Jesse Plemons Says ‘Bugonia’ was “The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done”

Jesse Plemons is surprisingly energetic when I meet him on Sunday at the Telluride Film Festival. He’s just arrived for the weekend from Venice, Italy, where his film Bugonia had its world premiere. But the globehopping travel doesn’t seem to have affected him as much as I would have expected—though he admits it’s very surreal. “It’s a funny experience to take a boat to the airport in Venice and then take a [mountain] gondola later in the day,” he says.

Plemons stars in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia as Teddy Gatz, a man who is convinced that aliens live among us. Teddy, who is also carrying immense grief, kidnaps a powerful CEO (Emma Stone), thinking that she is an alien who is attempting to destroy the planet.

While the film is full of Lanthimos’ unique sensibilities and bold storytelling, it is also making a statement about the pressing environmental and social issues of today, including how capitalism and the global authoritarian corporate culture are ruining the planet in a way that’s likely irreversible.

Plemons, who previously worked with Lanthimos in Kinds of Kindness, delivers a towering performance as Teddy, who is intense, smart, and highly unpredictable. The third act of the film is one of the wildest things you’ll see on screen this year, and Plemons admits it was demanding to pull off. He also reveals his new-found hobby, what he learned about conspiracy theorists, and talks about his current spiritual journey.

Vanity Fair: When did you first start talking to Yorgos about making another movie together?

Jesse Plemons: Right after Kinds of Kindness, I picked up photography, to my surprise. Yorgos is also a great photographer, which is annoying. [Laughs] I’ve got kids and I started taking some film photos of them. And so then he was very generous and gave me a few tutorials over Zoom. And then maybe four or five months after we finished Kinds of Kindness, he told me about the script and sent it to me. I was floored by it, loved it. So we were doing press for [Kinds of Kindness] as we were rehearsing and it was kind of cluttered.

What was it about the script?

This current moment we are in is so strange and scary. I feel like I’m always looking for something to facilitate me to sort through that that does it in a way that doesn’t feel preachy, that gets it right. And this just really seemed to. It came at this present moment in a sort of backdoor way that was surprising at every turn and leaves you with plenty to think about and chew on. And Teddy, I’ve been very fortunate to play some pretty sophisticated characters, but he’s up there.

What did you do for research to understand this conspiracy theorist?

It’s not too arduous to, if you’re looking out for it, the internet has it all. And Andrew Callaghan has this YouTube channel, and he just places himself in really intense, captivating places and just has one of those personalities that is disarming enough for people. He’s even been to alien conferences and flat earth conventions. And then I had a friend that recommended this book by Naomi Klein called Doppelganger and it was just a perfect place for me to start.