Poor Things star Emma Stone felt no shame when filming wild sex scenes for the new film

The Venice Film Festival is off and running, and it continues its slate of upcoming films. One of the more ambitious works comes from the filmmaker with the fun name to say — Yorgos Lanthimos. His movie, Poor Things, reunites him with his The Favourite star, Emma Stone. Lanthimos’ newest effort is an abstract, dark “Frankenstein” fairy tale comedy that presents visuals that fans of Terry Gilliam may gravitate towards. Stone plays a re-animated woman who is awkwardly learning how to properly function in her body again.

One of the many sensations of life that Stone’s character, Bella, re-experiences is sex. And the film will not be shying away from that aspect of the story. Lanthimos was adamant that the film not be bashful. Variety reports that the director is promoting the film in Venice, and the on-going strikes prevent Stone from joining him. Yorgos stated, “It’s a shame that Emma could not be here to speak more about it, because it will be coming all from me. First of all, sex is an intrinsic part of the novel itself, her freedom about everything including sexuality.”

Lanthimos continues, “Secondly, it was very important for me to not make a film that would be prudish, because that would be like completely betraying the main character. We had to be confident Emma had to have no shame about her body, nudity, engaging in those scenes and she understood that right away.” Lanthimos’ prior film with Stone featured her first stint with nude scenes.

“The great thing about me and Emma is that we have made four films together; there is a shorthand and we can communicate without having to explain or talk to much about things,” Lanthimos added. “As soon as I started saying something about sex, she would say: ‘yes,’ of course, it’s Bella. We will do what we need to do.”

While sex scenes can be a difficult thing to film, Yorgos talks about the benefit of having an intimacy coordinator on the film, “At the beginning, this profession felt a little threatening to most filmmakers, but I think its like everything: if you’re with a good person, it’s great and you realize you actually need them. She made everything much easier for everyone.”