It’s always a big deal when an American actor picks up an acting prize at one of the major European film festivals. That’s what happened this year at Cannes – Jesse Plemons won Best Actor for Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, and now the American press is like “oh, okay, we need to pay more attention to this film and Jesse Plemons in particular.” Lanthimos is coming off a creative high – Poor Things was arguably his most successful film to date, and Emma Stone picked up her second Best Actress Oscar for the film. Will the same thing happen with Jesse? We’ll see. Apparently, Kinds of Kindness showcases Jesse’s recent weight loss as part of the story. Jesse recently chatted to the LA Times about the film and how he achieved his weight loss. Some highlights:
His reluctance to plot out his career: “It’s just a survival technique. I’ve been doing it for so long that it almost doesn’t benefit to look too far ahead. And that’s kind of worked for me so far … I’m constantly just looking at this next thing and following my gut [about] what is interesting and exciting to me.”
What ‘Kinds of Kindness’ is about: Jesse Plemons emerges alongside Stone as the film’s co-lead. Although “Yorgos kept insisting it was a comedy,” as Plemons deadpans to me at one point, the subject matter roiling underneath the stories’ anodyne log lines — forced sterilization, cannibalism, sexual assault — unsettled him as much as it will the viewer.
His weight loss: One unexpected through line among Plemons’ characters in the film is an attention to their physical appearance that at first concerned the actor, who lost weight before being approached for “Kinds of Kindness” and worried Lanthimos wanted “the bigger me.” In the first segment, “The Death of R.M.F.,” Plemons’ corporate functionary submits to a strict regimen established by his controlling employer (Dafoe), who quips, “Skinny men are the most ridiculous thing there is”; in the third, “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” he’s clad in a suit so baggy it seems designed to draw attention to the actor’s thinness.
He did not take Ozempic: “It’s really unfortunate that I decided to get healthy when everyone decided to take Ozempic. It doesn’t matter, everyone’s going to think I took Ozempic anyways. But what it was was getting older and — I hate even getting specific because then it turns into a whole thing, but there was a part that I did that in my mind I could not imagine him as the size that I was. Several people talked to me about intermittent fasting and I just gave it a shot and [was] surprised at how quickly it was effective. So I lost a little bit before I did that part and then felt like I was in the rhythm, I was feeling better, and something shifted in my head. I just sort of got a handle on it.”
Do you believe his weight loss is the result of intermittent fasting and not weight-loss/diabetes drugs? I mean… it felt like it was a dramatic loss in a short time, which usually indicates more than an”intermittent fasting” diet, but whatever. If he says it wasn’t Ozempic, I’ll choose to believe him. He really looks different too – the weight loss has changed his whole face and given him a more prominent jawline and cheekbones.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.