Emma Stone has won the Oscar for best actress for Poor Things at the 96th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.
Stone won for her role as Bella Baxter in the period fantasy comedy adapted from the novel by Alasdair Gray; it is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and co-stars Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe and Ramy Youssef. The character, the result of a child’s brain implanted into an adult’s body, has proved controversial due to the film’s copious sex and nudity.
Stone had to see off a field including the hotly-tipped Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, Sandra Hüller for Anatomy of a Fall and Carey Mulligan for Maestro. It marks Stone’s second best actress win, after taking the prize in 2017 for La La Land. She has also been nominated twice before for best supporting actress, for Birdman in 2015 and The Favourite in 2019, but won neither.
Stone had already won a string of awards for Poor Things, including the Bafta for best actress and Golden Globe for best female actor in a musical or comedy. Her second Oscar means she now joins the likes of Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda and Jodie Foster as double best actress Oscar winners.
“My dress is broken,” she began, “I think it happened during I’m Just Ken.”
A visibly overwhelmed Stone addressed her main rival, Gladstone, saying she was “in awe of you”. “It’s been such an honour to be doing this with you and I hope we keep doing this together.”
She finished by thanking the team behind Poor Things, including Yorgos Lanthimos: “Thank you for this gift of a lifetime in the role of Bella.”
Stone then thanked her parents and brother, her husband and her daughter, “who’s gonna be three in three days and has turned our world technicolour. I love you bigger than the whole sky.”
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