“Poor Things” star Emma Stone and the film’s director Yorgos Lanthimos joined CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” to discuss the movie… as well as Stone’s longtime dream to be on a sitcom. Toward the end of the interview, Stone reflected on moving to Los Angeles at age 15 and said, “I feel so unbelievably grateful on a daily basis, truly. I really, really, really wanted to be on a sitcom.”
She continued, “And I can’t believe that I get to work with people that I admire and adore and trust, and have been able to play roles that are just so far beyond what I ever imagined. It’s nuts. Yeah!”
“And I still am open for sitcoms, if you’ve got anything that you’re thinking about,” Stone added. While she hasn’t been in a sitcom just yet, she recently costarred in the dark comedy series “The Curse” with Nathan Fielder.
Lanthimos and Stone also chatted about “Poor Things” at length. The movie, which is based on the Alasdair Gray book by the same name, stars Stone as Bella Baxter and Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin Baxter, a surgeon who transplants an infant’s brain into Bella’s head following her attempted suicide.
The pair have worked together on several projects. Though the director obtained the rights to “Poor Things” years ago, the movie was rejected by studios — the two began work on “The Favourite” instead. Lanthimos said that movie’s success is what made “Poor Things” possible.
He explained, “People were asking me, ‘What it is that you want to do next?’ And I went, ‘Poor Things.’”
Stone, who told host Tracy Smith that “worried” has been her default setting since childhood, credited her anxiety with motivating her throughout her career. She said, “Anxiety is, like, I feel so lucky to be anxious. Because I think it can be sort of like a superpower, sometimes. Anxiety is very activating. It gets you out of bed. You kind of can’t just stay in one place. It sort of forces you to keep moving. I don’t know, I find a lot of positives from it.”
When it comes to the Oscar buzz that’s been generated by the movie, the actress admitted that it’s not too hard for her to stay calm. “Just try to hold everything lightly, and not cling too much to any of it,” she said.
“And also, you know, to not take yourself seriously … That’s not really an affliction that I struggle with, taking myself super-seriously, because if you were me, you wouldn’t take me seriously, either! But yeah. I think you can take your work seriously and not yourself seriously.”
