Emma Stone is known for going all in when it comes to her movie roles, but her latest transformation came with a little help and approval from her 4-year-old daughter, Louise Jean.
The Oscar-winning actress revealed that she prepared her daughter before shaving her head for her new sci-fi comedy Bugonia, just to make sure it wouldn’t come as a shock when she got home.
Speaking to USA Today, Stone, 36, shared that she had a heart-to-heart with Louise before filming began.
“I just said, ‘I’m going to shave my head. I’m going to take my hair off and it’s going to grow back. Isn’t that so silly and fun? We can do whatever we want with our hair! It can change all the time.’ She’s like, ‘OK,’ and then was totally cool,” Stone recalled, adding that she wanted her daughter to be “very ready” for the big change so it wouldn’t be “super-scary.”
In Bugonia, Stone plays Michelle Fuller, a powerful pharmaceutical CEO who gets abducted by conspiracy theorists convinced she’s an alien planning to destroy Earth.
In an attempt to block her from communicating with her supposed mothership, they shave her head, leading to the dramatic transformation.
Stone admitted that even though she was prepared for the scene, she still had a few nerves.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos, who wanted everything to go perfectly, had four cameras rolling at once “just to make sure none of them jammed.”
But the waiting time added to Stone’s anxiety.
“They kept saying, ‘We’ll be ready in 10 minutes. Nah, actually 30 minutes. No, actually an hour,’” she said, laughing at the memory.
“I was sitting there, building the anticipation. So I had a little last-minute freak, and then Yorgos came over, we talked, and I was like, ‘I’m going to be fine. It’s going to be great.’ And I absolutely loved it.”
Once the clippers were finally buzzing, Stone said she found herself in a surprisingly calm state.
“I was practically in a meditative state while my head was being shaved, telling myself to stay still because if I opened my eyes or flinched, it would really mess things up,” she shared.
Beyond her bold new look, Stone also opened up about how motherhood has changed her perspective on life and her career.
In an August interview with Vogue, she called her daughter “the greatest gift of my life,” explaining that being a parent has deeply influenced the roles she takes on and how she connects with her craft.
“I do think it unlocks different things,” Stone said. “I feel everything I could possibly feel, because everything has exploded.”
Bugonia will open in select theaters on Friday, October 24, before expanding nationwide on Friday, October 31.
