Emma Stone is opening up about how she shaved her head for a film role.
The actress talked about shaving off her signature red hair for the character she plays in frequent collaborator Yorgos Lanthimos‘ upcoming film, Bugonia, in a recent Vogue cover story.
In Bugonia, Stone plays a pharmaceutical CEO who gets kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists played by Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis. The duo believe the hostage’s hair has to change dramatically, so they shave her head with an electric clipper.
“No better feeling in the world,” Stone said about shaving her head. “The first shower when you’ve shaved your head? Oh my God, it’s amazing.”
Plemons said he was nervous about filming the scene. “It was like, ‘Here we go—Emily has shaved her head,’” he said. “We better make this good!”
Even though she enjoyed the experience, Stone said right before filming the scene, she burst into tears remembering how her mother lost her hair while in treatment for breast cancer.
“She actually did something brave,” Stone remembers thinking at the time. “I’m just shaving my head.”
Her mother, Krista Stone, ended up being envious of her new look. “My mom was like, ‘I’m so jealous. I want to shave my head again,’” the actress said.
Stone’s longtime friend Jennifer Lawrence told the outlet she “didn’t want her to shave her head.”
“I had already lived through the Billie Jean King haircut,” Lawrence said, referencing Stone’s 2017 film Battle of the Sexes.
Even still, Lawrence says, “she looked beautiful” with a shaved head. “She pulled it off.”
You can see Stone’s shaved head for yourself when Bugonia arrives in theaters on Oct. 31.
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