Quote · The Louis Theroux Podcast
S7 EP8: Yorgos Lanthimos discusses working with Emma Stone, suffering for his art, and directing a Bourne movie
Where this was said
The Bourne Movie That Never Was: Hollywood Temptation and the Tourist Warning
At 27:07 · chapter starts 25:40
In one of the episode's most revealing exchanges, Lanthimos admits that after Dogtooth's Oscar nomination his agents asked what he wanted to do next, and he said — only half-joking — that he might make a Bourne film, a callback to his action-movie-watching teenage self. [1] — Yorgos Lanthimos "After Dogtooth's Oscar nomination, Lanthimos briefly and genuinely considered directing a Bourne film — a callback to his mainstream teenag…" 27:00 He didn't pursue it beyond a vague expression of interest, but the thought was real. Louis offers the example of a talented documentary filmmaker who was offered Dude, Where's My Car? 2, and Lanthimos raises the case of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the Oscar-winning director of The Lives of Others, who went to Hollywood and made The Tourist — a film even its creators acknowledge as a failure. The lesson Lanthimos drew was that studios want your name but not your vision: you can be the marquee director while they retain all meaningful creative authority. Having established total creative freedom over his own films, accepting those terms was never really a live option.
Dogtooth was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but did not win; Lanthimos called even the nomination itself a win.
Emma Stone has won two Academy Awards, one of which was for Poor Things directed by Lanthimos, who was given only the printed winner card.
After Dogtooth's Oscar nomination, Lanthimos briefly and genuinely considered directing a Bourne film — a callback to his mainstream teenage tastes. He quickly realised that in Hollywood, studios want your name but not your vision, and that accepting would mean surrendering the creative freedom he had just established.
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck won an Oscar for The Lives of Others, then went to Hollywood and made The Tourist — a film even its own creators acknowledge was a failure. Lanthimos uses this as his clearest illustration of what happens when an auteur surrenders control to studio machinery.
Lanthimos said he has never made a film without total creative freedom and has turned down Hollywood offers specifically to preserve that.
