In late 2025, Emma Stone found herself once again stepping into the strange, unpredictable creative world of Yorgos Lanthimos. Reuniting for the sci-fi dark comedy Bugonia, Stone entered the project with a level of confidence shaped by years of experience—and a stable personal life alongside her husband Dave McCary, whom she has been married to since 2020. Yet even with that grounding, nothing quite prepared her for the radical simplicity of Lanthimos’s direction.
Known for his unconventional methods, Lanthimos has long rejected traditional acting techniques in favor of something more instinctual, often bordering on the absurd. During rehearsals with co-star Jesse Plemons, he introduced a series of what he casually refers to as “silly games”—exercises designed not to refine performance, but to dismantle it.
At one point, he asked the actors to walk in perfect synchronization, repeating lines with mechanical precision. Just as they began to settle into rhythm, he abruptly shifted the exercise. “Swallow the water,” he instructed—three words that would fundamentally alter Stone’s approach to the role.
The directive was as strange as it sounds. The actors were told to mimic the act of drinking water while continuing their dialogue, forcing their speech into awkward, disrupted patterns. It was uncomfortable, even ridiculous. But that was precisely the point.
For Stone, the experience was initially disorienting. Like many seasoned actors, she had developed an internal system—an intellectual framework for understanding character, motivation, and delivery. That system, while effective, also came with a hidden cost: overthinking. Lanthimos’s instruction bypassed that entirely.
By physically interrupting her ability to speak “correctly,” Stone was forced out of her head and into her body. The usual tools—timing, emphasis, carefully constructed emotion—became irrelevant. What remained was something far more immediate: instinct.
In that moment, she realized that the script, no matter how meticulously written, was not a rigid blueprint. It was a starting point. Lanthimos’s philosophy—“the script is merely a suggestion”—encouraged a kind of creative surrender, where the actor stops trying to control the performance and instead allows it to emerge organically.
This shift proved transformative. Stone began to embrace the absurdity of the process rather than resist it. Gargling through lines, breaking rhythm, and abandoning polish allowed her to access a rawness that traditional methods often suppress. The result was a performance style that felt unpredictable, alive, and deeply connected to the film’s offbeat tone.
In a project like Bugonia, where themes of alien conspiracies and dark humor demand a delicate balance, this approach becomes especially powerful. Rather than playing the comedy in a calculated way, Stone learned to inhabit it—letting the strangeness of the situation guide her reactions instead of forcing them.
Looking back, those three words—“Swallow the water”—represent more than just an unusual rehearsal technique. They symbolize a complete rethinking of what it means to act. For Stone, it was not about adding layers or refining technique, but about removing barriers.
At 38, with an already acclaimed career behind her, she discovered something new: that sometimes, the most truthful performances come not from control, but from letting go.