AN ACTOR'S RABBIT HOLE

WITH BUGONIA, JESSE PLEMONS TAKES THE LEAD

- STORY: KYLE BUCHANAN / NYT

From right, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis and Emma Stone in Bugonia.

After working with Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos on last year’s dark comedy Kinds Of Kindness, Jesse Plemons was excited to be offered a demanding lead role in their new movie Bugonia.

Still, he grew anxious as the film moved closer to production.

“I thought, ‘Oh, God, this is one of the best parts I've been asked to play. How in the world am I going to pull this off and do it justice?’” he said.

Bugonia stars Plemons as Teddy, a disaffected loner nursing one wild conspiracy theory: He’s convinced that a pharmaceutical chief executive, Michelle (Emma Stone), is an alien hellbent on Earth’s destruction. With the help of his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), Teddy kidnaps Michelle and holds her captive in his rundown house, where he tries to force her to confess during a series of increasingly brutal confrontations.

The movie gives Plemons one of his most significant leading roles to date, and he makes the most of it: Even when Teddy is driven to outlandish hostilities, you can sense the bruised and beating heart beneath. Previously Oscar-nominated for The Power Of The Dog, Plemons, 37, has made memorable impressions in ensemble films like Killers Of The Flower Moon, The Irishman and Game Night, and his latest off-kilter collaboration with Lanthimos has put him back in the awards-season mix.

“I think why I enjoy working with Yorgos so much is that you watch his movies and some of it feels like it’s not coming from a conscious brain,” he said. “It's coming from something deep down in a collective psyche.”