In Bugonia, Jesse Plemons plays a man empowered by certainty he is saving the human race from an alien conspiracy
Adapted from Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 South Korean film Save The Green Planet!, Yorgos Lanthimos’s absurdist black comedy Bugonia follows two men – fanatical conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and his young cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) – who kidnap Emma Stone’s high-profile pharmaceutical CEO Michelle Fuller, believing her to be an evil alien from the planet Andromeda intent on destroying the Earth. As Teddy holds Michelle hostage in an isolated farmhouse basement, hoping to force her to introduce him to alien command and negotiate their withdrawal from the planet, captor and captive engage in an increasingly hostile battle of wills as both try to gain the upper hand.
“That was multiple days,” says Plemons of the intense basement scenes, culminating in an extraordinary dinner table sequence that pushes both characters [and actors] to their limits. “It felt like it was never-ending, these emotional extremes. So physical stamina was required, and emotional and mental stamina. When you get to that third act, the tension, stakes and circumstances are constantly ratcheting up. But it was the most creatively exhilarating part I’ve ever gotten to play. The script was so rich. It was the exact type of challenge you’re always looking for.”
As a character, Teddy has a marked mistrust of mainstream media – “I don’t get my news from the news,” he informs Michelle – spending hours online researching alien, environmental as well as capitalism conspiracies. But the script, by The Menu’s Will Tracy, does not portray Teddy as a one-note loon. He is smart, well-informed and, in his mind, heroic, mankind’s saviour. “I latched onto this idea of who he sees himself to be,” says Plemons. “And I believe that he truly wants to help” – even as he threads a fine line between deluded, humorous and utterly terrifying.
To prepare for the role, the actor spent time on the dark web and watched countless conspiracy theory documentaries. “There’s this independent journalist Andrew Callaghan,” says Plemons. “He has a YouTube channel called Channel Five, and he places himself in the centre of some interesting environments [and] fringe organisations. He has this real disarming quality that makes people feel comfortable and show him their most authentic self.”
Plemons also reached out to an “alien enthusiast” friend for advice. “As soon as I read the script, I thought of my friend Trevor, and was like, ‘Wow, he’s going to love this,’” recalls the actor, in London for Bugonia’s premiere at the BFI London Film Festival ahead of its October release by Focus Features in the US and Universal Pictures in the UK. “We spoke several times, and he gave me a thorough history of all the different theories, all the alleged species of aliens. It was fascinating.”
But what was even more helpful was the way in which his friend talked about his beliefs and his certainty that they are out there. “If you want to generalise, it stems from searches for meaning and understanding,” reports the actor. “It’s a different form of religion. I wouldn’t classify Trevor in the same category. But I know people that, post-Covid, have been radicalised or lured into some conspiracy theory.”
The truth game
Texas-born Plemons also found much of Teddy’s philosophy in the works of Naomi Klein, in particular her 2023 memoir Doppelganger: A Trip Into The Mirror World. “Plenty of Teddy’s comments, wouldn’t even call them theories, truths, you’ll find in these books,” he explains. “The interesting thing about Teddy is plenty of what he says when it comes to class and capitalism, he’s right on the money.”
Indeed, Bugonia holds a mirror up to contemporary society and how we are more divisive than ever in our beliefs. “One of the things I find most interesting is that both Teddy and Michelle make statements that are hard to poke holes in, and you get to see them play out this dynamic that so many of us are stuck in, coming from opposing sides. It’s a great representation of the way in which we have all come to relate to one another, where everything has to be this or that. There is no room for any in-between, any context, any nuance. There’s so little true listening.”
A child actor, Plemons appeared in commercials, on TV and in films such as Varsity Blues and All The Pretty Horses before his breakthrough roles in NBC high-school football series Friday Night Lights (2006-11) and as the chilling Todd Alquist in the final season of Breaking Bad and subsequent Netflix movie El Camino.
Since then, Plemons has emerged as one of his generation’s finest actors, balancing TV and film, comedy (Game Night) and drama (Black Mass), working with Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), Steven Spielberg twice (Bridge Of Spies, The Post), Martin Scorsese twice (The Irishman, Killers Of The Flower Moon) and Charlie Kaufman (I’m Thinking Of Ending Things) among others.
He had three roles in Lanthimos’s 2024 anthology film Kinds Of Kindness, for which he won the best actor award at Cannes, and received best supporting actor Oscar and Bafta nominations in 2022 for Jane Campion’s western The Power Of The Dog, in which he co-starred with his wife Kirsten Dunst. And he will next be seen opposite Tom Cruise in Alejandro G Iñarritu’s currently untitled black comedy, due for release next October.
In The Master, Plemons played the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son and is currently starring as the younger version of Hoffman’s character Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games prequel The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping. To some observers, he is also Hoffman’s heir apparent, an actor capable of playing leads (Bugonia), supporting roles (Judas And The Black Messiah), or even stealing a movie with a single scene (Civil War).
“It’s obviously flattering to be included in the same sentence as Philip Seymour Hoffman. I don’t personally compare us,” says Plemons. “He’s one of many actors that were huge inspirations. I mean, Chris Cooper is someone that just popped into my mind. He’s so human and I believe him no matter what the role is and what the scenario is.
“I don’t look at myself as, ‘What kind of actor am I?’” he continues. “I take it part to part, and I truly don’t care if it’s one amazing scene, like in Civil War, or if I’m in most of the scenes, like in Bugonia. It’s the same thing – you just have more time to explore the character. I feel lucky to continue to get to play parts that are inspiring and challenging, and work with people that are inspiring and you can learn from.”
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