Bugonia Q&A with Emma Stone ｜ Exclusive Discussion + Some Spoilers

Thank you all so much for being here. Please join me in giving a very, very warm welcome to the incredible star of this movie and producer, Emma Stone. Thank you for being here. Quite a movie. You've been working with Yorgos for a few years now. Produced a couple of his films as well, including this one. So where does the conversation start when you're going to make a new movie? With this one, for example, where did it begin? Well, this one was a little bit different because I think it was the first time that he had received a script. Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen had kind of commissioned the adaptation of Save the Green Planet, the South Korean film from the early 2000s. And Will Tracy wrote it and they sent it to Yorgos. And it was like within an hour after reading it, he was like, I want to make this film. Like this script is pretty perfect as it is. And he, before, whether it was the favorite or poor things, he had worked on those for a very long time with Tony McNamara, or it was things that he had written with the theme. So this was like a new experience. He sent it to me right after you read it. And that's pretty much what you saw. So that was, yes, this one was kind of quick. At what point did you know you were going to shave your head? I read the script. Yeah, same day I read the script. I knew, well, I mean, it's so early on in the film and you know, there's no hair for the entirety of the movie. And I was like, there's no way that's ever going to be a bald cap. It's a kind of immediate way of getting into character, right? As you are completely changing your look, you're changing, I would imagine, some of the ways that you use your pants. One of those. Yeah, it's a rough way. I'll vamp a little bit. So given that, really, what was it about doing that kind of as a just immediate physical choice that helped you get into character? I mean, I think, you know, it's always, there's always something with hair and makeup and costumes that shift it. Depending on the character, you know, it honestly didn't feel that different than having hair like down to here that was pinned into my head all the time, right, for important things like that. There's something that changes when you're anything physically on your changes. But this was so easy to maintain. It cut hair and makeup time in like into almost nothing except for the fact that I had to be constantly covered in white cream or blood. So it wasn't something all over me, but yeah, it was really great. Yeah, a lot of laughs of recognition from your fellow actors there. Yeah, you've all shaved your head as well. So mentioning the white cream and just a general, you know, it's a Yoros Lanthos movie. We can call it insanity of this movie when you're developing it with him and you know, you're going to be doing the things in this movie that you have to do. What are those conversations like? What does the collaboration this movie like? What kind of change of ideas I guess in this case? Well, thank you. Everybody. Thank you so much. Good night. That's amazing. I mean the cover it was because it was so there on the page. It was it was really just you know, then it just became logistical conversations of where is this house going to be which ended up being built by our incredible production designer James Price. He had this house built outside of London and the basement was in that, you know, we it was like, where are we going to shoot? Who's the crew going to be which is pretty much the same same as always. We're like a traveling circus at this point and you know, like stunt training and it was just that. I mean, it wasn't really there weren't too many conversations have outside of how are we going to do this? Were the rehearsals unique even for your house is known for unique. We I know and we didn't really get to rehearse much on this one, which was actually okay because Jesse and I had just worked together on kinds of kindness and because it was a kind of triptych of films. It felt like we had made three three things together. We played three different characters together. So we knew each other pretty well at that point and we had a couple of days to kind of run dialogue, but it wasn't really the same rehearsal process that we've had before like on the favorite or four things. Yeah, you both know how your house works. Yeah, it was it was pretty pretty easy to kind of, you know, feel comfortable. Yeah. So I'm curious like you've seen the film so we can we can talk about the film in terms of how you wanted to tip your hand versus not what you wanted to show the audience in terms of who this woman was either. He's this guy who's getting after but also with the audience going on this kind of ride and not necessarily knowing if she an alien or not. So where how did you want to play that that was that was a really fun and interesting thing to tightrope to try to walk. This was the first time I I mean because so much of the time you don't or I don't want to think about, you know, from the outside in I want to play be as in the experience as I possibly can and not think about the eyes on it because I can have changes something but here it was different here. I was thinking so much about people watching it, but especially for the second time, which I think worked for Michelle because she's watching herself all the time. So that was that was okay, but it was it was really interesting just trying to put in some little things in your person. I talked about that throughout like little tells that upon the second watch you can maybe see but hopefully not the first time and so that was really that was really fun and it was also amazing that she is a CEO that is in corporate speak all the time because there is this sort of like illusion of humanity, you know, but it's like oily and but it's sensitive and it's calm and you know, and so it feels very androgynous naturally so that was also helpful. I think if it had been this really warm and nurturing character that's like, what do you mean? I am not an alien would have been it would have been a different kind of challenge, but this was it was very fun to try to marry those two things. It's sort of the whole conceit, right? Is that Jesse's character the entire time is like everything you say is like see because there is something slightly alien about the way corporate speak. Was there any particular research associated with getting that pattern, right? I mean there were there were you know, YouTube videos people that run companies. I was kind of watching that but she it was more honest what rabbit holes that I ended up going downward. Have you guys heard about star seeds? Have you it's like a group that basically says we are parts alien like we were sent here and that then I got really obsessed with that. Yeah, and I it's still all over my feet at the star seeds, but it was it was fascinating because the the tendency I think at least from the videos that I've seen of the star seeds. It's very emotional and raw and and vulnerable and like creative. So it's very different than how Michelle presents as a as a star seed herself that that yeah, that was a fascinating world to to kind of dive into and then other than that, I've been again, the dialogue is so, you know, so in there the 530 thing all of that was just so so there that it was just trying to I don't know balance balance all of that out as much as I could between this and Eddington for those who have seen it. I do fear for your algorithm a little bit. Yeah, me too. We need to get you in some like center left drama quicker. Okay. Well, okay. So working with Jesse. He is so incredible in this movie. But seeing the two together is electric. So just what's he like? He's just he's amazing. One of the best actors I've ever gotten to work with and I think the greatest thing about his sort of presence. He's so accessible as an actor. It's so it just it really does sort of like maybe he helps make you feel, you know, you know, like a great scene partner makes you better and makes you more present and more in it and he's just he's that he's generous, but he's also it's also so amazing because they are so two sides of the same coin. They both are really saving the world themselves in such different ways. And so his kind of rawness and his openness and all of that like bleeding out of him on the surface and then having to you know, sort of keep it all together in the icy way that that Michelle needs to it was just it was a joy because he was just constantly throwing out all of this emotion and to be like sort of a force field for it, but he's so he's so brilliant. Yeah. For as amazing as all the roles that you've gotten to play in your guys's films. This one to me at times felt like the most like play like in that it is often you and Jesse and of course your third castmate in a room just kind of playing together. Did it feel different in that way? Play like meaning it felt playful or it felt like a play playful like you get to have fun. But it did feel like a play because these scenes are so you know, they're so rich and there's so much dialogue and it is in such a contained environment that it really did feel like scenes from a play but it I mean, yes, I guess it was playful in a sense, but you know, I was like chained to a cot a lot of the time. You know, so I didn't feel that playful like it was it was fun in its own way. But no, it was it was really like especially that the scene at the dinner table was that really did feel that was the most playful probably moment because when you look at the scenes, there's they're really just both standing their ground and sort of defending against each other and trying to make their point known in almost every scene, but at the dinner table, there's one opportunity where he's looking at her differently and she's looking at him a bit differently and that was the most kind of like interesting one to navigate how you would connect when you only have this one opportunity for those characters to connect in that way. So that one was very playful. But then, you know, he comes across the table and he tackles me and then we get in a huge fight again. It wasn't as playful anymore. I guess I was also just thinking about the tone of the movie. At times, it's it is funnier than one might expect just given the comedy. It's a comedy. Yeah. So that's fun. I still think it's a comedy. We're all like trying to find... You know what, Yorgo says that every single day on set, on any film that I've done with him. He goes, it's a comedy. Every day. So if you're ever getting too heavy, he's like, it's a comedy. So on this one, what did that look like? How did the tone even surprise you a little bit? Because I would imagine on the page, it could go a number of ways. Well, I mean, I guess it did and it didn't because Yorgo is such a master of those tonal shifts and his instincts in the moment are really great. But he kind of just lets you go for it and then lets you know if something feels really off. So it was, I don't know. I think maybe I kind of, again, the script, back to the script again, the script is so good and it really does, it walks that kind of flip-flop of, is it true? Is it not? You know, the moments of sort of violence and intensity come out of these. It felt like I understood the tone on the page and I trusted Yorgo so deeply to bring that to life. So it was really, yeah, I don't know. Did I answer your question? What was your question? It was about defining the tone. It surprised you at all when you guys, you and Jesse. Didn't surprise me at all. I would guess with Yorgo's too. It's always in a way. It's always surprising and therefore maybe never surprising. Yeah, exactly. It's, you know that things are going to be and that he's so open to finding moments as we're, as we're doing it. Like, like Jesse, it was an improvised line where he goes, I'm not a sick ape. Where it's not, you know, like you sick ape. He added in, I'm not a sick ape and it was so great in that moment and devastating and he's just, you know, so much. He's just lost the two people he loves the most. And killed a guy and he's just sitting there saying, I'm not a sick ape, but it was beautiful. And Yorgo's has an openness to those, you know, these things coming in or Aiden at the dinner table who added in, can I go to the bathroom? Which is so perfect. He's also incredible. This was his first film. Was such a, I can't imagine anyone else in the world playing Don, who is the true heart of the film. Yeah, but so anyway, yes, there's always those moments that you are surprising. You don't know what to end that become like a really amazing touchstone for the scene. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about filming those last few scenes that are not of this earth? What that look like for you? What it felt like on set? Yes. That was there was that goo pool. There was like a rescue diver in there with me. It would walk me in and out because it was so slippery and he was in like a full scuba suit. So that was fun. But no, it was this incredible world. I mean, I think that what they look like is so funny. It makes me laugh every time it goes to that scene because of the way they walk and the knits and then the weird beanie crown and then the language which was really which was really Johnny Byrne our sound designer had me record. I texted him a voice recording of the what the subtitles say in English and he took it and he mixed it all up. To create a new language and then wrote down what the language is and played back when he had mixed up in his computer and then Jima who played the other alien that I'm speaking to and Ramadan that I'm speaking to and I learned it and it was so fun to learn this new language. Also hilarious. Sorry. That's kind of a side note, but just about shooting it. Jima is our stills photographer on all of the Orvis films. Never been in a film and we have no pictures from the week before this because every second of the day he had the script, you know written out like and he's like tonight. Can I run this with you? And I was like, well Jima we really are shooting some other stuff, you know, there's like other stuff coming up and he's like, okay, but like just can you just hear what I've done and I'm like, okay and he goes chakra. And I was like and he's like, oh, it's the net and it would just look down. He just kept saying chakra for like a full week. I was like, oh no. Oh boy, but he was amazing. It was amazing. Got it all out on the day. It worked out. Yeah. Always talking a chakra. Yeah. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Long story short the goo the language. That was great. And then popping the bubble. Yeah, I'm curious like the level of involvement you have in post-production and like looking at the edit as a producer mainly because I'm just interested in being an actor to a degree. I would imagine assessing your own performance in the edit is that does that come up at all? Since beginning to produce it's been easier to watch myself even though it's literally a nightmare to me. I'm able to take myself out of it more which has been really nice because the level of meltdowns that I've had after watching a film I've been in is embarrassing. I'll never like it, but I am able to see it a little bit differently now. I think yes, I mean, I've watched multiple cuts as he's editing. He seems to only really take your specifically other directors are different than whatever reason nervous takes notes from my mom, but not really from me. If I give him a note, he says what is Chris to think of that and I say she that was actually her idea. He's like great. I'll do it really trust my mom's. But it's yeah. No, it's it's it's been incredible to now be able to sort of enter into that world, especially films films that I'm not in it makes it simpler when it comes to the editing process, but yeah. What was the first time he answered your mother for feedback? I think he realized after the favorite. She was like, that's my favorite movie of all time. I was like, whoa. Okay, and you're just like really and then she for whatever reason is like the biggest kinds of kindness fan. She was like, but that is great. But kinds of kindness is really him. You know, it's really him and I'm like, okay great. So she yeah, I think he just gets it. She really gets him and and it's great. She might be able to be the stills photographer playing on drama. She would love to be a script supervisor. That would be her dream. Yes. I say I want to ask you a little bit about this movie's themes if only because I think of all the films you've made with your goes this one for me at least really hit the hardest just in terms of like where we are wait conversation is right now. There's a directness to an intensity and I wonder just how that hit you and people excited about that. I it was it was interesting thinking about it. I realized that all of your versus films that I've seen or have been part of their all their sometimes in our world, but it's a more absurdist sort of surreal version of our world. This feels the most close to reality though. There's a spaceship in it. And so it was really it was really interesting. I mean, I think it's still I think he's definitely obviously drawn to things of power and control codependence who's in charge and not is so much obviously part of this story, but it was emotional and it was really interesting to see just, you know, sadly, it's weird because even since we made the movie the sort of relevancy of it has become only more so or things feel like a bit of an overlap and which is terrifying in many ways, but yeah, it did feel different. It felt different to be in this basement in this contained environment, you know, you know in such fantastical sort of sets and or in the world of kinds of kindness. There's it's kind of the oddity of the world and obviously, you know the same kind of thing with like dog to the lobster or sacred deer. It has a it's our world but different. Am I answering what is wrong with me today? I'm so sorry. I don't do Q&A's alone ever scary. Usually someone can make sense of what my answers are. Yeah, it was cool. So much for coming.