One might say Poor Things is an epic culmination for Ed Guiney: It’s a film ten years in the making that lurked in the shadows of the producer’s three other collaborations with director Yorgos Lanthimos (the duo also has a fifth project on the horizon: Kinds of Kindness).
Based on a novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray, Poor Things is Lanthimos’ biggest movie yet. Vivid screenwriting from Tony McNamara is brought to life by vibrant sets, costumes and music with acclaimed performances from Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef and Willem Dafoe. The film took home the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and garnered 11 Oscar nominations last month, the second most of any film behind Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
For Guiney, Poor Things has been a decade-long thrill ride on Lanthimos’ fantastical roller coaster. “His worlds are so extraordinary, his imagination is so compelling,” Guiney says. “It’s an absolute privilege, and not one that we take for granted.”
You are a longtime collaborator of Yorgos Lanthimos: The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite and now Poor Things. Let’s go back in time for a second — how did you first meet?
We first met around the time of [Yorgos’ film] Dogtooth, so that was 2010. We were looking for someone to direct what became The Favourite. It was kind of the same story, but without a filmmaker at that point. Like so many people who saw [Dogtooth], we were just flabbergasted by it in the best possible way: extraordinary, incredibly fresh, like nothing else. We somehow imagined we should talk to him about our script, and he responded and saw something in it and we began to develop it together.
Around that time, he subsequently moved to London and wanted to work in English language cinema. He had the idea for The Lobster, and approached us about that. We commissioned Yorgos and Efthymis Filippou, his writing partner, to write the script.
When did Poor Things first get started?
It was around the time of The Lobster. Yorgos met Beatrice Verhoeven Alasdair Gray and shared the novel with us. It’s an incredible book.
It was very ambitious to imagine making… [Poor Things] is a huge canvas and a big story, but at that stage our reaction to Yorgos was, “We’re right behind you.” Even early on in our relationship, I just had huge faith in him as a filmmaker and what he would do with the book.
After saying that to him, how did the rest of the team come together?
[Screenwriter] Tony McNamara came on to write The Favourite with Deborah Davis and did an amazing, huge, incredible contribution to that. We also met Emma Stone on The Favourite, and that was the first time Yorgos and she had worked together. It was a real kind of meeting of minds, something special happened. Just after we wrapped The Favourite, they were having dinner and Yorgos mentioned Poor Things. As is typical with Emma, she was all in. It was very exciting to imagine her playing Bella, that was a really early connection that was made.
When we had a script, Yorgos shared it with her, and her enthusiasm continued. She was so curious about other parts of the endeavor in terms of casting and how the script was coming together, it just seemed obvious that she would be a really added producing voice.
What was your experience producing alongside Emma Stone?
She’s so great. With a film like this, there’s lots of things to chew on and discuss on the way to making it, and then when you come out on the other side, you’re trying to wrangle those into its best version and trying to figure out how to push it out into the world. She was really invaluable as part of those conversations. Her instincts around that were really great to have, and she’s just a complete pleasure to work with. She’s a great, great person.
This cast is so impressive. After Emma, how did you land on everyone else?
Yorgos is incredibly curious, and he’s also a really avid watcher of stuff. He’s seen every movie and every TV show. He’s very good at spotting what actors can offer in slightly different configurations to what we’ve seen them in before. He will watch YouTube interviews and watch the real person rather than just their performances.
And then [casting director] Dixie Chassay is a phenomenal collaborator for him, in terms of helping work through the chess game of the ensemble stuff. And of course, Emma has great insight, having worked with lots of people but also just being an actor herself.
I think [Yorgos’] process is very liberating for actors. He is an auteur and a visionary, but he is also a great collaborator, and loves to work with people who bring a lot of themselves to play, and a lot of their impulses and ideas. And that goes for actors in front of the camera but also very much behind the camera as well. It’s not like he instructs or comes with a predetermined sense of what absolutely should be the case. He’s really interested in the collaboration with an individual, for them to come and offer things.
How did this film’s production feel different from your past work with Yorgos?
For all of us behind the camera, all of the heads of department, it was the biggest thing that we’ve done. And for Yorgos, it was also the first time he’d worked on a set, ever, the first time that he really lit a movie to that extent. It was the first time he had a composer, actually. So for all of us, there was a collective scratching of heads to figure out how to pull it off.
Poor Things won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. What was that experience like?
It was great. I speak for myself, but we were pretty anxious going into it. It’s a big swing, and I think we also felt that not having Emma there was a vulnerability, as our creative partner but also as Bella [the premiere occurred during the SAG-AFTRA strike, when actors were not allowed to promote studio films].
I was having coffee with somebody in the back streets of Venice as the press and industry screening was going on, and then Rebecca Kearey, head of international at Searchlight called — the phone rang at 10:30 or 11 in the morning and she said, “Yeah, it was good.”
It’s live or die in those moments. And it’s not to say that it defines everything, but if we’d had a mixed response coming out of that, it would have colored things obviously. And then for it to go on and win the Golden Lion was incredible. The day after it screened, we went straight to Telluride.
Poor Things has continued to shine at the box office, even into 2024. Did you have any predictions for how the film would be received there?
There was a lot of anxiety around it, and when it opened well, that was great. We could imagine a different reception for the film, where you’re taking a big swing and making something that is bold in so many ways, in terms of its world building, in terms of what it’s about, how it’s executed. It’s a big vision, it’s a big deal. And it’s really, really gratifying that it landed well and went out into the world and definitely has its fans who love it.
