Emma Stone shared her belief in aliens during a press conference in Venice on Thursday as she promoted a film where she portrays a woman who might be an alien.

Stone, 36, stars in Bugonia, a new film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. The black comedy follows her character, a CEO, who is abducted by two conspiracy theorists convinced she’s an extraterrestrial.

When asked about her belief in a higher intelligence overseeing humanity, she responded, ‘I don’t know about looking down on us, but one of my favorite people who has ever lived is Carl Sagan.’

‘I watched his show Cosmos and I fell madly in love with his philosophy and science and how brilliant he seems to be.

‘I think he strongly believed that thinking we’re alone in this vast universe is quite narcissistic. So, yes, I’m declaring it, I believe in aliens! Thank you!’

Earlier she had joked after being asked how she deals with success without turning into an alien: ‘How do you know I’m not an alien?’

She further elaborated: ‘The intricacy of that answer is probably more extensive than anyone would care to hear at the moment. However, it’s something everyone encounters now—a sense of others assuming they know you; a lack of control over the portrayal of myself.

‘Because there’s me, and then there’s me, here. There’s the person who comes here and then there’s the person who I am with my friends and family. They’re the same person, but it’s what I do to keep myself sane.’

Stone won a best actress Oscar for her performance in the Lanthimos film Poor Things and said that she loved being in his family of performers.

She was required to shave her head for the role and said of that: ‘It’s the easiest thing. You just take the razor and shave it. It’s so much easier than any other hairstyle.’

Stone and co-star Jesse Plemons had a number of fight scenes which they partly performed themselves, with the use of stunt doubles. Plemons said: ‘It’s very easy when you read in the script: ‘Teddy is running.’ You think OK. But Teddy is running a lot – for pretty much the whole of the third act.’

Bugonia is a loose remake of the 2003 Korean film Save The Green Planet! However Lanthimos believes that it is neither fictional nor dystopian. He said: ‘A lot of it is very reflective of the real world. So I wouldn’t necessarily call it a dystopian film, which, in my mind, is presenting an image of the future and what happened to civilization.’

He went on: ‘Humanity is facing a reckoning very soon and people need choose the right path, otherwise, I don’t know how much time we have with everything that’s happening in the world, with technology, AI, wars, climate change and the denial of all these things.’

Lanthimos was last on the Lido in 2023 with his gothic comedy Poor Things which won the festival’s Golden Lion for best film before earning four Oscars, including best actress for Stone.

In 2024 Stone again starred in the anthology drama Kinds of Kindness which premiered at Cannes Film Festival.

Stone looked chic in a little black dress as she attended the Bugonia photocall.

Stone, who stars as lead character Michelle, stunned as she arrived in a sleek, black, halterneck dress, complete with an asymmetrical lace trim.

She added inches to her slender frame as she slipped into a pair of black, strappy heels which she tied around her ankle and showed off her recent hair transformation.

The conspiracy feature is centered on two men who kidnap an influential CEO after becoming convinced that Michelle is secretly an alien who wants to destroy the earth.

The actress – who won an Academy Award for her work in one of the 50-year-old director’s films – is joined by Jesse Plemons as he stars as one of her kidnappers.

The dark-comedy, which is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, also stars Alicia Silverstone, Aidan Delbis and comedian Stavros Halkias.

Stonehad her head shaved on camera for the role, which triggered a real-life emotional reaction from the actress.

Moments before filming the scene, the 36-year-old burst into tears on set while remembering how her mother Krista Stone lost all of her hair during her triple-negative breast cancer battle.

‘She actually did something brave. I’m just shaving my head,’ Stone recalled to Vogue magazine.

‘My mom was like, ‘I’m so jealous. I want to shave my head again!”

Stone and her mother celebrated her cancer-free status in 2008 by enlisting Paul McCartney to design a tattoo of birds feet for them because of their shared love for the Beatles’ 1968 song Blackbird.

She recalled the first shower she took after her dramatic makeover was ‘amazing,’ but she concealed her bald head beneath a wig while attending the New York Film Festival in October.

‘I was bummed I wasn’t going out with it,’ she said. ‘Just straight-up bald. I think that would have been fun.’

The Arizona-born beauty scoffed that her hair has been growing back ‘pretty slowly for how long it’s been’.

The film so far has been nominated for two awards, Best Film in the Venice Film Festival as well as the San Sebastian Audience Award during their international film festival. 

Bugonia is inspired by the 2003 Korean sci-fi film Save The Green Planet! from director Jang Joon-hwan.

The upcoming Sci-Fi flick will be released in the UK on November, 7, 2025

.