Emma Stone talks Cruella: "It’s very different from Joker in many ways"

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Exclusive: Emma Stone talks Cruella and those Joker comparisons with Total Film

Disney's Cruella movie
(Image credit: Disney)

"It’s hard to call someone a bad ’un completely when you see them from the very beginning," Emma Stone says of Cruella.

The Oscar-winning actor will portray the famed fashionista in Disney's upcoming live-action Cruella De Vil origins story, and the movie has already made waves on social media. After the first trailer was released, comparisons were instantly made to another recent award-winning, male-led project – Joker.

“It’s very different from Joker in many ways,” Stone laughs over Zoom while talking to Total Film for the new issue. However, while there are certainly differences be two movies, Stone can see why thematic lines could be drawn between the two. “I would never even remotely compare myself to Joaquin Phoenix," she continues. "I wish I was more like him.”

Her director, Craig Gillespie, understands an audience needs to have a cultural point of reference. “There are some really deep, emotional things that Cruella’s dealing with that send her to the villainous darker side. So in that sense, it is [similar],” he says. “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. There’s a lot of absolutely delightful banter and rhythm to the style of it, which is different from Joker.”

Rather than meet De Vil as the queen of a fashion house, Cruella begins at birth with Estella, the daughter of an impoverished laundrywoman who grows up with an eye for fashion and two partners-in-crime, Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) – her fully-fledged henchmen in previous narratives. Cruella really is going all the way back to her origins.

Total Film's Cruella covers

(Image credit: Disney/Total Film)

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Jane Crowther
Freelance Writer

Jane Crowther is a freelance writer and the Editor-in-Chief at Hollywood Authentic magazine, having formerly been the longtime Editor of Total Film magazine. Jane is also the Chair of The Critics' Circle and a BAFTA member. You'll find Jane on GamesRadar+ exploring the biggest movies in the world and living up to her reputation as one of the most authoritative voices on film in the industry.