Sometimes, in art, as well as in music and film, two souls meet and their union manages to give birth to something extraordinary. We are not talking about love in the strict sense of the word, although love has endless forms to express itself, but an emotional union where the two parties nurture each other, between talent, inspiration, creativity. From time to time, one becomes the subject or object of the other: it is a mutual “using” and that has nothing untoward about it; on the contrary, it becomes essential to bring out the best in both of them, in an eternal act of generosity where giving and receiving do not become obligations, but natural propensities of the self, in order to give life to a project. The one between Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos can be considered one of those heaven-willing encounters, and cinema gives thanks, with a good part of the audience enraptured before the screen at the release of each film where she is the protagonist and he the director.
Emma Stone is one of the most talented actresses on the contemporary Hollywood scene. Of her talent we had already noticed for some time, but it is her association with the Greek director that gave her that final extra push, that touch of grace that catapulted her from mere star status to muse status; and the difference between the two definitions is as subtle as it is fundamental. Stars can be made, muses too, but to become one you have to find a Pygmalion with whom you can establish a near-perfect attunement, who can believe in your talent and turn it into absolute art. Lanthimos in turn is one of the most talked-about directors of modern cinema, an artist with a brilliant but controversial vision, in which surreal and sometimes grotesque imagery manages to tell profound truths of humanity, without ever lapsing into the ritual of the everyday, but allowing himself to be inspired by what is unknown, distant, mind-blowing and even disturbing. Yet, his films always leave us with reflections that are deeply true, real, human precisely. Stone describes Lanthimos as her artistic “alter ego,” highlighting how together they push the boundaries of acting with extreme and complex roles. And proof we have plenty of that.
The actress and the director worked together for the first time in La Favorita, a 2018 film. A title in some ways divinatory, since from there on the two formed an unstoppable relationship, and the actress truly became the director’s “favorite.” In 2023 they decided to enchant audiences with the extraordinary Poor Creatures, a sumptuous masterpiece with dark overtones, but above all capable of providing us with countless reflections on the condition of the feminine. Emma Stone is extraordinary in her Victorian and dystopian costumes, and the film is a critical and box-office success. Only a year later, Lanthimos returned to direct the actress in Kind of Kindness, a film that-in the wake of Poor Creatures-is divided into three episodes, in which Stone reigns supreme in all her bravura. Last gem of 2025, Bugonia, the film that explores the decline of the human species through references aliens and conspiracy. A film as contemporary as ever because of the themes treated, once again, in the Lanthimos manner, and thus with evocative power, poetic horror, and sublimation of images in a mix of pathos, fear and emotion.
But the relationship between Emma Stone and Lanthimos is above all that of a sincere friendship, cultivated even off the set. On the director’s Instagram profile one can easily come across funny posts, scenes from private life, those in which a Stone in her pajamas rehearses the part she will later play on set. Complicit, close-knit, brilliant: a partnership that cinema needed; we can only say thank you, waiting for the next gift they will give us.
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