In 2023, Wes Anderson and (probably) Hong Sangsoo aren’t the only directors with a pair of films likely coming out in the same year. Yorgos Lanthimos, who hasn’t made a feature since 2018’s The Favourite, completed Poor Things, led by Emma Stone as a Victorian-era woman bought back to life by an eccentric scientist. The Frankenstein-like love story, also starring Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, and Christopher Abbott, was recently rated R for “strong and pervasive sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing material, gore, and language.” As we await premiere news, his second Searchlight Pictures film of the year wrapped a few months ago and now we have an intriguing update.
AND, which was filmed in New Orleans, marked a reunion with Stone, Dafoe, and Joe Alwyn, with an ensemble also including Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer. While no plot details have been revealed yet, the Oscar-nominated Chau revealed on Marc Maron’s latest podcast the film’s unique narrative conceit. “It’s three short stories and we play different characters in each one, so the same actors play different characters,” she reveals.
Chau goes on to say, “I asked Jesse, ‘So what did you think about the script?’ Because you are all trying to see what the other person thinks and piece things together. I said, ‘I was going to try and re-read the script and figure out what the themes connecting the three stories were, but then I just kind of gave up.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, same.’ [Laughs.]”
In a new profile on Dafoe in New York Times, a few more details were also revealed: “In one scene, Stone’s character is seen slapping Dafoe’s, who’s meant to be off camera; ordinarily, Stone would make the gesture without an actor present, but Dafoe insisted that the move would look more genuine if he were actually being slapped, and then took the (staged) blow some 20 times.”
It all sounds perfectly Lanthimosian and here’s hoping Poor Things may find its way to Cannes while AND debuts in the fall. As we await official news, check out a behind-the-scenes clip below and Chau’s full talk with Marc Maron, in which she also discusses her experiences working with Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne, and Darren Aronofsky.