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 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.
Speak with USA todayStone, 36, said 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 crazy and fun? We can do whatever we want with our hair! It can change all the time.’ She said, ‘Okay,’ and then was totally cool,” Stone recalled, adding that she wanted her daughter to be “totally ready” for the big change so it wouldn’t be “super scary.”
In BugoniaStone plays Michelle Fuller, a powerful pharmaceutical CEO who is kidnapped by conspiracy theorists convinced she is an alien plotting to destroy Earth.
In an attempt to prevent 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 running at once “to make sure none of them jammed.”
But the wait added to Stone’s anxiety.
“They kept saying, ‘We’ll be done in 10 minutes. No, actually in 30 minutes. No, actually in an hour,'” she said, laughing at the memory.
“I was sitting there building up the anticipation. So I had a little last-minute freak out, and then Yorgos came over, we talked and I thought, ‘I’m going to be fine. It’s going to be great.’ And I absolutely loved it.”
When the clippers finally buzzed, Stone said she was 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 said.
In addition to her bold new look, Stone also shared how motherhood has changed her outlook on life and her career.
In an August interview with Fashionshe called her daughter “the greatest gift of my life,” explaining that parenthood has had a profound influence on the roles she takes on and how she relates to her craft.
“I think it unlocks different things,” Stone said. “I feel everything I could possibly feel because everything has exploded.”
Bugonia opens in select theaters on Friday, October 24, before expanding nationwide on Friday, October 31.
