Poor Things follows Bella, a young woman who was brought back to life and raised by Dr. Godwin Baxter. Her sheltered upbringing has left Bella without the preconceived notions of society and prejudices of the world, giving her a unique perspective. However, wanting to experience the world more thoroughly, she runs away with the lecherous Duncan Wedderburn.
Poor Things features an impressive cast led by Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, and Jerrod Carmichael. Yorgos Lanthimos helmed the project as director, with Tony McNamara writing the Poor Things screenplay based on Alasdair Gray’s book of the same name. Stone and Lanthimos also produced the movie as well.
Poor Things Review: A Strange & Joyous Odyssey Features Emma Stone At Her Best
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things is a horny, hedonistic, and hysterical gem of a film with an all-time great lead performance from Emma Stone.
Screen Rant interviewed Poor Things stars Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe. Dafoe explained how he chooses the roles he plays and praised Stone’s work. Ruffalo discussed how he tapped into the comedy of his character’s desperation as well as how he and Stone worked together to make sure they were comfortable during the more intimate scenes.
Mark Ruffalo & Willem Dafoe Talk Poor Things
Screen Rant: Can you both talk to me about collaborating with Emma Stone to create the dynamics between your characters and Bella, starting with Willem?
Willem Dafoe: It’s a really complex relationship. It’s all in the writing. It’s all in Emma. I mean, she’s the center of it all and you really take so much of your cues off of her. And my character sort of falls in love with her, which is easy to do, no acting required because when you work with Emma, you fall in love with her.
Mark Ruffalo: For sure. We have a pretty intimate journey to go on together, and I think we were both nervous about that and we’re nervous about how far out there we were in our roles, in our own respective ways. So I just found us to be very caring for each other just as performers and really trying to make each other feel safe and secure and allowing to be vulnerable.
And a lot of that came from the playfulness that we had in the three weeks of rehearsal together, but that I just kept finding us like getting in a corner somewhere. I’m like, “Are you okay? Is this okay? How is this going?” And that was … Interestingly, that informs the dimension of the sort of love that they find in that in Duncan’s own totally perverse way has uncovered in him, which leads to a total breakdown.
Can you talk to me a little bit about tapping into that more comedic element of Duncan as kind of the deterioration comes about?
Mark Ruffalo: Yeah, it’s funny because as he goes down into his despair, he becomes more and more funny. And it’s like one foot on a banana peel and the other in a grave, the more you have, you’re honest about this thing. Oddly enough, this other thing could be more heightened and funny, and it’s just such a great turn. Also, you just come to expect something from this character and then we pull the rug out from under him, and that’s just such a delightful, delicious kind of turn for a character like that. So I think that’s part of the humor of him is just seeing how far he falls.
I completely agree. And then Willem, you’re also playing a character in Beetlejuice 2, and it seems like they might have a similar like eerie, almost tragedy to them that we see with Baxter. What is it about these roles that really draws you in?
Willem Dafoe: Oh, I’m simple-minded. I think one character at a time, I don’t make the connection between the two, but I think I always like characters that have a different experience than I do, are very far away from me, are sort of unconventional because that always tests your sense of normal, keeps your sense of questioning curiosity up. I don’t think about the darkness so much as I think about how they’re rooted and experienced, and how their strategy for life is different than mine.
About Poor Things
From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
Check out our other Poor Things interviews:
- Emma Stone
- Ramy Youssef
- Tony McNamara
- Holly Waddington
- Robbie Ryan
- James Price & Shona Heath
Poor Things
- Release Date:
- 2023-09-08
- Director:
- Array
- Cast:
- Array
- Rating:
- R
- Runtime:
- 141 Minutes
- Genres:
- Array
- Writers:
- Array
- Story By:
- Alasdair Gray
- Studio(s):
- Array
- Distributor(s):
- Array
