The Making of ‘Bugonia’: Yorgos Lanthimos’ First Call? Emma Stone, of Course
The Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos took a fresh approach for his latest film by collaborating with Succession writer Will Tracy to remake a Korean cult classic. However, his first decision was familiar: reaching out to his frequent collaborator.
New Creative Challenges
When Lanthimos first read the script for Bugonia, he realized he was about to try two things new in his career: directing a film he hadn’t personally developed and telling a story more directly about today’s world than his previous, often abstract, work.
“Up until this point, I’d read scripts, but I’ve never been so excited immediately afterward that I would say, ‘This is almost ready for me to make just as it is,’” Lanthimos recalls. “To be handed something that was already so great was a tremendous gift.”
Emma Stone’s Immediate Involvement
Right after finishing the script, Lanthimos sent it to Emma Stone, his frequent muse and star of three of his earlier films.
“I read it that same day, and from then on, we were like, let’s do this,” Stone says. “It was really crazy for me because ever since The Favourite, I’ve seen the projects we’ve done together in very different states of being, where they take years to develop. This was the first time we received a script and were like, ‘Whoa, let’s go make this right away,’ and it basically doesn’t require any process."
Summary
Yorgos Lanthimos embraced a new filmmaking approach with Bugonia, quickly involving Emma Stone and working from a nearly complete script to capture a contemporary story.