movie to convey, or does he sort of leave it to you to sort of work it out on your own?
He actually, it’s both, but it is triple. I will put it this way. He will talk about it and then he will put it on the page, but then it might be different than what he said before, and it won’t be on the page. I mean, a lot of this character is on the page. For example, usually when I get a script, I might not have a backstory of my character, so I have to come up with some sort of backstory, right? In “The Phoenician Scheme,” the backstory of my character it’s right there on the page, actually. There’s not only my backstory, but also my daughter’s backstory and Bjorn’s, the tutor’s backstory; it’s on the page where we talk it out, and the audience will hear our backstory in a way. It’s so layered, Wes’ script, that a lot of it comes from there, and then he talks about it, and then he expects you, the actor to bring in your own thing too, whatever it is that you do to bring the character to life, which is what I’ve been doing for 30 some years. He expects you to do that. He’s not a dictator. He could appear that he’s a dictator because it’s so, so layered, but he expects you to bring yourself to it, whatever it is, your questions, your ideas. And he might take an idea.
When you were contemplating Korda, was there anything that you wanted to incorporate that you brought up to him?
Well, there’s different things. I’ll give you an example. I was doing this scene in which the first time I meet my daughter, Liesl played by Mia Threapleton, and I’m sitting there in this big room and I am telling her that I want her to be my sole heir, and I’m giving her information, private information that she and I should know, and she’s talking about stuff that is also private. And then suddenly in that scene, it’s a big room, but in one of the corners of the room, there is this tutor, Bjorn, played by Michael Cera. And I remember telling Wes, “I feel very uncomfortable giving all this information to my daughter about my banking and my treasures in front of a stranger.” And then Wes took my note, and he came back and he said, “Well, how about we polygraph him?” And I said, “Well, O.K.” And then he came up with the idea of this pocket-sized polygraph that obviously didn’t exist back in the 50s, and he called it the lie detector. And then it became a prop that was used several times in the film.
For this project specifically, now that you’ve seen it all, what are you most happy about when you finally, I don’t know if you saw it before Cannes or not, but after going through the process, what are you most happy about with this movie?
I think I’m most happy with this movie, the emotional arc of the film. I think that it’s a maybe hopeful ending because when you read it, you go, well, maybe is that going to work? Is the emotional art going to be clear? And the only way that’s something that you feel, you don’t hear it. You don’t see it. You have to feel it. And personally, I felt it. I felt that emotional arc. That was something that Wes and I were hoping that we could catch in the film. And I feel that it’s there to an extent that we achieved that. Now, I might be biased, but then again, you’re only talking to me right now.
Right, exactly. There is a fight scene with you and Benedict Cumberbatch that is unlike anything Wes has shot in forever. At least that I can remember. It’s almost handheld in a way. Can you talk about shooting that sequence?
Yeah, it was a fight scene in a very “Phoenician Scheme” way. And listen, when you do something like there were stunt doubles and they did a little bit, but a lot of it was done by Benedict Cumberbatch and myself. And we just looked at each other, and I said, “Hey man, I trust you. You’re not going to give me a black eye, so let’s go.” And we had a lot of fun doing it. And I think it’s like, it’s very funny. I also think that it’s funny to see my character, perhaps for the first time, he’s not interested in winning the fight. He wants to avoid it at all costs. So that was kind of interesting.
It is. Speaking of fights and battles, not only do you have a Wes Anderson movie on your plate, but you’re reuniting with Paul Thomas Anderson for “One Battle After Another.” I was lucky enough to see an extended look at the film at CinemaCon that isn’t been public yet. It was a long, dramatic scene with you and Leo in it. The movie seems to promise, like its title suggests, one battle after another, but does your character get involved in the action?
I don’t think so. I’m in the movie. I have a solid several sequences with Leo, but it’s almost like I help Leo get from point A or point D to point G, and through there, you go into this other world that perhaps is more my character’s world, and Leo [DiCaprio] has to experience that. And then the story goes back to the rest of the picture. I don’t know if I’m explaining it in the right way, but that’s kind of how it is.
Well, considering what I saw, it works for me.
I saw one version of the movie. I know that Paul has worked on it and changed some stuff, so it’d be interesting for me to see it again soon. But I’ve been so busy with the other Anderson, I’m kind of like, yeah, it’s quite exciting to be in these, this is the Anderson year for me.
“The Phoenician Scheme” opens in limited release on Friday. It expands nationwide on June 6.
