Director Yorgos Lanthimos is back — and he’s bringing some of his favorite performers along with him.
The first official trailer for Lanthimos’ upcoming film Kinds of Kindness dropped on Wednesday, May 29, featuring appearances from Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Joe Alwyn, William Dafoe, Hunter Schafer and Margaret Qualley. While the plot of the film remains ambiguous, hints of what to expect — including a potential death, Plemons getting slapped by Qualley and a large dog driving a car — flash on screen.
The description for the film is equally cryptic, with a logline reading, “Three stories revolve around a man who tries to take control of his own life, a policeman whose wife seems like a different person, and a woman who searches for someone with a special ability.”
In December 2023, Lanthimos offered his own hints of what fans can anticipate, telling The Guardian that Kinds of Kindness will be a “contemporary film” that’s set in the United States.
“[It’s] three different stories, with four or five actors who play one part in each story, so they all play three different parts,” he explained. “It was almost like making three films, really. But it’s great to be working again with Emma. It makes it so much easier to have someone there who trusts you so much, and who you trust so much.”
Lanthimos and Stone, 35, previously collaborated on the film Poor Things — a role which earned her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress — and 2018’s The Favourite, which also starred Alwyn, 32. Lanthiimos revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that the pair’s friendship kicked off before production began on their BAFTA-winning film.
“We got to know each other really well, even before making The Favourite, because we started discussing it a couple of years before, and it took some time to get made. So we became friends during that time,” he explained in a January interview. “Then when we actually had the working experience, it just was obvious that we got along and we like working together.”
When it comes to casting his films, Lanthimos noted that it doesn’t always come down to who would be the perfect fit for the character.
“It’s mostly about people that I want to work with, meeting them and seeing if we get along,” he explained. “It’s important to find the people that actually have this connection with your work and with you as a person.”
Kinds of Kindness lands in theaters on June 21. You can watch the trailer above.
