CANNES, France (AP) ā was flattered to be approached by Yorgos Lanthimos about starring in but he wasnāt sure which version of himself the director wanted.
Plemons, the protean 36-year-old character actor, has sometimes put on weight for roles. āThose first weeks are glorious,ā he says. āAnd then it gets depressing very quickly.ā
Over the years, Plemons has lost weight for some parts and gained it back for others. It became easy to lose track, and directors kept preferring him on the larger side.
āI kind of kept getting parts for that size,ā Plemons said in an interview last month at the . āEventually it was: I gotta get a handle on this. Iāve got two young kids and I want to be able to run around with them.ā
āAnd I was nervous that (Yorgos) was only interested in the bigger version of me,ā he adds. āI was like: I hope heās still OK with the fact that I donāt look like the guy he thought I looked like.ā
Who, exactly, Jesse Plemons is can seem elusive. Since his breakthrough on the series āFriday Night Lights,ā Plemons has evolved into one of filmās most talented shape-shifters. He's proven an uncommonly malleable actor, appearing as everything from the lethal creep of āBreaking Badā to the federal detective of He slides into grippingly contemporary films ( ) as smoothly as he does period pieces ( āThe Irishman,ā ). Heās less a chameleon than a singular presence that can be dialed to disturbing or sweet. Whether good or bad, Plemonsā characters tend to be sincerely themselves ā a product, maybe, of the sensitivity with which he approaches each part.
āI try not to make too many judgments too quickly and try to circle the script and the part until I find some way in,ā Plemons says. āSomething that resonates and makes sense to me and thatās going to drag me along and not make it feel like work, make it feel like Iām just following some trail.ā
The darkly comic āKinds of Kindness,ā which opens in theaters Friday, is a supreme, fittingly disquieting showcase of Plemonsā wide-ranging abilities. After its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last month, ā the most significant individual award of his career. It won't be the last.
The film, a Searchlight Pictures release, is composed of three stories penned by Lanthimos and his oft-collaborator Efthimis Filippou. The triptych isn't narratively connected, but each is performed with the same company of actors, including Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley. And each story takes unpredictable, parable-like paths to exploring themes of social conformity and control in relationships.
Plemons is central in the film's first two sections. In the first, he plays a man named Robert who lives in utter devotion to his boss (Dafoe), but their relationship is severed when the boss asks Robert drive his car into that of a strangerās. Cut loose, Robert is sent into a desperate tail spin.
In the second, Plemons plays a police officer named Daniel whose marine biologist wife (Stone) returns home after being stranded on desert island for months. He believes that she isnāt his real wife but a doppelgƤnger and tests her in increasingly sinister ways.
Those two characters ā one a disquieting paranoid, the other a humble puppy dog ā encapsulate something about Plemons as an actor. When he read the script, Plemons says, āI thought it was brilliant but I couldnāt tell you why.ā
āItās like: When will anything like this come along again?ā he asks. āProbably never, so sign me up. Letās see what happens.ā
Lanthimos, the filmmaker of and likes an extensive and playful rehearsal period. But that didnāt help Plemonsā initial befuddlement.
āThroughout the majority of the rehearsal process, I just felt completely lost and clueless, which in hindsight was like, āYeah, I guess thatās a part of it, too,āā he says. āThereās some submitting and giving in to the process.ā
Lanthimos has been a longtime admirer of Plemons.
āWe talked about Jesse forever. I think we thought about it for a couple things but he wasnāt available,ā Lanthimos says, speaking alongside Stone. āBut I always had him in mind because I think heās just basically one of the greatest of his generation. Thereās no question for me.ā
āHeās also a really nice and interesting person, which is always a bonus ā when someoneās that talented but theyāre also just lovely to be around,ā Stone adds.
Shortly after the premiere of āKinds of Kindness,ā the filmmaker announced that his next project, titled āBugonia,ā will also star Plemons alongside Stone. āHeās now part of the troop,ā says Lanthimos, proudly.
āKinds of Kindnessā adds to whatās been a memorable year for Plemons. Earlier this year, his scene in Alex Garlandās āCivil Warā ā in which he plays a jingoistic militant who chillingly asks āWhat kind of American are you?ā ā was the most memorable ( ) moment from the movie.
āI just find people fascinating," he says. "I guess Iām trying to operate from a place of being curious and trying to figure out why. Because there is always some trail leading back to why. Itās never some mystery ā rarely, maybe occasionally. But thereās always something. Thatās what I find interesting and then you finish it and it hits you, all of that. That was definitely the case for āCivil War.āā
Plemons, who grew up in Mart, Texas, has often been called on to play such menacing figures. But heās found ways to cleverly play with and invert that reputation. In āGame Night,ā Plemons played the foreboding neighbor next door whose deadpan interactions ("How can that be profitable for Frito Lay?") were the movieās comic high point.
But asked if Plemons sometimes feels resistant to playing darker, demented characters, an interviewer hasnāt finished the question when he eagerly responds, āYes!ā
āBut also, like anyone I would think, you donāt want to be redundant,ā Plemons explains. āItās not like dark characters are all the same. But thatās what to me is eternally interesting and a gift about an actor. Yeah, I feel incredibly fortunate to be at a place where Iām able to be more selective. Thereās a choose-your-own-adventure element. But there are times when, yeah, you just donāt really want to walk around in those shoes at this moment.ā
That may be especially since Plemons' life is otherwise fairly blissful. He and his wife, Kirsten Dunst, who met while shooting the second season of āFargo,ā have two young children. But Plemons isnāt necessarily shying away from anything, either.
āI have conflicted feelings about it because thereās part of me that really believes thereās a point to it, and some of positive that comes out of showing something like, someone like that,ā Plemons says of the āCivil Warā character. āThey exist. Thatās one of the great possibilities in film to hold up a mirror and, without preaching, youāre forcing people to engage in a way where youāre hitting them first from a human level in a way that a lot of other mediums might not be able to do.ā
That kind of thoughtfulness is what's made Plemons so in demand as an actor. He's noticed the shift most in the last year or two. (In 2022, both he and Dunst were Oscar nominated for their supporting performances in Jane Campion's āPower of the Dog.ā)
āItās just trying to hold on and hone your time-management skills,ā says Plemons. "This experience, you realize you can do all the work you want but if you donāt settle into here and now and just play and go on a ride, then none of that matters."
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Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
