{"id":190356,"date":"2025-09-01T15:22:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T15:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/01\/jesse-plemons-says-bugonia-was-the-hardest-thing-ive-ever-done\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T15:22:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T15:22:16","slug":"jesse-plemons-says-bugonia-was-the-hardest-thing-ive-ever-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/01\/jesse-plemons-says-bugonia-was-the-hardest-thing-ive-ever-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesse Plemons Says &#8216;Bugonia&#8217; was \u201cThe Hardest Thing I&#8217;ve Ever Done\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap\"><strong>Jesse Plemons<\/strong> is surprisingly energetic when I meet him on Sunday at the Telluride Film Festival. He\u2019s just arrived for the weekend from Venice, Italy, where his film <em>Bugonia<\/em> had its world premiere. But the globehopping travel doesn\u2019t seem to have affected him as much as I would have expected\u2014though he admits it\u2019s very surreal. \u201cIt&#8217;s a funny experience to take a boat to the airport in Venice and then take a [mountain] gondola later in the day,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Plemons stars in <strong>Yorgos Lanthimos<\/strong>\u2019s <em>Bugonia<\/em> as Teddy Gatz, a man who is convinced that aliens live among us. Teddy, who is also carrying immense grief, kidnaps a powerful CEO (<strong>Emma Stone<\/strong>), thinking that she is an alien who is attempting to destroy the planet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">While the film is full of Lanthimos\u2019 unique sensibilities and bold storytelling, it is also making a statement about the pressing environmental and social issues of today, including how capitalism and the global authoritarian corporate culture are ruining the planet in a way that\u2019s likely irreversible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Plemons, who previously worked with Lanthimos in <em>Kinds of Kindness<\/em>, delivers a towering performance as Teddy, who is intense, intelligent, and highly unpredictable. The third act of the film is one of the wildest things you\u2019ll see on screen this year, and Plemons admits it was demanding to pull off. He also reveals his new-found hobby, what he learned about conspiracy theorists, and talks about his current spiritual journey.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"AssetEmbedWrapper-fkZDUs kHRAYC asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"AssetEmbedAssetContainer-eEeytc eRSvCP asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"SpanWrapper-zEXFr hdztbW responsive-asset AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cIfZLr fHIkTW asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"ResponsiveImagePicture-cGZhnX jwYQWO AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cIfZLr fHIkTW asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"CaptionWrapper-jYrTxZ hvludv caption AssetEmbedCaption-fyuOdR iTyhpv asset-embed__caption\" data-testid=\"caption-wrapper\"><span class=\"BaseWrap-sc-gzmcOU BaseText-eqOrNE CaptionText-brNLzD deqABF ijcmYY ixLsrW caption__text\"><\/p>\n<p>Plemons in <em>Bugonia<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/span><span class=\"BaseWrap-sc-gzmcOU BaseText-eqOrNE CaptionCredit-eowWKH deqABF PwCDR kpuElq caption__credit\">Courtesy of Focus Features \u00a9\u00a02025 All Rights Reserved.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paywall\"><strong><em>Vanity Fair<\/em>: When did you first start talking to Yorgos about making another movie together?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\"><em>Jesse Plemons<\/em>: Right after <em>Kinds of Kindness<\/em>, I picked up photography, to my surprise. Yorgos is also a great photographer, which is annoying. [Laughs] I&#8217;ve got kids and I started taking some film photos of them. And so then he was very generous and gave me a few tutorials over Zoom. And then maybe four or five months after we finished <em>Kinds of Kindness<\/em>, he told me about the script and sent it to me. I was floored by it, loved it. So we were doing press for [<em>Kinds of Kindness<\/em>] as we were rehearsing and it was kind of chaotic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\"><strong>What was it about the script?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">This current moment we are in is so strange and scary. I feel like I&#8217;m always looking for something to help me to sort through that that does it in a way that doesn&#8217;t feel preachy, that gets it right. And this just really seemed to. It came at this present moment in a sort of backdoor way that was surprising at every turn and leaves you with plenty to think about and chew on. And Teddy, I&#8217;ve been very fortunate to play some pretty complex characters, but he&#8217;s up there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\"><strong>What did you do for research to understand this conspiracy theorist?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">It&#8217;s not too difficult to, if you&#8217;re looking out for it, the internet has it all. And <strong>Andrew Callaghan<\/strong> has this YouTube channel, and he just places himself in really intense, interesting places and just has one of those personalities that is disarming enough for people. He&#8217;s even been to alien conferences and flat earth conventions. And then I had a friend that recommended this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2023\/08\/naomi-klein-naomi-wolf-book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">book by <strong>Naomi Klein<\/strong> called <em>Doppelganger<\/em><\/a> and it was just a perfect place for me to start.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/story\/jesse-plemons-bugonia-telluride\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesse Plemons is surprisingly energetic when I meet him on Sunday at the Telluride Film Festival. He\u2019s just arrived for the weekend from Venice, Italy, where his film Bugonia had its world premiere. But the globehopping travel doesn\u2019t seem to have affected him as much as I would have expected\u2014though he admits it\u2019s very surreal. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7029,3561],"class_list":{"0":"post-190356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity","8":"tag-jesse-plemons","9":"tag-telluride-film-festival"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}