What would a woman be if she were able to start from scratch?
Thats the question asked inPoor Things, according to star and producer Emma Stone.
She is a sapient creature naive to the wisdom she had acquired as a grown woman.
Searchlight Pictures
We used a lot of Augustinus Bader on her,The Face OilandThe Rich Cream, Stacey says.
[Stones] really good at keeping on top of that at home as well.
Stones hair color and length were both carefully considered and even a plot point noted within the film.
Emma Stone as Bella Baxter in Poor Things
Stacey said she and Stone knew the idea was always to dye her real hair dark but not black.
Los Angeles-based colorist Tracey Cunningham took on the job for Stone and ended up giving her jet-black hair accidentally.
It was a really happy mistake, Stacey says.
Emma Stone speaking with director Yorgos Lanthimos on set
I can’t imagine a world where it would have been anything else.
It says something about who she is.
Its this constant reminder of this really stark, jet-black hair against all this amazing color.
Emma Stone as Bella Baxter and Mark Ruffalo as Duncan Wedderburn
She doesn’t fit in everything around her.
She’s kind of alien in all of that she’s different.
But Bella wouldn’t know any of those rules.
Emma Stone with a prosthetic pregnant belly on set.
And that’s why it’s such a display of who she is.
She’s this pure being.
She also notes that Mark Ruffalos hair and mustache in the film were his own and styled accordingly.
Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin Baxter
Think shades of pink and purple to represent veins and red for blood.
We thought, This is an opportunity to do that.
Stacey was inspired by a picture shes had for around a decade of an Edwardian woman covered in tattoos.
Dafoe’s facial prosthetics sculpting
We knew that there needed to be something really strong [about] this woman that runs this brothel.
For the tattoos, Stacey mapped out the placement on a scan of Hunters body.
Dr. Baxter’s Prosthetic Face
Emma Stone with a prosthetic pregnant belly on set.
Nadia Stacey
Prosthetics were also a large part ofPoor Things.
(His father was also an experimental surgeon who operated on him.)
She was inspired by Francis BaconsSelf-Portrait painting, in which Bacons face is distorted.
Nadia Stacey
We built this jigsaw puzzle of a face, which is actually what he would be.
More from The Scenario:
Now, see Lucy Hale’s 10-minute beauty routine:
