Emma Stone Talks Poor Things & The Curse at the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic

On June 3, Emma Stone could be seen chasing down a cater waiter at the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic, hoping to grab a miniature strawberry ice cream cone from his platter.

“Are you kidding me?! Oh my god,” she said, pulling a face reminiscent of the look that became an infamous gif from Easy A. “I need one!”

The actress earned every bite of that teeny cone after gamely posing for photographs and doing interviews with reporters at the event’s step and repeat. Stone attended the annual polo match held at Liberty State Park for the very first time on Saturday, where views of lower Manhattan across the river were not obstructed by overcast weather. For years, the Polo Classic has been a favorite for celebrities, fans of the sport, and those simply looking to dress up and have an afternoon picnic. This year was no different—as Stone was joined on the carpet by Bridgerton’s Simone Ashley, Darren Criss, Jeremy Pope, and Joy Sunday of Wednesday fame. Wearing head-to-toe Louis Vuitton—a striped yellow and white crepe t-shirt; a cream tiered and studded skirt, and a pair of particularly chic slingbacks—Stone kept her sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose for nearly the entire afternoon.

Although she’s in full summer vacation mode at the moment (“Nothing!” she cried gleefully when I asked her what she was currently working on), the actress has a slate of highly anticipated projects dropping come fall. First up: Poor Things, the latest project in the Emma-Stone-Yorgos-Lanthimos universe. The fantasy film, based upon a 1992 Alasdair Gray novel of the same name, has already generated tons of buzz, not least because of its starry cast (Ramy Youssef, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qually costar). Interestingly enough, when the movie poster released recently, Stone’s look—messy, multicolored makeup and waist-length wavy, dark hair—was the subject of much conversation.

“My character Bella is a bit of a Frankenstein, but she’s also a bit of an experiment in the sense that everything is happening very rapidly on her,” Stone explained. “So her hair grows about two inches every couple of days. It had to get longer and longer quickly because that’s what happened in the book.” Although Stone stressed that Poor Things is quite different from The Favourite, those comparisons are being inevitably drawn—especially since Lanthimos brought up his idea for working on Poor Things just before they wrapped filming The Favourite. “We were going back and forth about it for almost five years, but the most special moment while we were discussing the movie would have to be when he first brought it up to me,” she added. “And I was a producer on this film, so it was much more involved.”

And then there’s The Curse, yet another hotly talked-about comedy television series helmed by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. When it comes to the former creator, Stone said she was surprised by his skills in front of the camera. “He is such a good actor—he really blew my mind,” she said. “I remember watching a scene a couple days in that I wasn’t in. I was texting him up a storm, saying: ‘You’re one of the best actors I’ve ever seen.’ He’s so great and such a natural on Nathan for You and in The Rehearsal—but he’s playing himself. And still, he’s acting.” In The Curse, he and Stone are husband and wife. “So it’ll be really fun to see him playing a full character,” she added. There’s just one thing about Mr. Fielder: “At any given time, you do start to wonder if maybe there’s a prank happening. Like, someone’s filming you from a distance. That’s the only unsettling part of spending time with him.”

Of course, Stone has still made time for leisure (or, at least, work cleverly disguised as leisure). She recently attended Taylor Swift’s Eras concert in Phoenix, Arizona—Stone’s hometown, she quickly pointed out. “It was kind of a full-circle moment,” she said. “I’ve known her since we were 17 and 18 years old, and it’s been amazing to see all of the ‘eras,’ from the beginning to now. And the concert was also choreographed by Mandy Moore, who was the choreographer for La La Land.”

Although Stone has plans for “a low-key summer” before her banner projects come out, she still traveled to Isola Bella, Italy, for Louis Vuitton’s recent cruise presentation; there, she sat front row with Cate Blanchett. A video of the two talking animatedly went viral on Twitter days after the show (“Cate said: ‘Napoleon slept in that bed.’ And I said ‘Just now?’ She said, ‘Yeah, last night.’ That’s all it was! It was so stupid.”). Of Blanchett, Stone remarked jokingly, “She’s alright, you know? She’s got talent! She’s going places, that one!”