Jesse Plemons On ‘Bugonia’, ‘Hunger Games’ Prequel And Working With Tom Cruise And Iñárritu: “I Was Blown Away This Movie Was Getting Made!” – The Actor’s Side
Jesse Plemons winces a little when I introduce him in this week’s edition of my Deadline video series The Actor’s Side as a “veteran” actor, even though he is not even 40. The fact is he has been doing this work for decades and started in a Coke commercial at age 2 1/2. The modest star says he is still surprised he even gets to do this job, and seems startled when I list off the directors he has worked with like Scorsese, Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jane Campion, Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu, and so many others.
That list also includes Yorgos Lathimos, who directed him to the Cannes Best Actor Award in Kinds of Kindness, and now again in another teaming with Emma Stone in Bugonia as a conspiracy theorist who kidnaps a corporate CEO and holds her hostage believing she is an alien. His performance in this movie is next level and we talk about how he created it, and the dangers of a society increasingly filled with like-minded people who find conspiracies around every corner.
You never know what or who you are going to get when Plemons shows up on set, but it is always different and surprising; he is a chameleon-like actor capable of anything. His Emmy nominations include playing Ed Blumquist on Fargo, Robert Daly on an infamous “USS Callister” episode of Black Mirror, and Allan Gore in Love & Death. There is also an Oscar nomination in Power of the Dog , and a SAG ensemble win as Todd Alquist in Breaking Bad. We talk about that latter landmark show among other past and future work including the just-wrapped prequel to The Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping, in which he plays Phutark Heavensbee 25 years earlier than when Philip Seymour Hoffman played him.
I also ask Plemons about working with Tom Cruise and Gonzáles Iñárritu in their new film. “(Tom) has still got it. The script was so brilliant. It has its own weird interesting take, extremely relevant, very funny, scary in its implications, and massive in scale. The scope of this is very rare … I was blown away by the fact this movie was getting made,” he told me.
To watch our conversation and get the “actor’s side” of things from Jesse Plemons, watch the video above.
Join me every Wednesday during Oscar season for a new edition of The Actor’s Side, and every Monday for a new Behind the Lens.
