Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in “Poor Things”.Photo:20th Century Studios
20th Century Studios
A nonjudgmental approach to sexuality was important forEmma Stone’s latest movie, said director Yorgos Lanthimos.
Lanthimos, 50, explained during a press conference at the New York Film Festival on Friday why the sex scenes inPoor Thingswere key to the journey of Stone’s character Bella Baxter.
“It was a very important part of her journey. We felt that we shouldn’t shy away from it,” he said. “It would feel very disingenuous to tell this story about this character who is so free and so open, and then be prude about the sexual aspect of it.”
Ramy Youssef and Emma Stone in “Poor Things”.20th Century Studios
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Poor Thingsalso starsMark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott, and it earned an R rating for “strong and pervasive sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing material, gore and language.”
“It was clear from the beginning, but also from the novel, from the script, from my discussions with Emma, as well, and how we came up with those scenes,” Lanthimos said of devising the scenes of sexuality. “She had to be free; there should be no judgment.”
Lanthimos explained, “The same way she learns about language and human suffering and love and science and politics, the same way she should be equally free about sex and anything else.”
The director, who also worked with Stone, 34, on the 2018 filmThe Favourite, praised the actress’s performance and how she captured the character’s arc.
“She’s just incredible,” Lanthimos said of the Oscar winner. “The vulnerability of it and the sensitivity and the humor of it — it’s just so difficult to do. I just don’t know how she did it.”
Stone, who couldn’t participate in the press conference due to the ongoing actors' strike,previously toldVoguethat makingPoor Thingswas “freeing” for her.
“Yorgos is European, so he has a little bit more freedom around these things, but I’m from Arizona, and I had my own version of growing up as a girl in American society,” she said in May.
Poor Thingsis in theaters Dec. 8.
source: people.com
