Arthur Tressler

Arthur Tressler is the secondary antagonist in Now You See Me and later one of the two main antagonists of Now You See Me 2. He is portrayed by Michael Caine.

History
Arthur had a pet cat named Snuffles when he was young. He has an uncle named Cushman Armitage on his mother's side of his family. He is the owner of Tressler Insurance, the company responsible for not paying the claim for Lionel Shrike's death. He is married to some unknown person called Cuckoolala and is the father of Walter Mabry as well as six other sons.

Now You See Me
Arthur becomes the benefactor of a group of magicians called the Four Horsemen. He attends their show at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The Horsemen announce that they are going to rob a bank. They choose a volunteer randomly from the audience. They ask the volunteer where his bank is and invite him to join them on the stage. While this happens, Horseman J. Daniel Atlas tells Arthur to stand up so he can thank him for sponsoring the Horsemen. Arthur then sits down to watch the Horsemen's trick.

The volunteer, Étienne Forcier, reaches the stage. The Horsemen give him a teleportation helmet and have him sign his name on a card. They tell him that they will teleport him to his bank. A teleporter then appears on the stage and Étienne steps up onto it. The teleporter is activated and Étienne disappears.

Video cameras on Étienne's helmet allow the audience to see him from inside the bank vault. He states that he sees stacks of euros on a table in the middle of vault. Étienne is instructed to put the card he signed and his ticket stub from the show in the center of the money pile. He is then told to press a button on the side of his helmet. The button activates an air duct that vacuums up the entire pile of money. The stolen money is showered onto the crowd as the bank employees discover that their safe is empty.

Ex-magician Thaddeus Bradley reveals how the Four Horsemen did their trick. The money was stolen some time before the show and the bank vault was actually located beneath the stage. The volunteer was not chosen at random; the Horsemen only manipulated the audience into thinking so.

While traveling to the location of their next show, Daniel attempts to use mentalism to learn about Arthur's past. He guesses that Arthur was a tough kid with a bulldog named Ben and an uncle called Paul Thompson. Arthur tells him he is wrong and gives him the correct information.

Arthur finds Thaddeus while he is filming a video. Arthur tries to bribe Thaddeus to make him stop revealing how the Four Horsemen do their tricks. Thaddeus refuses, and Arthur threatens to ruin his career. Arthur's demonstration of the threat however has Thaddeus warning him instead to be careful as it may be Arthur who will be ruined.

Arthur attends the Horsemen's show in New Orleans. For the finale, the Horsemen invite him onstage. They empty his bank account and distribute it to the audience that comprises people whose insurance claims had been denied or reduced by his company. Chaos erupts as the audience discovers the money in their bank accounts. The Horsemen leave, and Arthur attempts to chase after them only to realize he is chained to the stage.

After the events in New Orleans, Arthur hires Thaddeus to expose and humiliate the Four Horsemen in their next performance. Thaddeus fails to do so and instead is arrested after the Horsemen frame him as being involved in their scheme.

Now You See Me 2
Eighteen months after The Horsemen outwitted the FBI and ruined Tressler's reputation, The Four Horsemen are now in hiding. Tressler who still lusts for revenge for what the horsemen did to him, hatches a scheme to lure the horsemen from the shadows in order to bait them while using his son, Walter Mabry to execute the plan on his behalf. He once again employs Thaddeus Bradley to bring the horsemen to him, Thaddeus succeeds in delivering Rhodes who Tressler then locks in the same safe his father died in and drops him to the bottom of a river, leaving Rhodes to drown.

Unbeknownts to Walter and Tressler, Rhodes survives and the horsemen who hold the stick in their possession devise a plan to expose Tressler and Walter by broadcasting a message that they would reveal Walter Mabry's identity to the world. Having taken the bait, Mabry and Tressler fly to London in an attempt to prevent the horsemen from revealing his sons identity, Walter calls Thaddeus in order to receive instructions on the horsemen's whereabouts, he informs him to look for a pattern to track them down. Later on, the horsemen deliberately expose themselves to Walter's henchmen who capture them as part of the plan, Tressler then reveals himself as the mastermind behind the plot and sarcastically remarks on "how nice it is to see them again" while they are taken back to his jet.

Upon arriving in his jet, they enter the jet which they believed has taken off but is actually being deceived and that the jet hasn't really taken off. Whilst onboard, the horsemen argue with each other constantly, blaming one another for the plots failure while actually manipulating Walter and Tressler into believing they have won and are really broadcasting their criminal activities. Walter then asks Merit's brother, Chase what they should do with them to which he replies to toss them out of the jet, unknown to Chase that he was actually hypnotized by Jack into tossing them out of the jet. Walter orders his henchmen to grab and toss the horsemen out one by one and laughing hysterically as he believes he has won, however the Horsemen were simply tossed onto a mat underneath the jet and that the wind was by a turbine, now believing they have won, Walter and Tressler toast to their success with a drink only for them to spit the drink out due to its flavor to which its colour changes. It is eventually revealed as they come out of the jet that they were manipulated into believing they won and that their criminal activities were exposed to the world. As a result Tressler along with his son and henchmen are arrested with Rhodes giving gathered information on their activities to the FBI.