Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos explain what makes collaborations likePoor Thingswork so well.
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This article was originally published on December 8, 2023.
Atthe 2024 Oscars, Emma Stone won the award for Best Actress forPoor Things.
Stone goes for broke in every frame.
The morning we meet, shes thrilled to finally get a chance to talk about Bella.
This is newer to me because the strike is over, as of last night, she says.
I know you started talking about this while filmingThe Favourite.
Do you remember that first conversation?Yorgos Lanthimos:Emma remembers everything.
Emma Stone:We had dinner one night, just afterThe Favourite, in London.
I think he was just generally talking about things he was working on or developing.
Hed had the rights to this book for
YL:Twelve years.
You keep saying 12 years but it was, like, five.
I dont think he was mentioning it like, We should do this together!
Because I remember going,Just play it cool.
Even though you love it so much.
YL:And you didnt.
ES:I didnt.
Were you thinking of her specifically for Bella?YL:Well, yes, I guess.
And that wed love to just keep doing stuff together.
ES: We talk about tone!
ES:Well, we talked about what the world would look like.
So from that, we started talking about the world.
We created development stages for her, but even those were rough outlines.
We were finding it on the day.
From scene to scene, even.
Its not like Im showing up and youre like, What do you got?
Ive read that you cried a lot on set and Yorgos talked you through it.
YL:Its a lot.
ES: I dont even know that I have a specific example.
Whenever I feel anything lower than a three or higher than a seven, Im in tears.
If Im in that midrange, Im not crying, but any strong emotion elicits tears.
And there were a lot of strong emotions.
Im not mentally sound.
So I became an actor.
Thats why I became a writer.ES:Perfect!
Poor Thingsis risky in a lot of ways.
People do legitimately scary things in life all the time.
Maybe theyre emotionally embarrassing or vulnerable, which is legitimate, and different actors have different relationships to that.
For instance, Yorgos is completely miserable.
But I have a good time.
Why so miserable?ES:He has the weight of all of it on his shoulders.
Hes retained creative freedom and final cut on all of his films.
I know that he cares so deeply that it makes him kind of nuts while were doing it.
Its very hard to get yourself out of it sometimes and go, Its okay.
Were making a film.
It feels very huge and permanent because every scene lasts forever.
But when it comes to being hard?
Maybe its hard in a different way.
Yorgos, what makes you return to making movies if they make you so unhappy?YL:Time.
He doesnt have a great memory.
YL:I have a bad memory.
I forget and I go back and get excited again.
Of course you fail again, and you fail differently than you failed before.
You fix some things and then others fail.
Youre striving toward some unattainable version of perfection.YL:Yeah, whatever that means.
ES:Perfect to you.
It scares me when a creator is like, Im so proud of this.
No, its great.
YL:It freaks me out.
ES:Its so weird.
Im like, Why do you keep making things, then?
What forces you forward if you think everything youre doing is so great?
And we know it!
So we keep trying.
You feel that way about this film?
You must be proud on some level.ES:I am, actually.
YL:You are, yeah.
ES:Not of me!
Im proud of you!
YL:Well, Im proud of you too.
ES:But not for ourselves.
YL:Im never gonna say it.
Ive tried to get him to say it.
YL:Im proud of the other actors, the production design, the costumes.
I dont feel proud of myself.
I feel like we did the best we could with what we had.
So I think I reached that point its the best version that I can structure out of this thing.
Im okay with it.
Whats different about how you work together?ES:Weve made four things together, and hopefully more.
People are really gonna get sick of us.
YL:Its all right.
They forget as well.
Itll take a year or two.
ES:Thats true.
You understand a lot about someone when youve worked together for this long and this closely.
I feel like I can really let go with him.
YL:With Yorgos.
ES:You want me to say your name?
YL:Its not a video!
ES:With Nathan and Benny.
What keeps you returning to that well?YL:Its always there.
Its strange that we dont question our structures more often, that there isnt real change very often.
So I just keep asking those questions and making these experiments.
You also have a tendency toward bizarre dance scenes in your films, going as far back asDogtooth.
Is that intentional?YL:[Laughs.
Im very fond of physical expression.
Dance somehow is very fitting for that.
I guess whenever we find the opportunity, we do it.
[Emma looks at him expectantly.]
What else is there to say?
ES:No, that was great.
We practiced a lot.
YL:Yes, but we also tried things to see what worked.
But they did rehearse it hundreds of times.
ES:So many times.
It ended up being like half the length of what we rehearsed.
YL:Well, thats normal in film.
You do more than what you need.
It was structured in the edit.
ES:Because thats how film works!
YL:Thats how film works.
Not all films, by the way.
But lets not get into that.
[Both smirk; Yorgos shrugs.]
So Emma, now that youre here ES:Oh, good.
We talked about how each scene would differ, where they were leading to, how it would evolve.
And Elle, our intimacy coordinator, was amazing and comforting and an exciting presence.
I really love when the environment is intimate and small.
They shut down the monitors so people cant watch.
Except for Elle and Laura, my costumer who Ive worked with for ten years.
She would go away after she did her part.
[Mischievously]Everybody was watching.
ES:[Laughs.
]No, they werent!
Where hes humping her leg.
I thought it was so funny shes bored but shes tied up.
And then him humping my leg fully clothed?
I thought thatd be hilarious.
YL:You came up with the humping.
I came up with the chains on the ceiling.
There was a headline recently inThe Guardian: LanthimossPoor Thingsfuels speculation of sex scenes return to cinema.
I never thought of it as something special in comparison to other parts of making a film.
Were telling a story about a free woman who discovers herself and has no shame about her body.
So it had to be that way.
But Im never consciously saying, Oh, we should put more sex into film!
Sometimes I am saying, I dont understand the big deal around it.
Why do people pick at it compared to everything else, like violence?
It baffles me that were so tolerant of violence in films.
ES:And in society.
YL:But when it comes to sex, its all of a sudden taboo.
Theres a weird morality around it because of how it functions in the entertainment business.
But Im not actively trying to do anything.
I guess sex is missing mostly in mainstream cinema.
Maybe it has to do with the logistics of it.
I dont think its missing from other kinds of cinema.
And apparently there is quite a bit on TV, as Ive been told.
ES:Youve been told theres sex on TV?
YL:Ive been told.
When something is more gratuitous?
Even then, Im like,Great, who cares?
!Ive now switched firmly into the camp of: Its no big deal.
