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Bugonia brought Emma Stone face-to-face with one of the boldest moments of her career. The Oscar-winning actress shaved her head on camera in one take, a scene that left her “so afraid” during filming. The remake of the Korean sci-fi film Save the Green Planet! demanded total commitment from Stone, who plays Michelle Fuller, a powerful pharmaceutical CEO kidnapped by two conspiracy-obsessed men convinced she is an alien.
Emma Stone Reveals She Was “So Afraid” While Filming the Head-Shaving Scene
Stone described the moment to Entertainment Weekly, recalling how she tried to stay completely still as the cameras rolled. “I was meditating on stay still, just stay still,” she said. There was no room for error. The crew had only one chance to capture it, with four cameras rolling from every angle. She admitted she feared ruining the shot, saying she tried to “play dead” while the razors moved across her scalp.
Exclusive look at the behind-the-scenes of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis and Stavros Halkias
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Yorgos Lanthimos on Convincing Emma Stone to Shave Her Head
Yorgos Lanthimos, who has directed Stone in The Favourite, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, and the short film Bleat, said convincing her to shave her head wasn’t hard. “She read it first, and she had the slightest hesitation just before, not hesitation to do it, but she had kind of a knot in her stomach. But it happened. Thankfully, we did it. We only had one shot to achieve it. And then she felt great. She saw herself and she really loved it, and she felt very free.”
