A real-life take on an out-of-this-world series
Actress and now producer enjoys new series Maniac, which explores loss and pain
NEW YORK— Emma Stone hates fantasy. “It’s. Not. Real!” she jokingly wails, throwing her hands up as Maniac director Cary Joji Fukunaga amusedly looks on.
“I know people love it, but it’s very hard for me to understand how (other actors) don’t feel like, ‘What am I talking about? What are these things?’ I like hyperrealism (and) not necessarily the Middle Earth of it all.”
Stone, 29, begrudgingly dips her toe in the genre in Netflix’s weird new sci-fi show Maniac (now streaming), playing recovering drug addict Annie, who volunteers for a groundbreaking pharmaceutical trial that dives into participants’ psyches through dreamlike sequences known as “reflections.”
Taking on the roles of a Long Island nurse, CIA operative — and yes — a half-elf ranger in these sequences, Annie continually relives her sister’s death in an attempt to move past it.
The 10-episode drama, which co-stars Jonah Hill, is based on a Norwegian series, although Fukunaga ( True Detec
tive) says he’s never seen it. While that show centred on a man in a mental hospital, Maniac is set in a drug trial and adds Stone’s character as a potential love interest.
Reading the scripts for the first time, what resonated with you most about this character and story?
I loved so much about Annie. I loved the way she lashed out against her struggling and that her pain is so definitive for her, but she also had so much going on internally. I could understand and relate to that feeling of wanting to numb out those big feelings.
Then to go into those different worlds and have the masochism to continue having that experience over and over again — only to realize there are other worlds she can go into that aren’t just that same painful experience — it was a lot of great stuff. You’ve been open about your own struggles with anxiety. Did that in any way inform your approach to the material?
I think so. We talked about mental health and neuroses more than I ever really have at work before. It was something we all cared very much about, being sensitive and compassionate in telling a story that is about radical self- acceptance and connection.
Nobody is completely “normal”; I don’t think anybody really understands what normal is. Everybody goes through stuff, and sometimes it’s more intense than other experiences. My version of worrying might be a lot more heightened than other people’s, but it doesn’t make me crazy. Even though sometimes I feel kind of crazy. (Laughs.)
While a lot of the conversation around the show has been about mental health, it’s also a moving story about grief as Annie comes to terms with her sister’s death and her fractured relationship with her mom. Was making it therapeutic for either of you?
Everybody has gone through some version of trauma or loss. Annie says to Greta (Sally Field), “When will I feel better?” And she says, “It’s not going to go away. You’re going to take it with you forever.”
Grief follows you — it gets easier, sort of, but it’s always a weight on you. That’s the insane part of being human, that we have to lose each other and hurt each other.
So it’s comforting to explore that unifying feeling that happens in pain and know that it’s just a part of the human experience.
This is your first time as an executive producer. What was most gratifying about that experience for you?
That was a really great feeling. After a period of years as an actor, you realize your voice can be heard to an extent, but it doesn’t matter at the end of the day — you’re a cog in the machine.
It’s nice to feel a slight sense of ownership.
And it was a blast to watch episodes and cuts early, which you (normally) don’t get to as an actor.
Your half-elf character is tasked with bringing an elven princess to a lake with healing powers. Was it tough trying to shoot a bow and arrow in those heavy robes?
Well, I didn’t train for the bow and arrows, so I was terrible at that.
But it was helpful that she’s a drunk elf, because when my arrows went completely the wrong direction, it didn’t particularly matter because she’s been drinking out of that flask the whole time.
She is also already self-aware when she wakes up (in that reflection), so it was nice to express that part of Annie’s personality through the (fantasy) genre that’s like, “Why the (expletive) am I an elf?”