How Emma Stone found her ‘most joyous role’ in ‘Poor Things’

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos’ feminist romp around Europe is a showcase for Stone. But there’s more to the film than gender politics, say its creators.

Whatever Tony McNamara made from “Poor Things,” his son deserves a cut of dad’s check. The Oscar-nominated screenwriter’s uproarious, frequently filthy adaptation of Alastair Gray’s novel about Bella Baxter, a deceased woman reanimated with the brain of an unborn child, is not short of quotable lines. But it’s hard to beat the time Bella, upon hearing a crying infant, stands up in the middle of dinner and announces, “I must go punch that baby.” “It’s my favorite line,” McNamara told CNN – and he’s taking no credit for it. “We were working on Bella – the young Bella ­– and she was a bit nice,” he said. “And I was saying, ‘it’s weird, because kids aren’t like that.’” McNamara told his director Yorgos Lanthimos about a trip to a restaurant with his three-year-old son, who became irritated with one of its youngest customers. “Kids are just instinct. They’re like, ‘That’s annoying to me. I’m going to end it,’” the screenwriter recalled. Then the toddler came out with the obvious solution: “Let’s punch that baby.” “Yorgos was like, ‘Okay, we need that spirit.’” It made it into the picture. Their movie, a rambunctious picaresque indebted to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and Terry Gilliam’s worldbuilding, pairs rutting with ruminations on what it is to be alive in a society that seeks to put women in a box. In one sense, “Poor Things” is the horny cousin of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” – a similarly existential endeavour – but its daring and ambition eclipses that of the billion-dollar blockbuster. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the movie is now rolling out its release worldwide with eyes firmly set on awards season.