Mia Threapleton Reveals Mom Kate Winslet’s Guidance About Showbiz (Exclusive)

Mia Threapleton sat down with “Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi to dish on her breakout role in Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme.” 

She spoke about being cast in such a high-profile movie, saying, “This was the biggest thing that I've ever done in my career, and it's very small career… It felt like a really kind of quite big, scary moment.”

Threapleton didn’t know many people when she arrived on set in Germany and shared, “I remember walking in and feeling very sort of [like], ‘I'll go and eat my lunch on my own. I don't really know anybody. That's okay.’ It felt like the first day of sort of like high school.”

The feeling didn’t last long as the team welcomed her. Mia said, “I walked in downstairs… so many people down there it was all the lovely camera department and some of the grip team as well and they went, ‘Oh, my gosh, Mia! Oh, come and eat with us." 

The actress said, “From then on, I didn't feel like I was sort of lone-wolfing it. I felt like part of the pack it was lovely.”

Mia worked a lot with Michael Cera, and it was the first time they had met.

“I was aware of his body of work beforehand,” she said, adding with a laugh that she had to tell herself, “Don't think about that that line from ‘Superbad’!”

She also recalled the surreal and strange experience of premiering the movie at Cannes, saying, “I remember that was the first red carpet that I've ever done. That was also the first time I'd ever been to Cannes. That was the first time I'd done anything like that and so I was very nervous.”

Recalling the seven-minute standing ovation after the premiere, and the moment her face was up on the screen, she said, “Suddenly, the camera was on me and I sort of continued to clap and then I remember I looked up at the screen and then it kind of all sunk in and then everything felt really overwhelming.”

Threapleton went on to explain, “I was so aware that this may never work out and I had five backup plans and, like, three other potential work career lines that I thought, ‘Okay, I'd be happy if I got to do this. If this doesn't work, then I'll be fine.’ So, yeah, it was this very sort of strange, strange surreal moment.”

Plus, Mia is the daughter of Kate Winslet and director Jim Threapleton, and said her parents never tried to steer her away from showbiz.

“The only thing that was really impressed on me from any point was just that it's really hard work,” adding that her parents always kept work and family life separate.

She added, “It's sort of the equivalent of a lawyer taking their child into a courtroom, because it really is a place of focus and concentration. But it's all just been wonderfully supportive and they're very much like, ‘Yeah, keep doing it if it's making you happy, keep doing it.’”