Emma Stone’s origin story for her second Oscar is delighting the internet: she essentially cast herself in Poor Things over dinner, volunteering for a role director Yorgos Lanthimos hadn’t offered, and by his own admission, wasn’t even pitching.
In a newly circulating interview clip, Stone recalls innocently asking Lanthimos about his next project, hearing his gloriously strange summary, and blurting out her availability on the spot, only for the Greek director to reply flatly: “It wasn’t a pitch.”
Emma Stone’s Story, In Her Own Words
“He wasn’t even pitching it to me. We were just having dinner, and I was like, ‘So what are you gonna do next?’ He was like, ‘Oh, there’s this one project, there’s this book,'” Stone recounts in the clip.
Her summary of his summary is a gem in itself:
“The short form explanation of that story is pretty wack… Woman who jumps off a bridge, now is pregnant. He’s gonna take the baby’s brain out and puts it in her head and reanimates her. And then she’s going through life and meets all these men and they try to possess her and she drives ’em crazy or whatever.”
Undeterred by the pitch that wasn’t, Stone jumped:
“I was like, ‘I would love to do that if you’re free. That sounds incredible. Yes.'” Cue Lanthimos’s deadpan correction that no offer had been made.
The Dinner Really Happened
The anecdote is well documented by those in the room, so to speak. Producer Ed Guiney has confirmed that just after wrapping The Favourite, Stone and Lanthimos were having dinner when Yorgos mentioned Poor Things, and, as is typical with Emma, she was all in, calling it a very early connection that made imagining her as Bella exciting.
Stone herself told TheWrap she first heard about the project at that post-Favourite dinner, having never read Alasdair Gray’s novel, and that the idea of a reanimated woman experiencing the world through fresh eyes was alone enough to interest her; she just wanted to know more and more.
Why the Accidental Pitch Paid Off
The dinner conversation became a six-year development journey, with Stone working alongside Lanthimos to develop the project and ultimately serving as producer. Lanthimos had acquired the rights years earlier but got the cold shoulder from studios, making The Favourite first to prove the partnership commercially.
The gamble was historic. Poor Things earned 11 Oscar nominations, and Stone’s fearless turn as Bella Baxter, a role she called deceptively the simplest she’d ever played because it required stripping away rather than adding, won her a second Academy Award for Best Actress in 2024.
Hollywood’s Strangest Power Duo
The dinner was the third chapter of what became a five-project collaboration, spanning The Favourite, the short film Bleat, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, and beyond. Lanthimos has said Stone was his first choice for The Favourite, explaining he never offers parts without meeting first, because how they get along as people matters as much as performance.
There’s even a comic prequel: Lanthimos admits he considered Stone for The Lobster years earlier but passed because the script featured a lisping character, and Stone’s real-life lisp, he feared, would make the whole film collapse.
Stone has described the partnership simply: hundreds of thousands of hours together in which every second has been, like, a dream, one that began, fittingly, with a dinner question about what he was doing next.
Emma Stone reveals she landed Poor Things by accidentally pitching herself the role at dinner before the director had even offered it
Emma: “He wasn’t even pitching it to me. We were just having dinner and I was like, ‘So what are you gonna do next?’ He was like, ‘Oh, there’s… pic.twitter.com/ZxxPBWATcO
— sara (@saradotxyz) July 10, 2026
FAQ
How did Emma Stone get the Poor Things role?
At a dinner with Yorgos Lanthimos after wrapping The Favourite, she asked about his next project, heard the premise, and volunteered on the spot, before any offer existed.
What did Lanthimos say when she accepted?
Per Stone’s retelling: “It wasn’t a pitch.”
Did Emma Stone win an Oscar for Poor Things?
Yes. She won Best Actress in 2024, her second Academy Award, and the film earned 11 nominations overall.
What is Poor Things about?
Based on Alasdair Gray’s novel, it follows Bella Baxter, a woman reanimated with an infant’s brain by a scientist (Willem Dafoe), who experiences the world entirely anew.
How many films have Stone and Lanthimos made together?
Five projects and counting, including The Favourite, the short Bleat, Poor Things, and Kinds of Kindness.
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