Emma Stone’s turn as Cruella isn’t anything like the Joker.
The 32-year-old Oscar winner spoke about her upcoming film, Disney’s live-action Cruella, and reflected on fans comparing the film to the award-winning performance delivered by Joaquin Phoenix in Joker.
“It’s very different from Joker in many ways,” Stone said, laughing, in an interview with Total Film.
She continued, “I would not even remotely compare myself to Joaquin Phoenix. I wish I was more like him.”
Cruella director Craig Gillespie said there were some similarities between the two characters that fans possibly saw in the latest trailer for the Disney film.
“There are some really deep, emotional things that Cruella’s dealing with that send her to the villainous darker side,” Gillespie, 53, said. “So in that sense, it is [similar]. But it’s definitely its own thing. Just to sort of reframe Cruella, I thought it was important to show this darker side of her.”
“But there’s going to be a lot of fun, a lot of humor in it,” he added. “There’s a lot of absolutely delightful banter and rhythm to the style of it, which is different from Joker.”
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Stone previously spoke with Entertainment Tonight about taking on the role of the fur-coat-loving Cruella. (The villain was first seen in the 1961 animated film 101 Dalmatians and made even more iconic in 1996 when Glenn Close first brought Cruella to life in a live-action film starring Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson.)
“It’s pretty trippy. It’s wild,” Stone told ET of portraying Cruella at the premiere of Zombieland: Double Tap in October 2019. “Right now, I’m tired all the time, but there are times where I’m like … ‘This is bananas.'”
Cruella is set to premiere in theaters on May 28.