Why Emma Stone broke down in tears? Inside shocking kidnapping conspiracy thriller 'Bugonia' in Dubai cinemas

Dubai: In Bugonia, Emma Stone steps into one of the most unnerving roles of her career—a powerful CEO who is kidnapped, restrained, and interrogated by two conspiracy-obsessed men convinced she is an alien here to destroy humanity.

It’s a premise that borders on absurdity, yet it lands with piercing relevance in a world grappling with disinformation, technological anxiety, and a fractured sense of truth. Stone, who reunites with visionary director Yorgos Lanthimos after Poor Things and The Favourite, becomes the mirror through which audiences confront this collective paranoia.

“I'd never seen me like that either,” Stone says of the physical demands of the role in an exclusive roundtable interview with Gulf News.

“Hadn't ever really been tied to a cot before. No, it was definitely physical… but it was fun, dare I say, interesting, and… was challenging, but felt new.” While Bugonia delivers claustrophobic tension and psychological pressure, Stone makes it clear that the true thrill wasn’t in the spectacle of captivity—but in the charged dialogue with co-star Jesse Plemons.

“The thing that I was most focused on throughout all of the physical aspects… was these scenes that we were able to do together—all of this dialogue and the back and forth… that was really what was so sort of exciting.”

Lanthimos, known for his disquieting explorations of human behavior, sees Bugonia as a reflection of our own spiraling need to explain what feels unfathomable. When asked whether anything can be done about the rise of conspiracy theories, he is direct: “What can we do? I think not much. I think we just, I guess, individually, need to be more thorough about where we get our information from. What do we believe?”

He stresses personal accountability, noting, “You know, vet things around us.”

Plemons echoes this fatalism, adding a new layer of concern as artificial intelligence blurs lines between truth and fabrication.

“I think… it's just going to get more and more difficult with AI to decipher what is real information and what is not. If you know, let me know.”

Stone’s performance emerges from this fog of uncertainty. She is not just a kidnapped executive but an avatar of institutional power, privilege, and the public’s mounting distrust. Yet the ending of the film—one that has already polarised early viewers—affected Stone deeply.

“It brings me to tears when I see the end because I feel so hopeful and such peace,” she says, contrasting with musician Patti Smith’s reaction. “She said she was devastated.”

This duality, Stone suggests, is precisely the point. The film doesn’t offer answers—it reflects back the viewer’s state of mind. Hope or despair is not embedded in the narrative but awakened in the individual.

According to Lanthimos, technology has become the great amplifier of disconnection. “There's chasm between all various different groups of people around the world believing certain things,” he explains. “It's hard to get out of those bubbles. And they get stronger through technology.”

Plemons draws a direct line between conspiracy and spiritual longing. “Human beings have always been in search of meaning,” he says.

“It feels really good to convince yourself that this is the problem. I've got it.” In Bugonia, this desperation for certainty spirals into fanaticism, exposing the paradox of the digital age: people are searching for connection in places that reward alienation.

Stone, playing the target of these beliefs, embodies that paradox—both the catalyst and the victim of the narrative’s moral panic. Her character becomes the vessel for everything society cannot understand or control.

Much has been made of Emma Stone’s creative partnership with Lanthimos, which is rapidly becoming one of the most defining director-actor collaborations of contemporary cinema.

When asked what makes their dynamic work, Stone’s answer is disarmingly simple: “We connected as people and understand each other and have a good relationship. The material that he likes to make and is drawn to is extremely interesting to me… it's been an incredibly special, beautiful, creative experience in my life.”

Lanthimos, in characteristic understatement, responds: “She took the words out of my mouth… we think the same thing.”

This instinctual creative trust may be the reason Stone’s performances in his films feel so liberated—pushing boundaries of physicality, emotion, and genre while never losing their humanity.

The title Bugonia references an ancient Greek belief that bees emerged from the carcass of a dead ox—life born from decay, civilisation regenerating from destruction. Lanthimos discovered the myth while exploring ideas for the film. “It just felt so relevant to the themes of the film,” he says. “It sounded good to me… it also sounded like a planet or a flower.”

Stone leans into that metaphorical resonance. Her character, even at her most restrained and vulnerable, embodies regeneration. The film may be dark, but Stone insists on its spiritual dimension. The ending, she believes, offers the possibility of rebirth.

Lanthimos maintains that film still holds the power to disrupt complacency—not by preaching, but by provoking introspection.

“You're not teaching them anything through cinema. You don't pretend that you have taught anyone a universal truth about what's right and what's wrong,” he says.

“All I hope is that if they don't necessarily get it immediately… but it stays with them… it sparks some kind of thought process or some kind of discussion… it's the best thing that can happen.”

Stone is that spark. In Bugonia, she is less a character than a question: What do we choose to believe, and why?

Bugonia is out in UAE cinemas on October 30