The Academy Museum is holding nightly panel discussions with nominees in various categories for this year’s Academy Awards. Tonight, the production designers of Searchlight Pictures’ Poor Things were featured.
What Was Discussed:
- Producers Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe were on hand to discuss not only Poor Things, but their continued relationship with Yorgos Lanthimos, the film’s director.
- They originally connected with Yorgos after his Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination for Dogtooth and his interest in working in the English language.
- On his own, Yorgos became enamored with Poor Things by Alasdair Grey. Amidst working on films with the pair of producers (The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite), Yorgos began a dialogue with the book’s writer. After many discussions and casual gatherings, Grey stated that he thought the book was in good hands with Yorgos.
- When Yorgos casually brought up the project to Emma Stone when working on The Favourite, she jumped at the opportunity to throw her hat in the ring and be a part of the film. That grew into starring and producing the picture.
- Guiney and Lowe appreciated having Stone on board for numerous reasons: They enjoyed having a younger, female voice to help guide the film in a producing aspect (compared to the three other, older male minds). This was also their first larger scale, bigger budget film, so having Emma on hand who has had lots of experience on films of that magnitude was helpful.
- They also shared just how different this film was compared to the other films with Yorgos they had worked on. This was Yorgos’ first time working on a soundstage and using actual lighting (compared to natural and candle light in previous films.)
- Guiney, Lowe, and Yorgos have a solid foundation within their artistic relationship, they said, due to the support they give each other to build these filmmaking communities. Since Poor Things, Yorgos has already filmed a full feature and many of the “below-the-line” individuals on that set came directly from that of Poor Things and other of Yorgos’ films.
- While they went into Venice nervous, once the first reactions came out of the initial screening, they knew they could rest easy that they had a hit on their hands.
- Poor Things is the highest grossing independent film since Everything Everywhere All At Once, just recently passing $100 million at the global box office.
- Poor Things is nominated for 11 Academy Awards at Sunday’s ceremony and can now be streamed on Hulu.