If there’s one actress who can move effortlessly from the funny teenager in Superbad to the dreamy figure of La La Land and then to the chaotic but fascinating Bella Baxter in Poor Things, it’s Emma Stone. With two Oscars for Best Actress — for the beloved musical and for her blockbuster collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos — the 37-year-old star remains disarmingly approachable and is one of Hollywood’s most popular and well-liked figures worldwide.

Now, with the film Bugonia, her long-running collaboration with Lanthimos — a partnership that has developed its own creative chemistry — returns to the big screen with an energy that feels like “what on earth are we doing and why am I enjoying it so much?”. At the same time, Stone balances family life with her husband, Dave McCary, with whom she runs a production company, and their four-year-old daughter, Louise. It keeps her grounded so she can dive back into this creative chaos with a smile.

For Stone, challenge is always the starting point, as she recently explained to Gala over Zoom from Los Angeles. “It’s so hard to imagine myself not doing something demanding or something that doesn’t push me out of my comfort zone. I feel so lucky to have played these characters for… I don’t even know how many years. I’m definitely drawn to that. It doesn’t have to be a specific genre, and it doesn’t mean it can’t be something simpler or more fun. But for me this is fun — which I’m not sure what that says about me.” (laughs)

In Bugonia, she plays the powerful CEO of a pharmaceutical company who is kidnapped by two obsessive conspiracy theorists (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis). They are convinced she is an alien sent to Earth to wipe out humanity — and that only they can stop her. With dark humor and an anarchic tone, the film comments on the runaway paranoia of our times, something Stone immediately recognizes. “I think the movie makes a really interesting point about extreme viewpoints and how we’ve lost the ability to truly listen to each other.

There’s a lack of nuance in the positions we take — and maybe also a lack of empathy for the other side, which doesn’t necessarily share our beliefs. I think we need more empathy, and the willingness to hear other people’s ideas.”

Another key theme is the loneliness of the characters, which pushes them to extreme actions. “What I find interesting is that everyone lives in a very isolated environment, though on very different socioeconomic levels. Her home is this big, luxurious, upper-class space… I think that loneliness sometimes leads to the kind of extreme thinking we see in the film. When you don’t have a community around you, people who reflect your experience or your thinking back to you, these extremes appear between the two worlds.”

Despite the heavy themes of the film, Stone approaches her character with sharp humor — something present in all her major performances. She started out in comedy, after all: from Superbad, Easy A, and The House Bunny to her much-loved appearances on Saturday Night Live (five so far, a record), she has always had strong comedic instincts. Even as her roles became more dramatic, she knew humor was often the quickest way into a character — and the easiest way to connect with the audience.

“In fiction in general, I can’t imagine anything without some humor, at least for me, even as a viewer. It’s very hard for me to avoid it, because I think life has humor, even in its darkest moments. There are moments that make you laugh unintentionally or feel things intensely. So even if I wanted to escape the comedy that’s in me, maybe I’m not talented enough to do it. It just comes naturally. And that’s one reason I love Yorgos’ films so much. I don’t see them as comedies in the laugh-out-loud sense, but as comedies for people who view them through that lens.”

Even though Lanthimos’ films are often called dark, she insists they’re full of humor. Their collaboration is built on mutual trust and a shared worldview — one that has brought an Athenian filmmaker and a girl from Arizona to remarkable creative heights. “One of the great things about acting is that you channel a big part of your own personality into the roles. Not necessarily as catharsis or therapy, but you bring your own vulnerabilities, because that’s part of the job. But I think the trust built behind the camera — not only with Yorgos but with the whole crew — helps you feel open and vulnerable in those conditions. I imagine acting is always a kind of dance between trusting and being a bit like an open wound.”

In Bugonia, that trust is visible in every look, every moment of tension, every strange and wonderful beat. Emma Stone — more mature, more daring, and more playful than ever — once again shows why she is one of the most exciting actresses of her generation, and why her collaborations with Lanthimos continue to offer something truly unique to cinema.