The one thing Emma Stone hates doing for Yorgos Lanthimos: “He knows it”
Starting out in rom-coms and Marvel movies, Emma Stone has taken her career in a totally different direction over the past eight years. After her Academy Award-winning performance in La La Land, she’s starred mostly in independent films and become the muse of one of this century’s weirdest directors, Yorgos Lanthimos.
Stone herself sees the film Battle of the Sexes, in which she portrayed Pro tennis player Billie Jean King, as the turning point in her career. It was the first time she felt that she wasn’t simply playing another version of herself. However, Lanthimos has undoubtedly played a role in pushing Stone out of her comfort zone as an actor, allowing her to play some truly bizarre roles.
This year alone, she starred in two Lanthimos films: firstly, the unique role of Bella Baxter in Poor Things, a Frankenstein-esque character with the body of a woman and the brain of a baby. Secondly, she portrayed not one but three characters in the Greek weird wave director’s cinematic triptych Kinds of Kindness. It’s surely a difficult task to play three different roles in one film, and apparently, Lanthimos knows exactly how to press his actor’s buttons.
Speaking to Little White Lies about shooting Kinds of Kindness, Stone explains her dread at the prospect of monologues, “There’s nothing I get more panicked about than a monologue.” And, being the director that he is, what does is Lanthimos’ response to Stone’s dread? Of course, he gives her more monologues. “Oh my god. Yeah, Yorgos keeps giving them to me. He just loves to throw me a damn monologue.”
And this isn’t just a director not picking up on when his actor is uncomfortable. No, with Lanthismos, it’s a purposeful choice to push Stone and get the best – and weirdest – performance from her. “He doesn’t just sense it. He knows it! I’ll say, ‘I don’t want to do monologues’. He’s like, ‘You’re doing a monologue.’” But what other way is there to grow as an actor and move beyond yourself than stepping out of your comfort zone? Isn’t that how we all grow as people?
Stone certainly thinks so. While monologues scare her, she acknowledges the ways that Lanthimos pushes her as an actor, “It’s good, you know, it helps you to expand.” For her, this is a kind of exposure therapy – how else does one become good at monologues without practising? The answer is, you don’t. And, it’s no surprise really that Lanthimos treats his actors this way. After all, he seems set on making his audience just as uncomfortable, pushing the boundaries of what we expect from cinema and from a director.
While we might have come to expect stilted dialogue and some familial weirdness, Lanthimos challenged many of his own fans with Poor Things. Not only did it make some question its intentions vis a vis women and feminism, but it also challenged his own style, as it took on a much more colourful, whimsical, and steampunk vibe than the rest of his filmography to that point—causing many fans to question if Lanthimos was moving away from his weird wave origins.
But regardless of your own opinion on Kinds of Kindness, it’s undoubtedly a return to the more morbid oddness of his previous films. And Stone once again does a fantastic job of moving beyond herself as an actor, allowing the audience to even forget that its her they are watching at times. And, undoubtedly, Lanthimos’ ability to sense and push people’s discomfort and limitations had some hand in Stone’s growth as an actor.
