Editor’s Note: Welcome to The MVP, a column where we celebrate the best performances TV has to offer. Whether it be through heart-wrenching outbursts, powerful looks, or perfectly-timed comedy, TV’s most memorable moments are made by the medium’s greatest players—top-billed or otherwise. Join us as we dive deep on our favorite TV performances, past and present:
Despite only airing a few months ago, it already feels like The Curse was some sort of collective delusion instead of a real television program that many of us watched. Over its 10-episode run, the series delivered on the promise of a Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie collab, providing the skin-crawling cringe comedy of the former and the anxiety-provoking presentation of the latter as it all crescendoed in an off-kilter, controversial finale that was nothing if not provocative.
But of course, there was another big name tied to the project, a performer who has won the most prestigious acting awards in the land and previously conveyed similarly weird events in multiple Yorgos Lanthimos pictures: Emma Stone. Across her career, she’s delivered a wide range of portrayals from subtle to big, and her character Whitney Siegel in The Curse toes the line between these two modes, as passive aggression occasionally erupts into just plain anger. It’s a performance that’s central to the show, getting across this story’s focus on gentrification, white privilege, and cultural appropriation in each condescending smile and deceitful sales pitch.
For those who didn’t catch the series, we follow Whitney and Asher Siegel (Nathan Fielder), a married couple who own a property development company based in Española, New Mexico. They’re currently in the process of securing an HGTV reality show based on their business, which they hope will bring more attention to the area. Outwardly, they claim their goal is to uplift the community, working with locals as they build eco-friendly homes. Whitney is especially insistent on this point and shields herself with buzzwords that demonstrate a shallow understanding of socioeconomic issues that don’t affect her. But of course, despite their double speak, it doesn’t take long to realize what the couple is implicitly after: if their reality show hits it big, it could drive up interest in the area, causing the land they own there to balloon in value. Sure, the people who live there now certainly won’t be able to afford these rent increases, but Whitney and Asher proceed with their plan anyway.
On its face, these two characters are straightforward; they’re textbook gentrifiers who leverage their wealth and connections (Whitney’s parents are rich landlords who’ve been criticized for their callous practices) to get their way. But where things get particularly interesting is how Stone conveys a dynamic that persists the entire series—is Whitney lying to people’s faces, or does she genuinely believe that their actions will be good for the community? The performance toes the line brilliantly here, making it difficult to tell if the character is actively attempting to deceive others or if she is mostly just trying to deceive herself.
For instance, when Whitney and Asher are interviewed by a local TV network and are asked upfront about gentrification, Stone captures that Whitney is giving a prepared answer— she’s someone more comfortable in front of the camera than her husband, but her words ring hollow due to her overly wide smile and ever so slightly forced cadence of speech. However, even when the cameras aren’t rolling later on, and she’s talking to her husband or “friends,” she continues to argue that what she’s doing isn’t wrong. When challenged, Stone’s sharp, pleading line delivery gives her words an impetuousness that rings of entitlement and self-delusion.
The only time this façade partially breaks down is when she’s talking with her parents. Here, the impetuousness turns into outright tantrums as Stone lets loose childish tirades when her family doesn’t do what she wants. She insists on the same things that she always does, that she “cares” about the community, but these lines come across so forcefully that it’s difficult to believe them. Moreover, Stone conveys that Whitney is less mad that her parents are squeezing people dry and more so that they keep appearing around her properties while the cameras are rolling, threatening her carefully constructed image.
Somehow, though, these aren’t the most uncomfortable scenes from behind closed doors, and one of the most impressive elements of this performance is how Stone easily keeps pace with the master of cringe, Nathan Fielder, in portraying this truly putrid couple. They have zero romantic chemistry as they make awkward, unfunny jokes that stretch on for what feels like forever. In Episode 3, there is a scene where, after Asher has trouble helping Whitney take off her sweater, they conclude this was funny enough that it deserved to be reenacted and put on their social media, in large part to convince the network that they’re a likable couple that deserves a reality show.
As Whitney goes to recreate the scene, Stone goes through her lines with a pointedly wooden delivery that makes the scene appropriately painful. After she unconvincingly struggles with Asher to get the sweater off, she launches herself onto the bed before letting out a belt of overdubbed laughter so unpleasant that my entire body clenched from the unbearable second-hand embarrassment of it all. Stone switches between this exaggerated mode when the camera is on and increasingly annoyed expressions between takes, producing a jarring effect that captures something essential to this character: she is someone constantly performing for an audience.
And while these painfully out-of-touch scenes are tough enough to watch, one of the most harrowing turns with Whitney’s character and Stone’s performance comes in Episode 8, when her professed beliefs and actions are in complete contrast. Here, she manipulates her “friend” Cara (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin), an artist of Indigenous descent, into praising her homes in front of the camera. As Whitney stages this conversation for the reality show, Stone’s face contorts in an almost painfully forced smile, her dimples, exaggerated eye movements, and overly active hands creating the impression of someone trying to be natural but failing utterly.
As Cara explains the meaning of her previous performance art piece, that her giving away slices of turkey represented how being a Native artist means constantly giving away pieces of herself, there is a blankness and complete lack of empathy in Stone’s stare, communicating that this message previously flew over her head and still has no effect on her now. By contrast, after Whitney feeds Cara words of praise to repeat on camera, there is a frightening self-satisfaction on Stone’s face as her “friend” says what she wants to hear. As the scene wraps, it feels like Stone’s eyes are glowing with self-affirmation, completely oblivious and unbothered by how painful it was for Cara to be used like a marionette.
Overall, it’s Stone’s ability to seamlessly slip into performances with different shades of dishonesty that makes the character work, jumping between what the character is like on camera, in public, and in private. We see not only the deeply uncomfortable moments of phoniness with her husband behind closed doors, but also how Stone’s increasingly forceful tone and intense eyes force others to match her fakeness as she orchestrates a reality show that reflects how she wants to be seen. With a performance that’s equal parts menace and cringe, Emma Stone is the dark, beating heart of The Curse.
Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11.
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