Perhaps the most daunting part of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia was Emma Stone going under the knife... to shave her head.
Filming the scene was no easy feat. With the shot demanding a single take, the Oscar-winning actor noted she was "so afraid" to ruin it. Describing the thoughts running inside her head, she recalled telling herself, "Stay Still" until the process was over. "That was it. I was meditating on stay still, just stay still," she told in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.
In Bugonia, Stone plays a powerful pharmaceutical CEO Michelle Fuller, who is kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists - Jesse Plemons and his buddy Aidan Delbis - who are convinced that she's an alien. In order to "cut off her communication" with the alien world, the duo shave her head. The rest of the story seems to follow the hunt led by police in search of her and how Stone's character tries to prove she is not who they think she is.
"Because I am not awake there, I was like, play dead, basically, play dead. It was one take and there were four cameras set up just to make sure," she said, talking about shooting the particular scene.
Fortunately, it was not difficult to convince Stone to shave her head, revealed Lanthimos. "I mean, it was in the script, so I didn’t even have to tell her. She read it first, and she had the slightest hesitation just before, not hesitation to do it, but she had kind of a knot in her stomach. But it happened. Thankfully, we did it. We only had one shot to achieve it. And then she felt great. She saw herself and she really loved it, and she felt very free," he shared.
Lanthimos is directing the film from a screenplay by Will Tracy (Succession, The Menu). It is based on the 2003 South Korean comedy Save the Green Planet!, written and directed by Jang Joon-Hwan.
Bugonia brings Lanthimos and Stone together after The Favourite, Poor Things, and Kinds of Kindness. It also reunites Lanthimos with Plemons and the latter with Stone after Kinds of Kindness. The film also stars Alicia Silverstone and Stavros Halkias playing key roles.
