Cruella Star Emma Stone Admits It Was “Difficult” Playing the Villain Without Her Signature Smoking

Cruella is finally available to watch in theatres and on Disney+ Premier Access and has been met with pretty decent reviews so far. Currently, the movie stands at a 73% critics score and a 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. ComicBook.com gave the movie a 4 out of 5 and called it a “wickedly stylish prequel” that’s “one of Disney’s best live-action films to date.” While there are a lot of fun nods to 101 Dalmatians in the new movie, there is one Cruella de Vil staple you won’t be seeing from Emma Stone, and that’s smoking. In fact, Stone recently told The New York Times that losing the signature smoking made the role a little more “difficult.”

“That is not allowed in 2021,” Stone said when asked about Cruella being a non-smoker in the new movie. “We are not allowed to smoke onscreen in a Disney film. It was difficult to not have that cigarette holder… I was so excited to have that green plume of smoke in there, but it was not possible. I don’t want to promote smoking, but I’m also not trying to promote skinning puppies.”

Recently, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with the movie’s director, Craig Gillespie, who talked about pulling (and not pulling) inspiration from 101 Dalamtians.

“I didn’t, I really didn’t,” Gillespie replied when asked about pulling inspiration from the older stories. “I wanted to stay away from the Glenn Close version because Emma Stone has to create this character. And I felt like the fact that we’re stars, I just wanted to be in it and not, I just stayed away from that. I knew for me, I really wanted to embrace this 1970s gritty London punk version of it, and so we were sort of starting with that and her character had to come out of that. And so we really had to sort of create new and create the tone of her. So I didn’t look at that at all. And then the crazy thing with the 101 Dalmatians, she’s such a delight to watch, Cruella, and you love that she’s got this humor and sort of narcissistic-like biting tone to her, but we don’t know anything about her. I mean, she went to school with Anita and that’s about it. So in some ways, it’s remarkably liberating.”

Cruella is now playing in theatres and is available to buy on Disney+ Premier Access.