“You Have To Be The Captain”: Emma Stone On Working With Directors She Couldn’t Trust

Emma Stone has never been afraid of challenging roles, and her extensive filmography is the biggest testament to this. Whether working with the Oscar-winning director of ‘La La Land,’ Damien Chazelle, or collaborating with ‘Poor Things‘ filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, the two-time Academy Award-winning actress has built a career around performances demanding complete vulnerability.

That willingness to take risks, however, doesn’t come naturally on every film set. In a 2024 interview, Stone explained that she can only fully let go when she completely trusts the person behind the camera. Without that confidence, she admitted, actors sometimes end up doing something they should never have to do: trying to direct themselves while performing.

Emma Stone Says Actors Sometimes End Up Directing Themselves

Speaking during The Hollywood Reporter‘s Full Actress Roundtable in 2024, Stone shared her experience working with Yorgos Lanthimos. The actress explained that she enjoys taking creative risks because she knows the director will always choose what serves the film best.

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That confidence allows her to stop worrying about how individual takes might appear. “But it’s a testament to working with a director that you truly, truly trust, admire, believe in and know is the captain of the ship,” she said.

“In a way that you can really let go,” she added. Stone admitted that the opposite experience can be exhausting. “I think we’ve probably all worked in experiences where you feel like you also have to be the captain,” she explained.

In such cases, instead of focusing solely on performance, actors begin to question whether the director understands what the scene needs. That uncertainty creates another problem. Rather than experimenting freely, performers start protecting themselves.

Stone believes it sometimes makes actors think like, “Well, if I give you this option to take, you’re going to use it. I know you are, and I don’t want to do that.” Instead of concentrating on the character, they begin directing their own performance from inside the scene, constantly second-guessing which version might appear in the final cut.

Stone Believes Trust Makes All The Difference

Stone believes complete trust transforms the entire creative process. For her, when she knows a director understands the bigger picture, she no longer worries about individual choices because someone else is guiding the film.

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That confidence has become one of the defining features of her partnership with Lanthimos on films including ‘The Favourite,’ ‘Poor Things,’ and ‘Kinds of Kindness.’ She described the relationship as one where she never has to calculate every decision before making it.

“To not feel that at all, which I don’t with Yorgos,” Stone said, “I feel like whatever we try, I know he’s going to go with whatever is best for the film, is the greatest thing.” She also explained that embracing awkward or unusual moments has never bothered her personally.

“That sort of goofiness, or what would be embarrassment, is freeing,” Stone said. “I find that so much fun, and I don’t take myself seriously in any way, so people laughing at something I’m attempting to do doesn’t really bother me.”

For Stone, those moments only work when a director earns the cast’s complete confidence. Once that trust exists, actors can stop trying to steer the ship themselves and focus entirely on giving the strongest performance possible.

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