The actor Emma Stone has declared that she believes in the existence of aliens, saying she agrees with the astronomer Carl Sagan, who said it would be “pretty narcissistic” to think otherwise.
In her new film Bugonia, Stone plays a chief executive of a major company who is kidnapped by a pair of conspiracy theorists who believe she is an alien intent on destroying the planet.
Given the themes, it was inevitable she would be asked about her views on “ultimate intelligence looking down on us” during a press conference at the Venice film festival – to which she made her confession.
“I don’t know about looking down on us, but one of my favourite people who has ever lived is Carl Sagan and I fell madly in love with his philosophy and science and how brilliant he is,” the Oscar winner said.
“He very deeply believed [that] the idea that we’re alone in this vast expansive universe – not that we’re being watched – is a pretty narcissistic thing. So, yes, I’m coming out and saying it: I believe in aliens.”
The black comedy directed by Stone’s frequent collaborator Yorgos Lanthimos premieres in competition on the Lido on Thursday night.
It is Lanthimos’s third film in three years, all of which starred Stone. The Greek director won the Golden Lion at Venice two years ago for his gothic comedy Poor Things. It went on to win four Oscars, including best actress for Stone.
Bugonia also stars Jesse Plemons (who featured in Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness last year) as a conspiracist beekeeper, and Aidan Delbis as his partner in crime. The script was written by The Menu co-writer Will Tracy and is an English-language remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet!
Stone said she loved working with Lanthimos. “I love the material that he’s drawn to and the worlds he wants to explore, and the characters that he’s been generous enough to let me try my hand at.”
She described Bugonia as particularly “reflective of this point in time in our world” and a “really fascinating and moving, funny and fucked up, and alive” project.
Lanthimos said he was “immediately blown away” by the script.
“I wouldn’t necessarily call it a dystopic film,” the director said. “If anything, this film says this is happening now. Humanity is facing a reckoning very soon, people need to choose the right path in many ways otherwise I don’t know how much time we have – with technology, with AI, with wars, and [with] the denial of all these things, how desensitised we’ve become to them.”
There was disappointment when George Clooney did not appear at a press conference for his film, Jay Kelly, which is directed by Noah Baumbach and also premieres on Thursday.
The actor was reportedly recovering from a sinus infection. “Even movie stars get sick,” Baumbach said.
Clooney stars as a famous actor facing a late-career reckoning while crisscrossing Europe with his loyal manager and best friend, played by Adam Sandler. The cast includes Laura Dern and Billy Crudup.
Baumbach said he and co-writer Emily Mortimer created the role for Clooney. “It was really important that the audience watching the movie have a relationship with the actor. We all, watching it, have a history with George, just the way the people in the movie have a history with Jay,” he said.
“I’m not one to get emotional on set, generally, watching things, but I really did on this movie.”