Bella Baxter, the curiosity (played by Emma Stone) at the center of Yorgos Lanthimos’s neo-Gothic romp, Poor Things, cuts a severe figure in waist-grazing raven hair and heavyset brows. But the character herself—a living, breathing experiment on her way to self-actualization—is really a tangle of contradictions. Her delicate beauty skews feral, her sexual hedonism is braided with the absurd. Even before the film’s New York premiere on Wednesday evening, Stone’s performance had already been drawing praise. (A snippet of a frenetic dance sequence in the trailer hints at just how much the performance is a finely calibrated, full-bodied feat.) But with a winding awards season likely ahead, how might an actor carry the spirit of this wild child onto an otherwise buttoned-up red carpet?
Emma Stone as Bella Baxter in Poor Things, sporting an epic braid and deep brows. Nadia Stacey designed the character’s hair and makeup look.
Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
Stone’s premiere look offered an early glimpse: all the polish you’d expect of a seasoned Oscar winner, with a glimmer of Bella’s idiosyncratic verve. That played out as a diaphanous yellow Louis Vuitton dress, a jeweled orchid worn on the neck with a Degas-style ribbon, raspberry lips and pearlescent eyes, and the actor’s back-to-red hair twisted into a deconstructed knot. It helps to have a creative team that has shepherded Stone throughout her career. “Since 2007—Superbad, her first film,” says makeup artist Rachel Goodwin, speaking in the car as she and hairstylist Mara Roszak shuttled from Stone’s hotel room to the screening. Together with stylist Petra Flannery, the three women have the push-pull of collaboration down. “I always say we’re kind of like a band,” Goodwin says.
From left: The array of makeup used for the New York premiere included a new shade of Pat McGrath Labs ChromaLuxe Artistry Pigment, arriving December 15. The hand-embroidered dress by Louis Vuitton is encrusted with crystals and mother of pearl.
From left: Courtesy of Rachel Goodwin; Courtesy of Louis Vuitton.
In tracing the trajectory from Poor Things to premiere, Stone credits the film’s hair and makeup designer, Nadia Stacey, for such beautiful work—raw skin and runaway hair lending to that unbridled quality. “Because Bella, my character, is so without shame and self-judgment, I think that applies to beauty in a huge way, and confidence around beauty,” Stone explains via email. “So with this press tour, Rachel and Mara and Petra and I have been talking about a kind of inspiration of Bella and that sort of simplicity but still having fun with color and youthfulness.”
The evening’s violet-tinged mouth played off the chartreuse yellow of the tulle dress. Goodwin enhanced Stone’s freckles for an ultra-natural effect, while the handmade Louis Vuitton choker dialed up the glamour.
“I’m Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of ‘Poor Things.’” “Understand we never lived outside God’s house.” “What?” “So Bella’s so much to discover. And your sad face makes me discover angry feelings for you.” “This is a scene that takes place in a restaurant in Lisbon, where Bella Baxter and Duncan, played by Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, are having dinner. And there’s other people dancing. During that, the music attracts Bella, and just instinctively, gets up and starts wanting to join the dance. It’s a very funny, awkward, physical situation where Bella has never really danced before, and it’s very intuitive, what she does. He’s not a good dancer. He’s trying to keep up with her. We had a lot of help from Constanza Macras, who did the choreography. So the dance, because she’s done it for the first time, it just felt like it should be something quite primitive, slightly baby-like, but then it quickly develops into something that she wants to take hold of and lose control of her self. And Mark, in real life, is also not a great dancer. And on the other hand, Emma is a really good dancer, so we kind of used that dynamic as we were building the choreography. And it actually became funnier than what we thought.” “What do you keep doing that for?” “A man over there repeated blinks at me. I blink back for polite, I think.” [MUSIC PLAYING]
The cast and crew of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Thingsmade their way onto one final red carpet ahead of the film’s theatrical release.
Stars Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Margaret Qualley and Kathryn Hunter, among others, joined Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara for the New York City premiere of the film on Wednesday night.
Ruffalo expressed that working with Stone, Lanthimos and the rest of the Poor Thingsteam was like a “dream come true for him,” due partially to his character, Duncan Wedderburn.
“He gets to say the most outrageous, foul, really poetic things than probably any man in the last 20 years of cinema and do it with panache and charm and total gracelessness,” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter. “I was really into the idea of doing physical comedy and then working, of course, with Emma and this cast.”
Stone, who portrays Bella Baxter, explained that she couldn’t pinpoint what her favorite part of the film was because she enjoyed every aspect of it and loved her character. She also shared with reporters on the carpet what Lanthimos’ rehearsal processes for Poor Things were, noting they were fun and silly and incorporated lots of theater games.
“We kind of don’t necessarily rehearse in the traditional way,” the Oscar winner said. “It just sort of bonds the cast. We felt really free and not embarrassed around each other, which is huge when you’re doing a lot of this, so I guess it informed Bella in the sense that I felt really great with everybody that I was doing scenes with.”
Dafoe echoed Stone’s sentiment in expressing that every part of the film was the best part. The Lighthouse star portrays the Dr. Frankenstein-esque mad scientist Godwin Baxter who creates Bella, which leads to the two of them having “a very complicated relationship.”
“The best part was the world, the design of the place,” Dafoe shared. “The best part was working with Yorgos. He’s a beautiful director. The best part is working with Tony McNamara’s script. The best part is having the scenes with Emma.”
He shared that there wasn’t much preparation for him to do before production because his character was as complete as could be, so all he did was prepare an accent and watch videotapes of Alasdair Gray, the author of Poor Things, the book the film is based on. Dafoe found the novelist interesting and felt it was helpful to watch him in conversations because there is a lot of him in Godwin.
Tony McNamara, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Kathryn Hunter, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley and Ramy Youssef
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Lanthimos first read the novel 12 years ago but struggled to get people to back the film. Once they did, however, creating the world for his characters to inhabit became a pleasant process, he shared.
Poor Things reunited the director with Stone after they worked together on The Favourite, for which Stone received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. The pair also joined forces for the short film Bleat and the upcoming comic anthology And.
“I think we just get along like as people but also had a really good time working together on The Favourite,” Lanthimos said of his and Stone’s continued collaboration. “We just keep getting to know each other better and better, and we just build on that relationship.”
McNamara — who is already receiving awards for his Poor Things script — explained that when he and Lanthimos started thinking about adapting the story, the director suggested making the movie about Bella, instead of having other people tell her story like they do in the book.
After deciding to make Bella their protagonist, McNamara and Lanthimos had to figure out how to create a film that encompassed all the genres they were trying to incorporate: comedy, coming-of-age, satire, sci-fi and fantasy.
“The challenge was how to do that and make it feel organic and kind of like one thing,” the Oscar-nominated screenwriter said, adding that he found it exciting. “It was period, but it was contemporary. You don’t get often a character who changes the way they speak nonstop throughout a movie. So, that was really fun, to kind of work out how to do that and still make it feel like her all the time.”
With Bella at the center of the story, Poor Things is being hailed as a feminist masterpiece. THR‘s chief film critic David Rooney called it “an unconventional reflection on female freedom” in his review.
Hunter, who plays Madame Swiney in the already-award-winning project, appreciates the film asking questions like, “What is a woman? What is a human being? What are the things that we’re born with, and what are the things that we’re capable of?”
She continued, “I love that it’s a female odyssey. It has to be said that most stories are male odysseys, the journey of the male hero. This is such an original take on the odyssey of the female hero. … It asks those incredible questions about what are we? And it kind of punctures our hypocrisies about received truths and how we should live and conventions.”
We’ve already heard Taylor Swift’s take on what Emma Stone is like when she falls in love (paces the floor, closes the blinds and locks the door, calls up her mom, etc.), but what about when Emma stars in a movie? Swift attended the premiere of her pal Stone’s new movie Poor Things Wednesday evening in New York City, showing up to support her longtime friend.
Swift, who was announced this week as TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year and sat for a rare wide-ranging interview that shed light on her romance with Travis Kelce, her long-running beef with Kanye West and Scooter Braun, and more, stepped out for Stone’s starring role in the dark comedy. She and Stone posed together at the event, with Swift rocking an all-black look with a floor-length slip dress and black furry jacket, in contrast to Stone’s own off-white slip dress look. Swift did not walk the red carpet.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images.
The two have long been close, with Stone telling Vanity Fair in June, “we’ve been friends for a really long time. I’ve known her since we were 17 and 18.” Stone has shown up to support Swift in the past, too: Fans spotted her bopping at the opening night of Swift’s Eras Tour in Glendale, Arizona in March. Stone said that Swift had helped her score the “impossible” tickets.
“She’s a wonderful friend. She blows my mind,” Stone said of Swift. Though Stone won an Oscar for her work in the 2016 movie musical La La Land, the actor shook off the idea of ever duetting with Swift.
“Oh, God, hell no!” she said of the idea. “I can’t sing, like, for a massive stadium. Let’s not even go down that road. She has insane talent—I could never do what she does.”
Swift has seemingly paid tribute to Stone in song, with the vault track “When Emma Falls In Love” off of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)widely theorized to be about Stone’s past relationship with Andrew Garfield. On the red carpet Wednesday evening, Stone played coy when asked by ET about the song.
“You would have to ask her,” Stone said of the track.
Representatives for Taylor Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On this week’s Saturday Night Live, Emma Stone was presented with her five-timers club velvet smoking jacket during her monologue. She’s just the sixth woman to achieve the full handshake of hosting honors, joining the fine company of Drew Barrymore, Melissa McCarthy, Scarlett Johansson, Candice Bergen, and Tina Fey. The latter two flanked Stone at the top of the show, welcoming the 35-year-old into their illustrious ranks. Bergen boasted of first creating the women’s section of the five-timers club: “It’s got everything. Showers, a locker room, a big portrait with the eyes cut out so Martin Short can peek in.” Stone didn’t get much of a chance to tell jokes, but she did get in one zinger about meeting her husband and father of her child on one of her earlier SNL gigs. Asking the camera operator to cut to a shot of her camera-shy guy, we were treated not to an image of her comedy writer beau Dave McNary but a bashful-looking Lorne Michaels.
If we as a culture must endure spectacles like Sarah Palin and George Santos, at least we have SNL’s finest snapping into their batshit buttons. Just as Fey’s embodiment of Palin made the vice-presidential nominee’s crass rip through history almost worthwhile, one hates to lose Bowen Yang’s take on the recently booted congressman/forever carnie.
In the cold open, Yang’s Santos complained of reporters “bullying me just because I’m a proud gay thief” and that “America hates to see a Latina queen winning.” With an extravagant toss of his cape, Yang moved to a piano looking like a cross between Liberace and R.L. Stine’s Slappy the Dummy. “It seems to me like I lived my life like a scandal in the wind,” he crooned. Put it on the man’s tombstone: “It was filler, slut.”
The musical numbers kept coming. A sketch opened with Yang in New York, looking seasonally depressed. Stone was having just as rough a go. Their slump was going to take more than an egg and cheese and an increased dose of Lexapro to fix. The cure for their Big Apple blues was a naked ride on the back of a garbage truck with their bits blurred out. Chloe Troast and Marcello Hernandez opted to work construction in the buff. Chloe Fineman, Andrew Dismukes (always surprised by the thatch of chest hair on this guy), Punkie Johnson, and Sarah Sherman self-soothed by baring their all. Even Lady Liberty understood the allure of having her “big fat ass flapping in the breeze.” Dumb; well done.
Stone had one truly extraordinary sketch. She played a manager with a long game for impressive belter Troast’s Mama Cass who was recording a new Mamas and Papas track. Clad in a car salesman’s ’70s business suit and a curly mop of hair, Stone’s manager promised that her song would pay monster dividends decades later in film soundtracks. The gusto with which Stone then threw herself into imagining future scenes in which she used a saxophone as a shotgun to murder zombies, then a flute for her weary sex worker to slice and dice her foes, before finally clawing herself out of a grave in a pitch about Joan of Arc’s resurrection is Emmy-nomination-reel-worthy.
Emma Stone joined “Saturday Night Live‘s” coveted Five-Timers Club this Saturday, and was welcomed into “SNL her-story” by Tina Fey and Candice Bergen during her monologue.
Fey and Bergen gifted Stone with the iconic Five-Timers Club jacket, which Stone joked had a joint in the pocket.
“That must be Woody Harrelson’s jacket,” Bergen quipped.
“There’s also a vaccine card in here,” Stone said, to which Fey responded, “Then it’s definitely not Woody’s.”
Stone currently stars opposite Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie in Showtime’s “The Curse,” created by Fielder and Safdie. The series follows Whitney and Asher Siegel (played by Stone and Fielder), a married couple making an HGTV show about their philanthropic house flipping in the New Mexico town of Española. When Asher is “cursed” by a child, their marriage and professional relationship begin to spiral.
Stone will next be seen in Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things,” a surrealist black comedy for which she is being touted as a best actress contender. “Poor Things” also stars Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Jerrod Carmichael and Margaret Qualley.
This season of “Saturday Night Live” has seen celebrity hosts Jason Momoa, Pete Davidson, Nate Bargatze and Timothée Chalamet, plus musical guests Tate McRae, Ice Spice, Foo Fighters and Boygenius. On the Oct. 21 episode, Bad Bunny pulled double duty and both hosted and performed. There has also been an influx of A-list cameos this season from such stars as Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, Pedro Pascal, Lady Gaga, Mick Jagger, Alec Baldwin, Christopher Walken and more.
Trying to understand Nathan Fielder’s brand of comedy the first go-round is hard, especially if you don’t understand his vibe. But catching it in the wild? That has to be rough, and that’s what’s happening with the promotion for his new show The Curse.
Fielder is promoting the series with Emma Stone, and we’re getting to see a unique thing: Nathan Fielder having to actually promote something and do press. What would be normal for most actors is decidedly not that for him, which is par for the course if you know Fielder and his brand of comedy. Prior to the release of The Rehearsal, it’d be understandable for people to not really get what he’s doing, but that series (which was released on HBO) kind of set the tone for how odd and out there he can be.
Those who watched Nathan for You knew what Fielder was willing to do, but The Rehearsal put him on a more national level. What The Curse is doing, by having him work with Stone and Benny Safdie, is forcing people to embrace Fielder’s comedy who might have never done so before. That’s why this press tour is … well, chaotic. Social media has been filled with people who don’t know what he’s doing and who can’t quite tell where the bits start and end, which has been delicious.
It started with Fielder and Stone working harder than the devil to parody the Anybody but You trailer intro the day it came out.
It has since become Fielder going on to talk shows with a persona that is not who he is in real life, talking about the show and dragging Jimmy Kimmel in the process.
What’s been fun is to see social media trying to figure out what is real and what isn’t when it comes to Fielder.
Don’t try and figure him out. Just let him cook.
This is truly a hilarious way to get to know Fielder as a comedian because if you already know what he’s known for and his satire, you know when he’s joking around and how he pokes fun at things. If The Curse is your introduction and you’re tuning into something like Jimmy Kimmel Live to get to know him? Godspeed to you.
Sure, there are people who can probably put two and two together to figure out what a bit is, but with the way of the world and how people don’t understand basic comedy as it is, I just feel like Nathan Fielder is going to end up being lost on so many if they try too hard. What’s even better right now is that people are coming to The Curse for Emma Stone, not getting it, and leaving, or they are coming to the show because they do understand what they’re getting into and they’re making fancams of Nathan Fielder set to boygenius songs.
There are two distinct sides of what is going on with Nathan Fielder and The Curse right now and I am loving every single second of it.
Stone is currently starring in the Showtime TV series “The Curse” with Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. She plays a home improvement TV host who gets cursed by a child along with her husband, played by Fielder. She also stars in the awards season contender “Poor Things,” a Frankenstein-esque black comedy by Yorgos Lanthimos. Stone plays a woman named Bella who is brought back to life by mad scientist and learns how to be human.
Kahan is an indie folk singer who just received a Grammy nomination for best new artist.
Jason Momoa is hosting the latest “Saturday Night Live” ahead of his new DC movie, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” which is swimming to theaters on Dec. 22. It’s the long awaited sequel to his first “Aquaman” film from 2018 that was a hit with fans and grossed more than $1 billion at the box office. Momoa previously hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2018, his hosting debut, with Mumford and Sons as his musical guest.
In addition to the “Aquaman” sequel, Momoa appeared as the colorful villain Dante Reyes in Universal’s “Fast X” earlier this year. He also reprised his Aquaman role in the post-credits scene of “The Flash.”
This season of “Saturday Night Live” has so far had Pete Davidson, Bad Bunny, Nate Bargatze and Timothee Chalamet as hosts, plus Ice Spice, the Foo Fighters and Boygenius as musical guests. Bad Bunny pulled double duty and both hosted and performed. Singer Tate McRae performs on Momoa’s episode. There has also been an influx of celebrity cameos this season, including Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, Pedro Pascal, Lady Gaga, Mick Jagger, Alec Baldwin, Christopher Walken and more.
When Poor Things premiered in Venice over Labor Day weekend to rousing reviews and no stars in sight, Willem Dafoe watched from afar with a little bit of heartbreak, if also a lot of confidence that the film was landing—even thriving—without any of the usual red-carpet bells and whistles. “I thought, This is better!” he says with a laugh. Flash-forward two months later and, with the SAG-AFTRA strike tentatively resolved, this year’s unusual awards season dynamic has rapidly started reverting to its old self. Suddenly, Dafoe can talk about the movie that may net him his next Oscar nomination—one unlike any in his distinguished filmography.
The new Yorgos Lanthimos film is, true to the Favourite and Lobster director’s idiosyncratic spirit, brazenly original—an arty take on the Victorian-era novel by Alasdair Gray that spins the Frankenstein legend into a demented, raunchy, strangely touching tale of female empowerment and coming of age. The story begins with Dafoe’s Dr. Godwin Baxter, a mad scientist whose disfigured face would seem most at home among a Surrealist painting collection, completing a horrific experiment: He reanimates a 30-something corpse by replacing her defunct brain with that of an unborn child. We then meet Bella (Emma Stone) as both adult woman, rushing with sexual desires, and helpless baby, just learning how to walk and talk. In that, a most dysfunctional father-daughter dynamic emerges, one that Dafoe plays—while roaming Dr. Baxter’s townhouse, as it teems with his disturbing creations—in an increasingly tender, even heartwarming key. When Dr. Baxter and his protégé (Ramy Youssef) decide it’s time to let Bella go and have her explore the world, he mourns in his empty nest.
Dr. Baxter’s face, we later learn, has been completely maimed by the work of his father, also a surgeon. That trauma is applied both to the way he spends his days, breeding pigs with ducks and horses with carriages as if the animals are mix-and-match Legos, and to the interiority of Dafoe’s performance. Before shooting began, the make-up team would mock up scars for the actor so he could prepare having a sense of what the character could look like. As he got into filming, it was easy to get into that troubled headspace, given the amount of time he spent being turned into Dr. Baxter, down to the finest details.
“Four hours in, two hours out every day—I’m showing up at three o’clock in the morning, sitting in the chair, meditating and trying to deal with standing still. You can’t sleep because it’s intricate enough that you’ve got to work with the people applying it,” Dafoe says. “Then everybody else comes in at seven o’clock, and your day starts. You do a full day. Then you take it off. It’s a grind, but I liked working with a mask in there—quite literally, a mask.”
Dafoe developed a nickname on set: “They dubbed me ‘Kirk.’ They thought I looked like Kirk Douglas.”
Dafoe in Poor Things.
Yorgos Lanthimos
This is hardly Dafoe’s first transformation for the camera. He’s been Oscar-nominated for bloodsucking in Shadow of the Vampire and has portrayed Jesus, Vincent van Gogh, and (kind of) Hunter S. Thompson to great acclaim. But the sheer detail of a Lanthimos production allowed him to slip into this utterly original realm and find his bearings. The role matched the surroundings. The sets were “spectacular,” stuffed with intrigue. “In every spare moment, you’d just wander,” he says. “I’m wandering because there are beautiful things around. Books! You’d read these books with, like, beautiful scientific diagrams.” The set design was unlike anything Dafoe had encountered before. “You had so many things that defined the world—unless you were asleep, you had to live in it,” he says. “That’s ideal for an actor, because it’s like nothing else. You fold into it. Everything tells you what to do.”
This may explain the unexpected intimacy of Dafoe’s work here. The magic of Poor Things is the way its monochrome colors, fish-eye camera lenses, and disarming visual effects somehow complement aching, intricate characterizations. The film brims with humanity, its actors staying grounded in a dreamy sci-fi environment. “Invention on the actors’ part is kind of overrated—it’s what people always like to talk about, but I think the real roots and the real value of an actor is how they can be there to show up and receive all this stuff,” Dafoe says. “You don’t have a showy performance, regardless of how big it is or exaggerated, if you’ve got a thing that’s rooted. And where does that come from? It comes from the world.”
Showtime’s “The Curse” stars Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder as two newlyweds who attempt to launch a house-flipping HGTV series in the town of Española, NM. However, their show, and their efforts to start a family, become complicated by the presence of what might just be a curse.
The premise might sound a bit absurd, but it also may ring a few bells if you’ve ever seen any of television’s many, many house-flipping and home renovation shows. From HGTV’s “Flip or Flop” and “Property Brothers” to Netflix’s “Tiny House Nation” and “Dream Home Makeover,” it’s clear the public has a never-ending appetite for renovation and real-estate-related television. Meanwhile, Stone and Fielder’s characters themselves might bring to mind another famous couple in the televised home improvement business — Chip and Joanna Gaines, who cohosted the HGTV show “Fixer Upper” from 2013 to 2018. From there, they launched their own media company called Magnolia and debuted their own cable channel in 2020. They’re still very active, and in June, they took on a new challenge and renovated a giant dilapidated castle.
The couple have also garnered some criticism here and there over the years for various reasons. “Fixer Upper” never included any same-sex couples or queer people at all, and the Gainses were also criticized in 2016 for appearing in a video with their pastor Jimmy Seibert of the Antioch International Movement of Churches, who was openly against gay marriage and supported conversion therapy. They also paid $40,000 to the EPA due to improper handling of lead paint in 2017. And not all of their home renovation shows have actually made homeowners happy, according to reports. In 2022, a show on their network called “Home Work” was removed from the air after homeowners complained of shoddy work. The Gainses denied they had ever exploited clients in any way, and reps for the couple did not immediately reply to POPSUGAR’s request for comment.
Still, all things considered, “The Curse” is definitely not based on a true story, and it seems like Stone and Fielder’s characters will face far more chaos and disaster than Chip and Joanna ever have, if the trailer for the series is anything to go by. Still, the show does seem poised to touch on very real fears about gentrification, exploitation, and the harm done by many seemingly altruistic ventures that are really only completed for the camera’s sake.
The official teaser for Poor Things has been released, and it looks like a quirky Frankensteinfor the 21st century. The film is based on a book from 1992, authored by Alisdair Gray. The London Review Of Books called it a “magnificently brisk, funny, dirty, brainy book”. If that’s any indication of the film’s vibe, it’s safe to say it makes sense that it’s produced by Searchlight rather than 20th Century Studios itself.
The book follows a woman by the name of Emma Baxter, who has been reanimated by Doctor Godwin Baxter. Bella exists for a time under the protection and tutelage of Godwin until she realizes that there’s more to the world than what she’s being told. At that point, she runs off with Duncan Wedderburn. Wedderburn is a suave but somewhat corrupt lawyer. She travels the world, free to create her own perception of the world around her.
The film contains heavy themes of women’s liberation, as does the novel. Bella Baxter’s past life is essentially hidden from her, as everything she knows about herself and the world is concocted by her husband. After breaking free from that worldview, she’s able to learn what it means to become a human being, rather than just a woman living in a man’s world.
The film stars Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, in addition to Willem Dafoe and Ramy Youssef. It’s also directed by the award-winning Yorgos Lanthimos, who had previously directed films like The Lobster and The Favourite (which also starred Stone, in an Osar-nominated performance.)The screenplay was penned by Tony McNamara, who also collaborated on the script for The Favourite.
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My life changed forever when I got a copy of Final Fantasy VII in 1997 (losing those discs has haunted me ever since). While I enjoy much of the 2020 Remake, the original experience is irreplaceably special to me. I start a new playthrough of it at least once a year, every year. Other times, I’ll just jump into a random save file I was working my way through at some point. It must be on anything I own that can run it.
Since 2015, the remaster (not Remake) has made the experience much smoother; and it’s always fun to occasionally mess around with mods that tweak character models or apply AI upscaled backgrounds to clean up the image.
The story, the characters, the landmark soundtrack with gorgeous compositions and tear-jerking melodies surpass the limitations of the rather humdrum sounds the midi-controlled sequencer on the PSX produced, it culminates into not just one of my favorite video games of all time, it’s one of my favorite media experiences, period.
Final Fantasy VII, in its original form, is an epic story of identity, friendship, love, and struggle in the face of insurmountable odds against seemingly unstoppable foes. I delight, as I did in my youth, blissfully getting lost in it. Its world, with blocky polygonal models might seem primordial by today’s standards, but to me its graphical limitations are an abstract that paints a bigger picture in my head—one that no amount of modern, hyper powerful game engines with all the bells and whistles will ever be able to touch.
And, yeah, you were right, Aeris; it was always the only way.
You may not be able to define in words what exactly makes a person attractive, but you know it when you see it.
Of course, there is a huge difference between what makes Justin Beiber hot and what makes Bill Nye the Science Guy hot (don’t judge, we don’t kink-shame in this household). For those of us who find men attractive—god help us—the question of attractiveness is particularly complicated. Why Matt Bomer is hot is a simple enough question (he looks like a naughty Ken Doll who has more than plastic beneath his trunks), but things get more nuanced when you consider why leagues of real human beings with eyes find Benedict Cumberbatch attractive or why women regularly throw their panties at Post Malone.
To help you through the haunted, endless maze of human sexuality, Popdust has broken down all the types of hot a man can be. Chances are, every man you’ve ever been attracted to falls into one of these categories.
“Want to Build a Life With Him” Hot
Example: Paul Mescal
This is the kind of guy you want to take home to your mother. Sure, the sex is only okay, but what does that matter when you wake up every morning to homemade pancakes? This isn’t the type of guy you fantasize about f**king on the kitchen floor, this is the kind of guy whose eyes you picture filling with tears when you buy your first home together. He’s not exactly a daddy, but he would make a great literal daddy.
“Church Boy” Hot
Example: Tom Holland
Something about this guy’s small-town haircut and innocent, sunny smile makes you want to corrupt the sh*t out of him. He always looks a little shocked when you make a dirty joke, but you just know that with some intervention from the devil (you) you’d have that perfectly gelled hair mussed in no time. But also…some small part of you wants to let him make you a better person??? A very small part. Mostly, you just want to ruin his life.
“Rearrange My Guts” Hot
Example: Jason Momoa
You don’t want this guy to take you to a nice dinner at a trendy restaurant—you want him to eat take-out off your ass and throw you around like a rag doll. Sure, he probably has thoughts in his head and a personality and interests and blah blah blah LOOK AT THOSE ARMS. This is the kind of guy you want to spend 72 hours in bed with every 4-6 months but otherwise never see. This is the kind of guy you agree to go camping with despite hating the outdoors because you just love watching him pitch a tent (yes, that was a double entendre, you filthy minx).
“Got Your Teenage Sister Pregnant, but You Kind of Get It” Hot
Example: LaKeith Stanfield
Okay, not literally!!! (maybe literally). But you know that kind of smarmy guy who works at the gas station and says borderline-inappropriate things to you every time you see him? But for some reason, you just can’t summon feminist rage about it and instead sorta giggle and blush and wonder what his tobacco-stained fingers would feel like pulling your hair? Yeah, that guy. He’s a good-for-nothing, uneducated, creepy, grungy, loser…and that kind of works for you.
“You Knew He Would Be Weird in Bed” Hot
Example: Evan Mock
So he’s super hot in all the traditional ways, from facial structure to swagger, but there’s also something a little…extra. Something about him that’s…unhinged. Some kind of mad twinkle in his eye that speaks of unexplored multitudes. In most cases, those multitudes are just daddy issues and a preference for foot stuff, but the joy is in the journey of finding out.
“Burnout” Hot
Example: Jeremy Allen White
He’s not a bad-looking guy. Just a little limp-looking, with features that start seeming weird if you stare too long. But there’s something about him. The tattoos? The nicotine addiction? The greasy hair? Somehow, it’s working.
“In Context” Hot (e.g. like a high school women’s lacrosse coach)
Example: Nathan Fielder
In most situations, this guy isn’t going to turn many heads. But put him on a public school field with 23 hormone-ridden 16-year-olds running laps, and you’ve got yourself an absolute sex magnet. Alternatively, put him in a political race populated by old, saggy, white people, and suddenly his ability to tuck in his shirt over his gut seems exceptional.
“Ugly” Hot
Example: Pete Davidson
This is a broad but important category that this reputable publication has dwelled on seriously for quite some time. An ugly hot guy has an appearance that falls outside the boundaries of conventional attractiveness. Maybe he has a weird horse face or limbs that flail like a carwash’s inflatable man in heavy wind (think Pete Davidson). But if you take all of his objectively unattractive features and put them together, somehow, it just works.
“Ascot/Take Me on a Yacht” Hot
Example: Henry Golding
This is better than just being rich—it’s looking rich. This is ascot hot. This guy’s actual God-given looks are largely irrelevant because money made him his own God. He has the money and time to ensure his hair, skin, and clothes are flawless in a “Who me? I just rolled out of bed like this…” kind of way. If this is your type, it’s fine, we get it.
“Ready To Risk It All” Hot
Example: Michael B Jordan
This is the kind of hot you leave your husband for. This is the kind of hot you leave your wife for. This is the kind of hot you sell your house for. This is the kind of hot you pretend to like his DJ set for. Is the sex good? It literally doesn’t matter, just look at him.
“Party Boy” Hot
Example: Machine Gun Kelly
Does he have a substance abuse problem? Probably. Is he reliable? Not at all. Do any of his values align with yours? Absolutely not. Is he a great f**king time? Oh yeah. This guy probably has one of those annoyingly hot side smiles, maybe a kind of hard-to-understand accent, and the sex is probably kind of like being mauled by a drunk bear but in a good way. He probably has an earring he doesn’t remember getting but kind of pulls it off. It goes without saying that your Dad hates him.
“Baby” Hot
Example: Timothée Chalamet
This is a complicated category. He makes your uterus ache, but you can’t tell if that’s sexual arousal or your biological clock ticking. You can’t decide if you want to take a bath with him or give him a bath. Either way, you definitely wanna smooch that sweet lil face.
“Retro” Hot
Example: Aaron Taylor Johnson
Something about him screams “traditional values.” Not in a scary, baby-Don’t Worry Darling way. More in a Ready For Marriage kind of way. And honestly … if he wanted a trad-wife, I’d be a trad-wife.
“Artist/Vegan” Hot
Example: Jaden Smith
He is comfortable with his feminine side, and he wants you to know it. You wanna argue with him about the fallacy of placing the responsibility for climate change on the shoulders of individuals when a handful of corporations are ultimately responsible—but he has those puppy dog eyes, so you just give in and agree to give up plastic straws. His slam poetry competitions are cringe-worthy, but he just looks so good in ripped Levi’s and a beanie.
“Wouldn’t Be Surprised if He Turned Out to Be a Serial Killer” Hot
Example: Robert Pattinson
He speaks, acts, and behaves like a robot who has heard about the behavior of human beings but never actually seen it. There’s something magnetic about his strangeness, and suddenly the legacy of Ted Bundy makes sense to you. Everything about him is subtly unsettling, but personality disorders aside….he could get it.
“Prettier Than You” Hot
Example: Josh Heuston
He paints his nails, has a skincare routine, and posts thirst traps on Instagram. He doesn’t have a job, but he has thousands of followers on TikTok so he’s working on monetizing social media. Which makes all his hair products a business expense, I guess? Whatever, it’s worth it when he takes his shirt off.
“Stoner” Hot
Example: Donald Glover
He only chuckles at your jokes but cries laughing when his gamer buddy says something about farts. He always needs a haircut, has stains on his shirt, and probably smells faintly of Doritos. Still, something about his anti-establishment, “being handsome is mainstream” attitude does it for you.
“Garbage” Hot
Example: Jack Harlow
This one comes with a lot of justified self-loathing. Just do better.
Emma Stone and her husband SNL‘s Dave McCary have kept much of their relationship under the wraps, but what’s known of their private, years-long love story is very sweet.
Stone welcomed a baby girl with her husband on March 13, 2021, multiple sources told TMZ. Days after their daughter’s arrival, multiple sources spoke to Peopleabout the two’s relationship, calling their marriage “strong and respectful.” A month into Stone and McCary becoming parents, a source updated Us Weeklyon how their relationship has changed “in a way they never expected.”
News of Stone and McCary becoming parents arrived less than a year after the couple officially tied the knot in September, according to a source for People. They were spotted wearing wedding bands around Los Angeles, on September 11, 2020, a few months after Stone appeared on Reese Witherspoon’s YouTube channel wearing a gold band.
Stone and McCary got engaged in December 2019 after more than two years of dating. The couple has shared little-to-no details about their relationship—save for a few date night photos here and there. However, they announced their engagement via McCary’s Instagram with a surprise ring photo.
Stone’s husband is extremely accomplished and has made a name for himself in the business behind the camera. Here, everything we know about McCary as he and Stone settle into parenthood.
He’s a segment director for Saturday Night Live.
According to People, McCary joined SNL alongside cast members Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett during the 39th season in 2013. He’s a writer, segment director, and co-founded a comedy troupe called Good Neighbor with Mooney, Bennett, and Nick Rutherford, per People. In fact, if you peep McCary’s non-engagement ring posts, you’ll see quite a bit of Mooney.
He proposed to Emma Stone at the SNL offices.
Stone and McCary reportedly got engaged at the Saturday Night Live offices in New York City, per a Page Sixsource. “Dave proposed at the offices where they first met at [NBC’s Manhattan HQ] 30 Rock,” the insider said. “No one was there and by all accounts, it was very romantic.”
McCary broke the news of his engagement to Stone on Instagram in 2019. He captioned a photo of the two smiling while she held up her hand with the engagement ring, ” “💕.”
Celebrities including Zoey Deutch, Queer Eye‘s Tan France, and SNL‘s Aidy Bryant have shown the couple love in the comments section.
Stone and McCary welcomed their first baby girl on March 13, 2021.
Stone never personally confirmed her pregnancy, but the actress was last photographed out days before she gave birth on March 5. TMZ broke news that the couple welcomed their first child on Saturday, March 13 in the Los Angeles area. Peoplereported days later that the Stone gave birth to a baby girl. The couple hasn’t revealed the name of their daughter yet.
Stone spoke to Jennifer Lawrence for ELLE in 2018 about her hope to become a mother in her 30s. “My perspective about kids has changed as I’ve gotten older,” she told her friend. “I never babysat or anything. As a teenager, I was like, I’m never getting married, I’m never having kids. And then I got older and I was like, I really want to get married, I really want to have kids.”
Weeks into parenting, Stone and McCary are “excited” and have built a “strong and respectful” relationship.
Multiple sources gave Peoplerare insight on McCary and Stone’s relationship days after outlets reported that Stone gave birth to a baby girl.
“They are a very grounded and private couple and were ready for a family,” a source close to Stone told the outlet in late March. “Emma is close to her family and good friends but not the type to flaunt her personal life. Dave respects that about her and is the same way. They have a great life together and support each other.”
An insider added that “she has been private [about life with Dave and their baby girl] but said that she was feeling great. She always has a huge smile when she is with Dave.”
A third film source reiterated what People‘s first two sources said about McCary and Stone’s relationship: “Emma and Dave have a strong and respectful marriage. A baby will add a new dimension of bliss for both of them.”
In April 2021, just one month into parenthood, McCary and Stone’s relationship had changed drastically.
Us Weeklygot a rare update from a source about how McCary and Stone are doing one month into becoming parents to their baby girl. “Having a baby has brought them closer in a way they never expected,” a source told the outlet. McCary in particular is “hands-on and helping with their daughter.”
The couple has been “very low-key and has asked people to just respect their privacy during this time,” the source added. “Emma has been at home with her husband and the baby.”
McCary and Stone made a rare event appearance together in January 2023.
Stone and McCary arrived together on January 12, 2023 at the New York City premiere of When You Finish Saving the World, a movie they co-produced. They opted not to pose on the red carpet together, keeping the focus on the film rather than their relationship.
Gotham//Getty Images
The couple reportedly lived together while dating.
On the heels of their engagement news, a source told Peoplethat McCary and Stone also “got a home together in Malibu over the summer.” The insider went on to talk about the couple’s connection, sharing, “Dave is a super down-to-earth guy. Most of his best friends are people he’s known since he was a kid, and he’s not affected by Hollywood. He’s very creative and funny, and he and Emma share the same sense of adventure.”
He met Stone when she hosted SNL in 2016.
Stone first met McCary when she hosted SNL in December 2016. She was performing in the show’s “Wells for Boys” sketch, which McCary was directing.
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He’s directed a movie called Brigsby Bear.
Houston, we have a side hustle. In addition to his work on Saturday Night Live, McCary directed a film called Brigsby Bear, starring his SNL pal Kyle Mooney. The film released (only in select theaters) in July 2017, and grossed $500k at the box office. Before the film’s opening night, Stone and McCary were rumored to be dating but hadn’t actually been seen together—until the film’s opening night that is. A fan caught this video of the couple leaving the film’s premiere party together (that blonde head is Stone and that abnormally tall guy is McCary).
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Emma stone spotted with Dave McCary at brigsby bear premeire Hollywood 2017 dating friends Oscar
He’s been dating Stone since at least October 2017.
Rumors that Stone and McCary were exclusive were swirling since they were seen leaving that Brigsby Bear premiere together, but actual, legitimate reports they’d been dating “for months” surfaced in October.
Kevork Djansezian//Getty Images
He’s on Instagram (kinda).
Unlike his famous girlfriend, McCary has an active Instagram account…sort of. He’s on Instagram as @DaveMcCary, but he’s posted hardly any photos of himself. In fact, his feed consists mostly of photos of his best friend Kyle Mooney, who is an actor on SNL.
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He’s a San Diego Padres fan.
On June 22, 2021, McCary and Stone were spotted on a rare date night out as they attended a San Diego Padres baseball game. The couple wore Padres fan gear and posed for quick selfie with sports analyst Mark Grant. “Great to meet Academy Award-winning Best Actress Emma Stone and her husband Dave McCary from Saturday Night Live. I mentioned I have done a few films myself 😂 #Dontourage @Padres,” Grant tweeted. This is the first time the private couple has been spotted out together in over a year.
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Then on Friday, October 7, 2022, they caught the San Diego Padres in game one of their National League Wild Card series at New York’s Citi Field. The couple was adorably dressed in gear from the Padres brand store. The mega-fans were laughing and having a great time while wildly cheering on their team, who eventually won the first of the best of three series 7 to 1.
Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres//Getty Images
Unfortunately, you can’t rep California in a New York stadium without getting some pushback. The couple appeared briefly across the Jumbotron and got booed by the many Mets fans in the audience.
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Stone took it in stride, raising her beer cup to the camera with a big smile and flashing her Padres gear.
He and Stone are working as film producers together.
On January 20, 2022, Stone and McCary made a rare appearance during a Zoom panel for the 2022 Sundance Film Festival to promote the release of the film they produced together, When You Finish Saving the World, directed by Jesse Eisenberg. Their production company Fruit Tree Productions was founded in August of 2020.
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“As an actor, you usually just go with what comes to you and you’re at the mercy of the process,” Stone said, according to IndieWire. “We don’t want to say we just want to make things, that sounds trite. Because we have these longstanding relationships, we thought it would be amazing to support these people in a more meaningful way than just being a cog.”
ELLE.com Contributor
Holly Rhue is a writer and editor in New York City.
Editorial Fellow
Savannah Walsh is an Editorial Fellow at ELLE.com.
We haven’t had a red carpet moment from Emma Stone in several months, so yesterday’s event was a real treat. She attended a New York City screening of When You Finish Saving the World, a film she produced starring Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard. (Mark your calendars: The coming-of-age movie comes out on January 20.)
For the red carpet, Stone wore a Louis Vuitton dress, belt, and boots. Maxi dresses and skirts have been hugely popular lately, but don’t call it a comeback—they’ve been here for years. I particularly love when they’re styled with ankle boots, as Emma Stone does here, which creates a perfectly proportionate look. (In comparison, I hate when there’s a gap between the bottom of my jeans and the top of my ankle boots.) Scroll down to see Emma Stone’s rare red carpet appearance wearing Louis Vuitton.
If you disrespect New Yorkers on their home turf, they’re not just going to fuhgeddaboudit.
Even if you’re a celebrity.
Emma Stone upset Mets fans at Citi Field on Friday when she and husband Dave McCary were caught on the Jumbotron wearing the gear of the opposing San Diego Padres.
Although the offense wasn’t as serious as dissing pizza in Brooklyn (we’re looking at you, Mila Kunis) the couple got a righteous Queens booing — which was caught on camera.
Stone, however, was a good sport about the whole thing and treated the situation much like the team she was there to support — like a winner. She hoisted her beer to groaning Mets fans and ended her Jumbotron moment with a shrug.
Stone’s husband, a “Saturday Night Live” writer, is from San Diego — so it should come as no surprise that the pair were cheering the Mets’ opponent. They’ve also been spotted at Padres games in the past.
Stone and McCary also were seen “dancing in the front row” during the Wild Card playoff game, according to TMZ, which makes sense as San Diego demolished New York 7-1.
Riling Mets fans further, Padres CEO Erik Greupner applauded Stone on Twitter Friday.
There’s no one way to carve out a career as an actor. Some enter the industry as children, while others slowly build a resume of commercial work and guest spots. Still, others work as background actors as a way to support themselves and grab that coveted SAG card. But there’s a whole other category of actors that actually began their careers in a different place — reality TV. You might be surprised to learn that quite a few popular celebrities were once on reality competition shows.
It’s no surprise that those who can sing or dance can — a lot of the time — also act. The performing arts tend to overlap with one another, which is why so many contestants on singing and dancing competition shows are able to make the short leap over to Hollywood. Plus, these types of reality shows are much more plentiful than ones centered on acting (VH1’s Scream Queens seems to be the only notable example, really).
In some cases, however, the actor in question isn’t doing any sort of performing on TV — they’re simply on the show as an average person, mingling with singles on The Big Date or guessing the price of a car on The Price Is Right. You really never know whose career is going to take off.
Below, you’ll learn about 10 now-successful actors who were on reality TV shows before they were famous. From Emma Stone to Jon Hamm, these actors prove that a path to stardom begins differently for everyone.
10 Famous Actors Who Got Their Start On Reality TV
12 Actors Who Started As Extras In Movies And Television
These famous actors all began their on-screen careers with uncredited roles in movies and TV.
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