Cera and Anderson were destined to make a movie together

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?

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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 on Friday in theatres, 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.