Emma Stone has collaborated with director Yorgos Lanthimos for the third time in her latest black comedy Poor Things. The surreal fantasy comedy is on brand for the filmmaker who is known for making the films The Lobster, The Favourite, and Dogtooth. The film recently won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival.
Stone has already collaborated with the director on The Favourite for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also starred in Lanthimos’ surreal short film Bleat. The film, which has loads of goat imagery much like his other films, became a subject of ridicule by Stone herself.
Emma Stone’s Collaboration With Director Yorgos Lanthimos
Director Yorgos Lanthimos makes films that can be termed as weird and surrealist. His brand of comedy is dark as well as absurd, taking a pessimistic stance on most things. His brand of filmmaking is called Greek Weird Wave, which is characterized by deadpan humour, framed cinematography, and an absurdist view of life.
While the Greek director began his career with the mainstream films Kinetta and My Best Friend, he rose to fame with his third feature film Dogtooth. The film won the Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. He went on to direct the films The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, both starring Colin Farrell.
Lanthimos’ collaboration with Emma Stone began with the period black comedy The Favourite. Set during the 18th Century, the film saw Olivia Coleman play Queen Anne and Stone playing Abigail Masham, a courtier who was the favorite of the Queen. It also starred Rachel Weisz, who was also in The Lobster, as Sarah Churchill.
The film won Coleman a Best Actress Oscar and earned both Stone and Weisz a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Emma Stone would go on to star in Lanthimos’next film Poor Things, playing the role of a recently resurrected dead woman who runs off to the real world with a lawyer. The role has earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or a Comedy.
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Emma Stone Roasted Yorgos Lanthimos’ Obsession With Goats
One of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ auteur trademarks is his obsession with animals. The Lobster’s central plot involved people being turned into animals and/or pets if they ended up not choosing a partner to spend their life with. The Favourite too had its moments with animals while Poor Things also promises a bunch of hybrid ducks and goats.
Emme Stone and Lanthimos collaborated again on the short film Bleat, which is a black and white silent film which is scored by a live orchestra. According to Variety, the film details the story of a woman who loses her partner and has to deal with her desperation with an ‘animal instinct for life.’
During a live Q and A session following the premiere of the short film at the New York Film Festival, Stone called out Lanthimos’ penchant for bringing in animals in every film of his,
“It’s, like, nonstop, every day. He calls me and he’s like, ‘Goats — what do you think? Death?’ I’m like, ‘OK, still? We shot this three years ago.’”
She also joked that all of his films come back to the same themes of s*x, death, and goats. She also mentioned that it was a dream for her to work on a silent film and with Bleat, it came true.
