Dispatch • Inside ‘Bugonia’: Golden Globe nominee Jesse Plemons on Making a Strange, Intimate Thriller
At a screening in Los Angeles on Dec. 9, Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis discussed the improvisation and off-camera bond that shaped Yorgos Lanthimos’ thriller
(Jesse Plemons in Bugonia. Source: Focus Features)
Welcome to Dispatch, a series within Scene and Unheard where I share the standout moments from the panels, screenings, and industry events unfolding across Los Angeles. These aren’t meant to be deep dives—more like quick snapshots from the rooms and theaters where stories unfold in real time. This edition comes from a screening of the Golden Globe-nominated film Bugonia, followed by an onstage conversation with Golden Globe nominee Jesse Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis.
Creative eccentricity may mark much of filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos’ work, but in Bugonia, it sharpens into something stranger and more intimate—a film that surprises at nearly every turn.
At a screening for the film on Dec. 9 in Los Angeles, star Jesse Plemons—recently nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy—and newcomer Aidan Delbis joined Collider’s Perri Nemiroff onstage to revisit how their work took shape. Their conversation revealed performances shaped by close collaboration, even when the cameras weren’t rolling.
Directed by Lanthimos and written by Will Tracy, Bugonia begins as a tight psychological study before widening into a broader look at belief, fear and control. It follows two conspiracy-obsessed young men—Teddy (Plemons) and Don (Delbis)—who kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a pharmaceutical CEO they believe is an alien sent from the Andromeda galaxy to destroy humanity. Their plan unfolds as a battle of wills, with Michelle’s steady composure set against their spiraling certainty. As the story widens, Lanthimos shifts the film from a tense basement standoff into something that blends paranoia, dark comedy, and surprising moments of connection.
(The official trailer for Bugonia. Source: Focus Features/YouTube)
For Plemons, the script hit immediately. He remembered finishing it and feeling pulled in several directions at once. “I didn’t know how to feel after that first reading,” he said. Teddy enters the film convinced he understands the forces shaping the world, even as a quieter vulnerability sits beneath the surface, shaped in part by the emotional strain of his mother (Alicia Silverstone) being in a vegetative state. “I always find it exciting and challenging to play characters that are hard to categorize,” Plemons added.
Preparing to play Teddy meant turning to music. Plemons created a playlist for the character, anchored by an obscure mid-1960s track about a family telling everyone how to behave. “Anytime you’re playing someone outside yourself, you’re trying to find where you overlap,” he said. The playlist offered the right entry point into Teddy’s mindset.
Delbis arrived on the project in a less conventional way. Lanthimos had been searching for a nonprofessional actor to play Don, believing the role required an authenticity that couldn’t be taught, according to The Los Angeles Times. Delbis, who chooses to self-describe as autistic, was a 17-year-old high school senior when his self-tape landed with both Lanthimos and Stone, who found his presence magnetic.
(Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Aidan Delbis in Bugonia. Source: Focus Features)
Delbis’ moment of clarity came during rehearsals for the film’s pivotal dinner sequence. “It felt weird at first,” he said. “But they liked what I did. I improvised some things, and they found it funny.” That response helped him settle into Bugonia’s off-balance cadence.
The dynamic between Teddy and Don anchors the story, and both actors spoke about how naturally it formed. Plemons recalled their first major day on set, filming by a fireplace. “Everyone’s nervous at the beginning of a shoot, but I could see in Aidan’s eyes that he was fully there,” he said. Delbis remembered the same day, along with the intensity of filming the kidnapping sequence. To help him find the right energy, Plemons would yell and jump around off camera. “He got really pumped up,” Delbis said. “It helped a lot.”
Much of that onscreen ease came from the time they spent together when the cameras weren’t rolling. Delbis said the shoot gave them long stretches to talk, rehearse and simply hang out—time that shaped the familiarity the film depends on. “I was given a long time off camera to get to know him and hang out with him,” Delbis said. “We kind of fell into it, and I definitely came to consider him a real friend.” Plemons felt the same. “His curiosity, intelligence and honesty on and off screen sort of raised the bar,” he said. “Aidan would say the thing everyone else was thinking. It was amazing.”
(Emma Stone in Bugonia. Source: Focus Features)
Plemons said some of his clearest memories were the inside jokes they shared between takes: small, grounding moments amid heavier material. He admitted he can become “hyper-focused” on set. But Delbis had a way of breaking that spell. He could spot “the humor and sometimes ridiculousness of moviemaking,” Plemons said, and with a single comment, “just immediately allow you to stop.”
Working with Stone added a different charge. As Michelle, she plays a figure whose steadiness shifts as the story evolves. Plemons, who worked with Stone on Lanthimos’ 2024 dramedy Kinds of Kindness, noted how seamlessly she moved between acting and producing. “I’ve seen her switch hats very quickly, and I was thoroughly impressed,” he said.
Lanthimos’ direction also shaped the film in subtler ways. Plemons described receiving an early email from the director filled with visual references for the flashback sequences—little explanation, just images. “Very nonchalant,” he said, though the ideas ended up reshaping the scenes. Delbis appreciated the looseness of the set. “He didn’t feel the need to micromanage,” he said. Many details emerged organically, including a montage of Teddy and Don “preparing their bodies and minds,” filmed almost entirely through improvisation. In one take, Delbis’ offhand comment about Teddy looking “funny” slipped naturally into the moment.
(Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis in Bugonia. Source: Focus Features)
Both actors faced challenges they didn’t anticipate. Plemons dreaded the dinner scene: a long sequence where Teddy and Michelle’s verbal sparring gets physical. “I was dreading the dinner scene because it’s 10 pages and so much dialogue,” he said. But that intimidation pushed him and Stone to rehearse constantly. “Emma and I just ran lines nonstop,” he added. “By the time it was time to shoot, we had it. We just had fun.”
One of the lightest memories of the shoot came from an improvisation that never made the final cut. During the fireplace scene, Delbis ad-libbed a line asking whether they could make s’mores. The idea immediately caught on, inspiring plans for a cast s’mores party on their last day at that location. Rain canceled it, but the group gathered later in Atlanta instead. Delbis was especially pleased to learn Plemons hadn’t eaten s’mores in years. “I’m pretty proud to say I got him re-addicted,” he added.
Throughout the conversation, Bugonia emerged as a film built on contrasts: confinement and expansion, fear and humor, certainty and doubt. Lanthimos leans into discomfort but never loses sight of the smaller human moments that give the film its warmth. The cast’s recollections echoed that balance—a reminder that even in a story driven by paranoia and misdirection, the work depends on trust, curiosity and the quiet connections that carry a film through its strangest turns.
Bugonia is in theaters and available to rent on Prime Video.