Poor Things opens tomorrow. Right now, it’s one of the top contenders for Best Picture, and Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo are in the thick of their campaigns for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.
The premiere was last night in New York, and it drew some big names. Not just stars Stone and Ruffalo, who was accompanied by his wife, Sunrise Coigney (I love her name so much I always want to mention her), or their other co-stars Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, and Margaret Qualley, or director Yorgos Lanthimos. No, this premiere also brought out Steve Buscemi and Karen Ho, Laura Dern, Gina Gershon, Alan Cumming, Tommy Dorfman, Anna Wintour, Robert Pattinson and Suki Waterhouse, and TIME Person of the Year, Taylor Swift. Call the Poor Things premiere Emma Stone ft. Taylor Swift.
In a normal year, maybe this isn’t necessary, but as we’ve been saying, this isn’t a normal year. This is an insanely competitive year, and despite winning an Oscar just five years ago, Emma WANTS IT this year. (I lowkey feel like she wants to win for something viewed as more serious, and thus, more respectable, than La La Land.) It could happen! As much as I want it to be Lily Gladstone’s year, it’s a much harder climb through the Best Actress contenders, not least because, well, Gladstone is a supporting actor in Killers of the Flower Moon. She chose to enter as a Best Actress contender, and I support her right to make that call for herself and her career, but the other side of that coin is that people are definitely judging this as category fraud and holding it against her. She probably could have walked away with Best Supporting Actress, she will have to convince people to overlook the relative spareness of her role in Killers and see the substance, not the screentime, to make her case for Best Actress.
But back to Emma and her famous friends. It’s not just anyone who can call Taylor Swift to fly support as wingwoman for a night, in fact, lately it’s basically Beyoncé and Emma Stone (and Travis Kelce, albeit in a different, sexier context). This is a reminder to the Academy, and her competition, that Stone is very well liked by her peers, and popularity is half the battle when it comes to the Oscars. She has the name recognition, and she’s just reminded us she has A-list friends in her corner, too. But will it be enough to separate Emma Stone from the rest of the Best Actress pack?
