Cruella: Emma Stone and director address Joker comparisons

Emma Stone and the Cruella director have insisted their new film is “very different” to 2019’s Joker.

The 101 Dalmatians prequel and Cruella De Vil origin story follows the character in Seventies London. When the first trailer was released last month, many on social media drew comparisons with the origin story for the famous Batman villain, Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix.

In a recent interview with Total Film, Stone said: “It’s very different from Joker in many ways. I would never even remotely compare myself to Joaquin Phoenix. I wish I was more like him.”

Cruella director Craig Gillespie added: “There are some really deep, emotional things that Cruella’s dealing with that send her to the villainous darker side. So in that sense, it is [similar]. But it’s definitely its own thing.

“Just to sort of reframe Cruella, I thought it was important to show this darker side of her. But there’s going to be a lot of fun, a lot of humour in it. There’s a lot of absolutely delightful banter and rhythm to the style of it, which is different from Joker."

Cruella also stars Paul Walter Hauser and Joel Fry as Cruella’s henchmen Horace and Jasper, and Emma Thompson as the Baroness.

The iconic villain was first portrayed by Glenn Close in the 1996 live-action film 101 Dalmatians and its 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians.

The film is currently scheduled for release on 28 May 2021 in the US and in the UK.

Director Gillespie is the filmmaker behind the 2017 Tonya Harding biopic I, Tonya starring Margot Robbie as the figure skater.

Stone’s recent film credits include the 2019 movie Zombieland: Double Tap, as well as Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2018 The Favourite. Her performance in the 2016 La La Land earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress.