True crime fans have long wanted a documentary on Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. For this, they even picked a suitable star, Dave Franco, to play the 27-year-old, now imprisoned. That wish may feel partly answered with Yorgos Lanthimos’ new movie Bugonia. At the Telluride Film Festival, Emma Stone, who stars in and also produces the project, spoke about the eerie parallels between her film and the Mangione case.
Emma Stone on Bugonia and Luigi Mangione case
According to Emma Stone, Brian Thompson was shot and Luigi Mangione was caught just after Bugonia wrapped filming in 2024. In the movie, Stone plays a ruthless healthcare CEO kidnapped by a low-level employee, played by Jesse Plemons. When Mangione was arrested, one of the first suggested motives was his grudge against the United Healthcare CEO. While his exact motive was never disclosed, reports linked it to his broader anger at the U.S. health insurance industry and its claim denial practices. Similarly, in the film, which was shot before these events, the employee is a conspiracy theorist who believes Stone’s character is an alien sent from the Andromeda galaxy to destroy humanity. He kidnaps her, tortures her, and blames her for bringing chaos to the world. That’s how the story begins.
“What’s really crazy, after we had shot the film, I live in New York, we heard someone was shot up the street. It was a healthcare CEO. You know, because Luigi. You guys heard about this?” Stone said during an interview at the Telluride premiere. Stone pointed out that Mangione himself had made comments about healthcare companies failing families, with people losing their beloved. “It was wild, because we had all just been in a basement [filming] together talking about these issues and the bigger meaning of everything. It keeps hitting you that the world is so deeply fraught and terrifying in so many ways,” she said.
Bugonia premiered at Venice Film Festival before showing at Telluride and received positive reviews who called it violent yet gripping. The film is a dark comedy adapted from the 2003 Korean cult classic Save the Green Planet. Viewers noted how Emma Stone, who has gone from comedies like Easy A to dramas like Poor Things, keeps reinventing herself instead of sticking to one type of role. At 36, she already holds two Oscars (La La Land and Poor Things). The movie is expected to be a big contender at the upcoming Academy Awards, with Jesse Plemons, already nominated for The Power of the Dog, also in line for what many are calling his boldest performance yet. Some critics even compared his role to Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs and Geoffrey Rush in Shine.
