Joe Alwyn may be the ex-boyfriend of Emma Stone’s best friend, Taylor Swift, but Stone and Alwyn don’t seem to have any bad blood. In fact, they’re co-stars in an upcoming film — and according to Stone, the pair have a wonderful working relationship.
Stone and Alwyn both star in Kinds of Kindness, the upcoming feature by Yorgos Lanthimos, the director behind Stone’s recent hit, Poor Things. In the press notes from production company Searchlight Pictures, Stone gushed about her co-star.
“I love Joe,” said Stone, explaining that she and Alwyn were already “friends” prior to the project. “We had to do some pretty dark stuff on this one, so it was extremely comforting to be with him because he’s one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet.” (Kinds of Kindness was filmed in October 2022, prior to the announcement of Swift and Alwyn’s split in April 2023.)
How are Stone and Alwyn friends? Well, Alwyn and Swift dated from 2016 until 2023 and it’s likely that they crossed paths with Stone, who is one Swift’s good friends, on a number of occasions. Stone and Swift have been pals since meeting in 2008. Over the years, the pair have consistently supported each other. Recently, Swift attended the premiere of Poor Things, while Stone has openly gushed about Swift’s work in her Eras Tour. Some people even believe that Stone made a veiled reference to her friend during her 2024 Oscars speech when she picked the award for Best Actress for her work in Poor Things.
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Alwyn and Stone also have a working relationship outside of their connection through Swift, having worked together on Lanthimos’s 2018 film The Favorite — Stone played a scheming social climber in Queen Anne’s court who married Alwyn’s character on her quest to earn the queen’s favor.
Stone isn’t the only friend of Swift who will be sharing the screen with Alwyn in Lanthimos’s latest feature—Kinds of Kindness also stars Margaret Qualley, who reunites with Lanthimos and Stone after her small role in Poor Things—Qualley is married to Swift’s long-term collaborator and friend, Jack Antonoff.
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Elsewhere in the film’s press notes, Alwyn praised Lanthimos for his approach filmmaking and teased an uncomfortable, darkly comedic film. “There’s a fine line between something that makes you squirm and something that makes you laugh,” he said. “It’s very hard to try and talk about a Yorgos film in a conventional way.”
Alwyn has maintained his fiercely private lifestyle in the wake of his split from Swift. According to a source speaking to People, he is “dating and happy.” The source added that he “certainly doesn’t talk poorly about her” and that “he was in love with her, and it just didn’t work out.”