There’s divine casting, and then there’s divine casting.

In the case of Bill Murray, who plays the Almighty himself in The Phoenician Scheme, it’s the latter. “I don’t know that we chose Bill to play God,” writer-director Wes Anderson tells Entertainment Weekly, pausing to gleefully add, “possibly God did.”

Jokes aside, Anderson says the casting was a match made in heaven. “What I will say is when Bill walked onto the set in his robes and his beard, he could barely move. And yet he seemed very comfortable, and he occupied his throne in a relaxed manner. It just didn’t seem that he was faking it. We knew very quickly he was going to be an informal God who is creating without making a show of it.”

The film follows Benicio del Toro’s wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda, who appoints his only daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a nun, as sole heir to his estate. As Liesl, Korda, and his tutor, kooky bug lover Bjorn (Michael Cera), embark together on a new enterprise, they come up against several bonkers assassination attempts, presumably from Korda’s many enemies. Each time, Korda enters a sort of liminal space —a black and white heaven —where he experiences moments of personal growth and introspection. Here, he encounters Murray’s God… among other things.

“I think some of the most important changes in Benicio’s character Zsa-zsa are taking place during these sort of visions that he’s having as he repeatedly dies, or keeps getting assassinated,” Anderson explains.

To create this heaven — a first for an Anderson joint — he knew he wanted it all to be real. “We wanted it to all exist in front of the camera, to not use computer visual effects, to have it all be there,” he says, adding, “and so we made something kind of like a 360-degree stage, a set of clouds painted, sculpted, and we created a sort of Biblical troupe for these scenes.” (Other members credited in this troupe include F. Murray Abraham, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Willem Dafoe.) 

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“I think it’s sort of the way biblical settings and characters were portrayed during the Renaissance, I think that’s really what we’ve done,” Anderson adds. “I mean, we’re so familiar with the Renaissance representation of stories from the Bible, and ours is the black and white version of that.”

The Phoenician Scheme, which was co-written with frequent Anderson collaborator Roman Coppola, also stars Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, and Hope Davis. The film is now playing in theaters.

Andrea Merriman’s world came to a stop in 2009. 

Her ex-husband, Shawn Merriman, told her that he was living a double life, admitting he had been running a $20 million Ponzi scheme for over a decade.

Shawn, the head of a successful investment company and a bishop at their church, turned himself in to federal agents and was imprisoned for fraud soon after.

The government quickly seized and repossessed all of their assets, most of which were purchased with investors’ money. Shawn, dubbed the “Mormon Madoff,” was sentenced to 12 years behind bars.

Meanwhile, Andrea was left nearly penniless to care for their four children, the youngest of whom was 3 at the time, and had to quickly figure out how the rest of her life would go.

Andrea, 58, talks to PEOPLE exclusively about why she’s sharing her story now and how she’s healed over the past 16 years.

“I remember thinking that, at the time, ‘I’m humiliated to be married to a criminal. I’m humiliated getting divorced,'” she shares. “I’m humiliated to go from riches to rags, I’m humiliated, but to do it in the public eye compounded it and multiplied.” 

Along with the humiliation, Andrea was also dealing with a “degree of guilt” knowing the man she loved had scammed people out of millions.

“There was a lot of guilt around what if I hadn’t been such a peacemaker, what if I hadn’t been such a kind and supportive wife, what if I hadn’t been so trusting,” she says.

“Would it have been possible for him to do it so long and then guilt all the people who probably trusted him because of the kind of life I lived and the kind of person I was? Yeah, but some of it has been because he was a criminal and I didn’t know it.”

After her husband’s conviction stripped them of everything, Andrea moved to Utah with her four children for a fresh start.

Now, she’s turning to TikTok to share her story of rebirth. Her first video, detailing the first 24 hours after her life was turned upside down, went viral, amassing over 10 million views.

She’s gained over 70,000 followers, with users eager to learn how she rebuilt her life. 

Andrea says she always knew she wanted to do something with her story. She was talking to a group of 20-somethings when one of them suggested she start a TikTok account.

“When it happened to me, I felt like I was alone in the world, and there was no one who lived my experience,” she explains. “I started my blog in 2010 to help at least one person by sharing my story and getting my name out there so they knew who to call or email if they needed advice.”

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“That was why I went to TikTok,” she continues. “There’s a whole new audience, a new generation. We need messages of hope and encouragement, and we need people to model how to survive and conquer adversity.”

She shares that her kids were a primary driving force in her recovery and journey, motivating her to forgive and build trust again. 

“Forgiveness has come with therapy. Faith and religion have helped me,” she says. “Being a parent as well, because, as a parent, you cannot require from your kids what you’re not willing to do yourself.”

“When we discovered what happened, my kids looked at me with tears and said, ‘What has happened?'” she recalls. “I said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do, but the one thing I know we’re going to do is we’re going to forgive, not for him, but for us.’ ”

Despite everything she’s been through, Andrea still “believes in trust” and that “people are good and kind.”

“Trust is a choice,” she says. “Moving forward is a choice. Resilience… it’s a skill, but it’s a choice. We have more choices than we realize, but when we acknowledge that, we take control of our agency and choose to act rather than be acted upon.”

Years after the initial shock and heartbreak, Andrea remarried, and her family is doing well. Her youngest recently graduated from high school, and her three oldest kids all graduated from college and “are building careers.”

“They’ve grown up and become adults. They’re good, kind, hard-working, and have empathy,” she tells PEOPLE.

“The 16 years of our recovery have been a lesson, a demonstration in resilience and trying new things,” she adds.

Andrea believes “we each have a life here” and “a mission to fulfill.”

“Every one of us has the gifts we need to succeed. We must find them and our hard times help us find them,” she shares.

“I dug deep and found them,” she adds. “I got a lot of help along the way from kind people, and now I’m at the point where I can pay it back and share what I’ve learned and help others, which is a great place to be in.”

For those who find themselves in a similar situation, Andrea advises them to “focus on something other than your misery in the middle of your horror.” 

“I didn’t spend a day in bed. I don’t know how, but I was afraid that if I did, I might never get out of bed again,” she says. “I didn’t let myself indulge in hatred of my ex-husband because I was afraid I would never be able to pull myself out if I did.” 

She continues, telling those who need it to “focus on something other than your misery, have gratitude, [and try] to accomplish something every day.”

“Being a parent, focusing on my kids helped me,” she says. “My worst nightmare in life was to be financially responsible for someone other than myself, and in the end, that’s what I got, and I learned I could do it.”

“I survived, which is a huge thing I learned about myself because I didn’t even realize I would be capable of that. We were poor, but we survived.”

This article contains spoilers for The Phoenician Scheme.

Will the real Agent Karlsen please stand up?

One of the biggest surprises in writer-director Wes Anderson’s newest film, The Phoenician Scheme, revolves around Michael Cera’s character, Bjorn. First introduced as a kooky Norwegian bug enthusiast, tutor, and sort of assistant to Benicio del Toro’s business tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda, Bjorn’s true identity is later revealed in a third-act twist — he’s really Agent Karlsen of the Covert North American Special Services. His mission is to infiltrate (but not sabotage, no, never sabotage!) Zsa-zsa’s operation. Like his alter ego, though, he really does have an affinity for insects and Zsa-zsa’s daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton).

“I guess that the turn to Agent Karlsen was sort of more or less informed by the front half of the character being Bjorn, because it just had to be a big contrast created,” he tells Entertainment Weekly. “So creating Bjorn was the biggest job, and it’s weird because he is, I mean, the truth of the character is that he’s Agent Karlsen pretending to be this Professor Bjorn. But it actually feels more to me like Bjorn is the real guy.”

So much so that when Anderson would refer to Cera as Karlsen on set, he didn’t even respond.

“When we were shooting, Wes would often, if he’s back behind his monitor somewhere and he had to call out to us to readjust us or something in the frame, he would say, ‘Bjorn, go to the left a little.’ And I would always respond to that,” Cera says. “And then when I was doing scenes as Agent Karlsen, he would say, ‘Agent Karlsen, move over.’ And I wouldn’t hear him addressing me, and so he would be not able to get my attention, and then he would go, ‘Bjorn!’ Then I would hear him.”

Cera wasn’t even aware he was doing this until Anderson pointed it out to him later on.

“He went, ‘You only respond when I call you Bjorn,'” he recalls. “I didn’t even realize it, but I just got so used to that, I guess. So, that was funny.”

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Cera has a theory about why this was the case. The actor worked closely with his director to perfect the faux Norwegian accent, perfectly coiffed hair, and over-prescribed glasses that make up Bjorn, before figuring out those same elements for Karlsen. As a result, much of the latter was informed by the former.

“[Crafting Bjorn] felt like the bigger piece in a way. There was more to build there because there’s a whole voice — and Agent Karlsen has a voice too — but Bjorn had the accent, which just took a lot of preparation work, and creating the look for Bjorn was where our focus was,” Cera explains. “And then, I didn’t even get [to create Karlsen’s] hair. We had to do Bjorn’s hair first, even the days when I would just be Agent Karlsen, we’d kind of do the hair as Bjorn first and then change it.”

Now that the film, which also stars Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, and Scarlett Johansson, is out in the world, Cera is able to talk about all facets of his dual role.

“I think the movie is not that secretive, where it’s like, it’s not a precious secret, but I think the movie unfolds and reveals itself in really a fun way,” he says. “I think it’s a fun experience as a viewer, I hope.”