How Yorgos Lanthimos changed Emma Stone’s entire worldview: “There’s an absurdism”
One of the most intriguing director-actor partnerships to emerge in recent years has been that of Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone. The two first worked together on The Favourite, in which the American actor starred as a poor scullery maid attempting to curry favour with Queen Anne of England. Perhaps their best-known collaboration came with 2023’s Poor Things, which saw Stone transform into a half-woman, half-child out to discover the world. Her immensely physical performance as Bella Baxter netted her a second ‘Best Actress’ Oscar.
Stone’s third and thus far most recent film with the Greek director was Kinds of Kindness. An anthology split into three parts, Stone plays a variety of characters across the sprawling collection: a woman whose life is controlled by a sinister businessman, a biologist who returns to her husband after presumably being lost at sea, and a devoted zealot of a cult searching for a woman with magical powers. Though the film itself can be a little dense in places, Stone’s performances cut through. Lanthimos always seems to get the best out of her and, as she told Collider whilst promoting their latest venture, she has a mutual appreciation for him.
“I find the way he sees the world, or the way he shows us the world, so fascinating,” she explained. “Dogtooth was obviously such an examination of control and of keeping someone locked into this scenario, and then I saw The Lobster, and I was like, ‘They’re also in control. They’re locked into this scenario. They have to do this specific thing, or they’ll be turned into an animal.’ There’s an absurdism and a sort of specificity to it that makes you think so much more than if it was a prescriptive kind of worldview.”
Lanthimos, whose other films include The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Alps, often mixes the ridiculous with the everyday. Poor Things is littered with bizarre visuals, unnecessarily complex filming techniques, and objects that jar with its supposedly Victorian setting. Even The Favourite, which is ostensibly based in reality, features characters who seem outside of normal society.
“It’s these bigger themes and pictures that I find actually much more emotionally resonant than these straightforward films,” Stone continued. “So, I was so responsive to that feeling before I met him 10 years ago, and then we’ve gotten to make these things from then. I love that that’s his way into the world. I find it very impactful in his storytelling.”
Prior to working with Lanthimos, Stone had very much been typecast as either a quirky teenager (Easy A, Crazy, Stupid, Love) or a love interest (Zombieland, Marc Webb’s ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movies). Even in the likes of Birdman, she was reduced to the role of a difficult daughter, and La La Land, her first Oscar-winning performance, was just a more mature version of her previous teenage characters. The Favourite was the first film in which she showed a mass audience what she could do. It also showcased her British accent, which is eerily accurate.
If they continue their current run of form, there’s a strong chance Stone and Lanthimos could be looked back on as one of the great couplings of this era. They’ve already announced their next project, Bugonia, in which Stone is set to play the CEO of a major corporation who two conspiracy theorists kidnap. Time will tell if this winning formula can produce yet another success.
