Trust and Instinct: Inside Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness”
In the sun-drenched setting of the Cannes Film Festival, director Yorgos Lanthimos and the star-studded cast of “Kinds of Kindness” gathered to discuss their latest cinematic venture that shocked and captivated audiences with its daring triptych structure.
The $15 million black comedy-drama anthology film presents three distinct yet thematically connected stories—”The Death of R.M.F.,” “R.M.F. Is Flying,” and “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich”—each featuring the same ensemble cast in different roles. It marks the fifth collaboration between Lanthimos and screenwriter Efthimis Filippou, following their acclaimed works “Dogtooth,” “Alps,” “The Lobster,” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.”
The film, which received a 4.5-minute standing ovation at its Cannes premiere despite walkouts during its more graphic sequences, represents Lanthimos’ remarkably quick return to filmmaking after “Poor Things.”
“While we were finishing the VFX on ‘Poor Things,’ we already had finished this script which we had been working on for many years in between other projects,” Lanthimos explained during the press conference. “Instead of sitting around waiting for the delivery of the VFX, why don’t we go and shoot another movie?” If only it was so easy to make a film for the rest of ‘mortals’.
The Creative Partnership
At the heart of the film is the continuing creative partnership between Lanthimos and Emma Stone, who returns for her third feature collaboration with the director after “The Favourite” and “Poor Things.”
“I met him about 10 years ago,” Stone recalled at the press conference. “We had lunch to talk about ‘The Favourite’… I was just struck immediately by him. He was warm and easy to talk to. Stupidly, just very different from what his films are. I thought he would be much more intense than he actually is in person.”
Their working relationship has evolved into one of deep mutual trust. “I have extreme comfort, so I feel like I can do anything with him because we’ve worked together so many times,” Stone said. “I trust him beyond the trust I’ve ever had with any director.”
Lanthimos reciprocated the sentiment, playfully acknowledging Stone as his “muse” while she returned the compliment: “He’s my muse. We established that long ago.”
The Artistic Approach
When asked about getting into the mindset of their characters, the cast consistently emphasised trust in Lanthimos’ vision rather than intellectual analysis.
Joe Alwyn, in his first collaboration with Lanthimos, described it as “impossible” to intellectualise the approach. “Reading the script, it’s bizarre and strange and special, of course, but to try and unpack it too much, I think I would just get stuck in my head,” he explained. “One of the reasons I love his films is you feel it first rather than try and intellectually unpack it.”
Jesse Plemons described the process as “very slow, gradual” and “obviously starts with the script.” He emphasised the value of their rehearsal process, which “helps sort of bypass attempting to intellectualise it in any way.”
Hong Chau’s approach was refreshingly straightforward: “I showed up to work every day and just tried to say yes more than I said no.”
The Director’s Vision
Lanthimos, known for his distinct and often unsettling cinematic style, resisted attempts to analysse or intellectualise his work throughout the press conference.
“I work very instinctively, and I try to honor that,” he said. “We talked a lot about not intellectualizing things and just trying things out and seeing how they turn out.”
When asked about the origin of “Kinds of Kindness,” Lanthimos revealed that the project began as a single story. “My first inspiration was reading Caligula and just thinking how a man can have such power over other people. I just started imagining in our contemporary world someone who would have complete control over this other person.”
The film evolved into a triptych during development. “We decided to make it a triptych, so we made this list of other ideas that we had and tried to select two more that instinctively felt like they belonged in the same world with the first story,” he explained.
A key creative decision was having the same actors play different roles across the three stories. “I kept thinking of the idea of the same actors playing different parts in the different stories, so that led us to actually write the three stories individually and show them one after the other instead of seeing the three stories in parallel.”
The Theatrical Company
Multiple cast members compared working with Lanthimos to being part of a theatrical company. Willem Dafoe, a “Poor Things” alum returning for this film, explained the dynamic: “You share responsibility. Certain pressures are taken off you, it’s shared, and I think it makes you more available for everyone else and to enter the story in a way that’s connected to something beyond you.”
Stone, who also has a background in theater, agreed: “When you have that kind of built-in trust with each other, you just feel like you can do more.”
For newcomers to Lanthimos’ world, like Margaret Qualley, joining this established group was “exciting” and “a very collective sort of community that he gathers across the board.”
The Body as Expression
One recurring theme in both “Poor Things” and “Kinds of Kindness” is Lanthimos’ distinctive approach to physicality and the human body, which a journalist described as “mistreating the body.”
Lanthimos rejected this characterization: “I certainly don’t mistreat it practically. I think it’s just observing life, and a lot of it is dark and harm, but also ridiculousness and awkwardness. My observation is right—it does start from physicality in the body.”
Stone offered her perspective on this physicality in Lanthimos’ work: “In working with Yorgos, we don’t discuss intellectually what’s happening. Because he’s very physically oriented and he really loves dance obviously, and I really love dance too.”
She continued: “A lot of my relationship to body in his films is that in a way it’s sort of physicalizing an interior feeling all the time. It’s instead of explaining it, it’s showing it and hopefully feeling more under the surface.”
The Reflection of an Off-Kilter World
When asked about the consistent sense in his films that “something is off,” Lanthimos turned the question back to reality: “Don’t you think that something’s off with the world? That’s probably more so than the films that we make. I think works, my work and other people’s work, probably reflects the world.”
He described his perception of the world as “strange and crazy and sad a lot of times” but also “ridiculous and funny,” elements he strives to incorporate into his films.
Creative Freedom Over Scale
Though he’s moved from small Greek productions to higher-profile international films, Lanthimos rejected the narrative that he’s “moved to Hollywood” or prioritizes making bigger films.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be making the films that I want to make throughout my time making films,” he said, noting that he actually moved to London after his early Greek films and has recently returned to Athens.
“I have no intention of making big films or small films, it’s not a concern of mine. It’s mostly being able to achieve whatever it is that we’re trying to achieve this time,” he explained. “This film is much smaller than ‘Poor Things.’ We might make the next film even smaller if it needs to be, or if it needs to be a greater scale, we’ll try and achieve that.”
What remains constant, he emphasized, is “to have creative freedom and work with people that you trust and appreciate.”
“Kinds of Kindness,” starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie and Joe Alwyn, was released by Searchlight Pictures in June 2024, grossing $16.4 million worldwide and confirming Lanthimos’ position as one of contemporary cinema’s most distinctive and uncompromising voices.
Editor in Chief of Ikon London Magazine, journalist, film producer and founder of The DAFTA Film Awards (The DAFTAs).
