Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons to keep their Yorgos Lanthimos streaks going

Even as Poor Things and The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos is busy at Cannes, debuting his latest movie—short story anthology film Kinds Of Kindness, drawing strong reviews—he’s already lined up his next project, Bugonia. That includes just-released casting info about the upcoming film, revealing that Kindness star Jesse Plemons has signed on to take a second tour on the Lanthimos Boat, as captained by an also-returning Emma Stone, now set to star in the Greek director’s fourth consecutive film.

Lanthimos has always been a guy who’s comfortable reuniting with his previous stars; Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, and Willem Dafoe have all appeared in multiple films for him, finding new interpretations of his odd, slightly alien characters. But Stone has become synonymous with the filmmaker at this point, having first worked with Lanthimos on 2018's The Favourite, and received the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in last year’s Poor Things. Now she’ll co-star in Bugonia, playing a corporate CEO who two conspiracy theorists are convinced is secretly an alien invader. (Although, in Lanthimos Land, how could you tell?) The film is a loose adaptation of 2003 South Korean film Save The Green Planet!, which typically gets described as a comedy, even though it’s one of the more depressing “comedy” films we’ve ever, personally, seen. (Which, now that we think about it, is also peak Lanthimos.)

Stone (who seems happy, by the way, that people on the red carpet took Nathan Fielder’s recent cue and have begun referring to her occasionally as Emily, her birth name) spoke to her relationship with Lanthimos while doing promo at Cannes for Kinds Of Kindness. “I feel like I can do anything with him, because we’ve worked together so many times,” Stone said, calling Lanthimos her “muse.” “I trust him beyond the trust I’ve ever had with any director. We just have something that I can’t explain, and I’m so grateful for it.”