Sharon Stone explains how she used the "that cruelty, the lack of any sort of care or sense of responsibility" of social media as inspiration for the villain of Nobody 2, Lendina.
To say that Sharon Stone is chewing the scenery in Nobody 2 would be the understatement of the year. The role is absolutely buckwild, and not only is it so nice to see Stone on screen again, but to see her in a role where she can cross into a level of cruelty and insanity that is usually given to male villains is even better. When you see just how cold-blooded Lendina is and that everyone in this film who is terrified of her has every reason to be, you have to wonder where all of that came from. For Stone, as she explained to Variety in detail, the things she channeled to get to Lendina's cruelty are very much the cruelty we all witness on social media on what feels like a daily basis.
"I'm a mother of three, and when you go through this kind of climate and through COVID and through this onslaught of what has happened with social media with three boys who've become young men, there's a lot of pent-up feelings about a lot of things that I put on the screen," Stone explained. "I'm not really happy with what comes out of social media, and I wanted to portray that cruelty, the lack of any sort of care or sense of responsibility. There's no empathy, and this is becoming a climate that people are starting to think is correct because it's something they saw in a video game. So I based the character on that because I've had it with that, really had it with that, and so I wanted to demonstrate it because I felt it was the zeitgeist of the moment now."
She continued, "That's very important to me when I'm going to step up and play somebody who's killing a bunch of people, because even when my kids were little and they played toy soldiers, I made them have a MASH unit because I'm like, 'You're killing them' ... I wanted my children to have an ethical reality because you can take the toy guns away, but they'll make a gun out of a sandwich and chase you around the house, so you have to create a sense of ethical understanding. I play villains, and so when I play them, I want them to attach to something in the zeitgeist that people are gonna leave the theater going, 'Man, that was great, but wow.'"
As someone who feels like she's one retweet or share away from a life-ruining experience, the cruelty and lack os empathy displayed by some on social media is damn near dystopian at times, and it makes sense that Stone would use it as inspiration when trying to connect with Lendina as a character. People have become far too comfortable saying some truly horrendous things to others because they are doing it behind a screen and through text. Some hide behind anonymous accounts, but just as many are out here saying hateful things to their fellow human beings with their full government name and a profile picture on display. Stone has been in the industry since she was eighteen years old, so she has witnessed the different ways people spit hateful things at each other. Two decades ago, it was splattered across the pages of tabloids; now it's social media, when people really just need to stop being awful to one another.
Sometimes, the most dangerous place for a dad is a family vacation.
Bob Odenkirk returns as suburban husband, father and workaholic assassin Hutch Mansell in the new chapter to Nobody, the hit 2021 bare-knuckle action-thriller that opened at number one at the U.S. box office.
Four years after he inadvertently took on the Russian mob, Hutch remains $30 million in debt to the criminal organization and is working it off with an unending string of hits on international thugs.
Much as he likes the slam-bang action of his "job," Hutch and his wife Becca (International Emmy nominee Connie Nielsen) find themselves overworked and drifting apart. So, they decide to take their kids (Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath) on a short getaway to Wild Bill's Majestic Midway and Waterpark, the one and only place where Hutch and his brother Harry (Grammy and Emmy nominee RZA) went on a vacation as kids.
With Hutch's dad (Emmy winner Christopher Lloyd) in tow, the family arrives in the small tourist town of Plummerville (Plummerville is Summerville!), eager for some fun in the sun.
But when a minor encounter with some town bullies yanks the family into the crosshairs of a corrupt theme-park operator (John Ortiz; Fast and Furious franchise, Bumblebee) and his shady sheriff (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Colin Hanks), Hutch finds himself the focus of the most unhinged, blood-thirsty crime boss he (or anyone) has ever encountered (Emmy winning and Oscar® nominated screen icon, Sharon Stone).