Jesse Plemons on Concern Weight Loss Might Affect ‘Kinds of Kindness’ Role (Exclusive)

Jesse Plemons made it a date night with wife Kirsten Dunst at the NYC premiere of “Kinds of Kindness,” where he spoke to “Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi.

Jesse reacted to his performance already being recognized with Best Actor honors at Cannes, saying, “Obviously, I was shocked and surprised and honored to find out that I won. It wasn't even anything that I was considering as a possibility, but that award and the way it's decided, yeah, it was incredibly special. But it's always the experience that's the main takeaway and the group of people that you're working with, especially something like this."

He went on, “Those early weeks of rehearsals I just felt like I had no clue what I was doing, and so then to see the film and to have gone through all of this with everyone and had such an amazing time and then there's a film that you really love on the other side of it, yeah, that's the really special part."

Jesse also spoke about finally getting to work with director Yorgos Lanthimos. “He's one of those directors that you’re obviously very curious to read the script, but it's not like that's going to really determine anything,” the actor said. “There was no way I wasn't going to work with him. You know, I've been a huge fan of his work since I saw 'Dogtooth,' I don't know, 13 years ago or something like that. So yeah, it was incredibly exciting and a little intimidating that it was three parts out of the gate, but it was fun.”

Plemons said he was concerned his weight loss could have affected the vision Yorgos had, since they first talked about the part before his dramatic transformation.

“It's crazy that I had that concern, but when I first spoke with him, it was before I lost the weight and, you know, the lines in the script would indicate that the character has lost weight. And so any, I guess, typical director I would think, ‘Oh, that's a good thing, that makes sense.' But with Yorgos, I had the thought was he wanting me — the larger version of me — even though these lines are, like I said, indicating that he's skinnier. But it was a slight thing and then I asked him about it and that was that.”