If you don’t know the name Vicky Krieps, then start getting ready to never forget it. The 34-year-old Luxembourgian actress gives one of the year’s breakthrough performances in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread,” in which she stars opposite Daniel Day-Lewis and Lesley Manville. Krieps joined her director and co-stars after the film’s first New York City screening on November 26, where she revealed quite the shocking audition story.
Krieps was given a script by her manager which featured a short monologue written by Anderson, although the actress admits she didn’t read the email from her manager properly and so she missed the fact that she would be sending in an audition tape to the director of “Boogie Nights,” “The Master,” and “There Will Be Blood.” She spent four days procrastinating the audition before finally making a tape of herself and sending it in.
Anderson ended up loving Krieps’ audition and requested a phone interview, to which the actress told her manager, “Yeah, okay.” Her agent then had to inform her that it was the one and only Paul Thomas Anderson who was interested in casting her.
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“When I made the tape I thought it was for a student film,” Krieps said. Anderson quickly snapped back, “The writing was that good.”
Krieps eventually landed the part of Alma, the strong-willed young waitress who becomes the object of desire and the muse of Day-Lewis’ fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock. Anderson and Day-Lewis collaborated together on much of the film’s development, but Krieps didn’t even realize she’d be sharing much of the film with the three-time Oscar winner until three weeks after she was cast.
“Phantom Thread” marks Krieps’ first major English-language release. She’s been acting in German and Belgian film productions since 2008. Anderson said the actress first came on his radar after he saw her lead performance in the 2014 comedy-drama “The Chambermaid Lynn,” for which she won the German Film Critics Award for Best Actress.
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