Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo & Director Yorgos Lanthimos Break Down 'Poor Things' Scenes | Vanity Fair

she was the I'm Emma Stone I'm Yos Lanos and I'm still Mark Ruff this is notes on a scene Bella let us take the air in our cabin these two are fighting and ideas are banging around in Bella's head and hot this scene takes place on a ship yeah we're sailing from Lisbon to technically Athens but we stopped in Alexandria along the way you've been kidnapped basically I've been sort of kidnapped yes better let us take the air this is Mark Ruffalo he plays Jun wurn this is joh Michel this is Santa this is the back of my head and these are just some friends we picked up along the way this isn't CGI this is an actual practical LED screen LED screen we used a lot of painted clouds and and uh some uh formations from other liquids that we shot we put all that together in post- production on the day it was actually playing uh behind the actors so which gets a little nauseating the waves were actually breaking up against the ship from time to time Mark that's not true well they were like there wasn't water no but it was it was it was a representation of water that was constantly moving the only VFX enh handon that we did here was like if you see there's like a little bit of spray of water here that we added later in post production and the only uh VFX that the the LED screen I think came about up to here and we just you know filled in this uh in post production just uh just an extension of the set but everything else that you see it's it's was actually there the reason we built this set and actually the the whole film is shot uh on sound stages we just wanted to build this world that represented the way Bella the main character uh sees and experiences the world so we thought that it would be interesting if we built every set even exteriors or you know the ship that you see here inside a studio and then we would control the lighting the background rounds and we would manage to acquire this non-realistic feeling for the entire film let us take the air in our cabin Duncan's I guess what you would call a rake or a cad he's a bon vant he's someone who loves uh to live life in its fullest and to um totally satiate all of his senses whenever given the opportunity even to the point of of stealing away a young beautiful naive woman his relationship with Bella is really to teach her the Beauties and the um loveliness and all the Sumptuous activities of the world um as kind of her pigmon as her tutor of life these two were fighting and ideas are banging around in Bella's head in heart like lights in a storm oh so that's a very good frame my Approach my approach to Bella oh boy um I I uh I guess for a while I thought it was you know a very I I for a while thought she was a very difficult character to play but then I realized in a way it was only because she was the St F but I realized that it's because start Mak him cry so simple do you have a closeup of her okay great just go on her for a second hi you're watching notes on a scene you're always reading now Bella you're losing some of your adorable way of peing I'm a changing aable Feast as are all of we Bella at this point in her sort of um development she has been introd roduced to Philosophy by Martha and she is beginning to read the books of many different philosophers and a lot of things are being illuminated to her about you know different ways of of approaching life and what it all means and uh it's a very pivotal moment in her sort of growth that she's discovering her own sort of belief system in terms of the physicality her specific kind of walk and way of speaking and a lot of that is in the script how it's evolving apparently according to Emerson disagreed with by Harry come come just come you were in my son what he feels like he's losing control of her uh in the scene the books are uh kind of a symbol of her being educated and him feeling like she's leaving his control and possession so as she's given more books he throws them off um the the boat she's a surprise to him in every way and it certainly uh piques his um arousal that he can't control her and I think he finds that very exciting until it becomes challenging to his ego I think in this in this particular moment um she is starting to find him very annoying she's expanding so rapidly and in so many ways and he's it's becoming more and more threatening to him and he's starting to bug her there was a language a filmic language that we developed with Robie Ryan the cinematographer uh we started kind of using it during the making of the favorite and on this film we just wanted to go even further so we remember during the favor we did a lot of tests we you know and and on this one as well and we remembered this fisheye lens that we used that actually created this circle you know people feel like very enclosed in a kind of claustrophobic way in the frame and you know the 4 mm was just this option for us to in certain moments you know create this kind of awkward feel to the scene and you know like in this in this moment he just picks up her her books and throws them into the sea and just felt like the right moment to use that but in general we we used like very wide angle lenses and fishy lenses in order to be consistent with the with how we're building the world and make it feel even more um uh vast you do a career and you and you're in a franchise for a long time and people start to you know see you in a certain certain kind of role or you have your social media and you know people start to see you in a certain way and in some sense you even maybe start to see yourself in that way and it's deadly for a a creative person I think ultimately but it's also very comfortable and it's hard to break free the the more you break free it's harder to Break Free the next time and so playing this part came up and I was like oh do people want to even see me in this part can I play it you know I haven't never played anything I never played anything so gregarious so Cocker so narcissistic with that kind of language and that kind and an accent in a period piece I've just never done anything like it and so um it scared me honestly and I have such admiration for him and I didn't want to let him down and I didn't want to let her down and so yeah I was scared I now feel feel kind of uh afraid of doing something that I don't feel this way about more than anything I I kind of want to have this feeling all the time exclusively you don't always get to make a choices as an actor of who you get to work with and and what roles you get to play and so learning about Bella I was just totally in love with her and so I'm trying to just follow that instinct whether it comes to a filmmaker or a story um it's not it doesn't always work necessar neily but I I kind of only want to feel that way we're probably the worst people that ever been in this thing no we're we haven't gotten started yet I think once we get going we're going to really be T great

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 1,326,787

Keywords: director yorgos lanthimos, emma stone, emma stone interview, emma stone mark ruffalo, emma stone oscars, emma stone poor things, mark ruffalo, mark ruffalo poor things, poor things, poor things bella, poor things cgi, poor things emma stone, poor things interview, poor things notes on a scene, poor things scene, poor things surrealism, poor things vanity fair, vanity fair, yorgos lanthimos, yorgos lanthimos interview, yorgos lanthimos poor things

Id: IpZIeS_0CRs

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 18 2023