Exclusive: Ramy Youssef warned his parents that Poor Things had "a lot of filth"
Poor Things actor Ramy Youssef has revealed that he warned his parents about the amount of "filth" featured in director Yorgos Lanthimos' new film.
The actor, who has previously appeared in Wish and Mr Robot as well as a titular comedy and stand-up shows, stars in Poor Things as Max McCandles. McCandles a medical student who falls in love with Emma Stone's mysteriously back-from-the-dead character Bella.
We won't go into spoilers beyond that, but we will say that what unravels involves quite a lot of sex, to the point where the BBFC asked for specific moments to be toned down in order to pass the film with an 18 age certificate.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Youssef talked about how he gave his folks a bit of a heads-up before going to a screening.
Related: Mark Ruffalo says naked scene in Poor Things was his "least favourite part"
He explained: "I prepped my parents like, 'There's going to be a lot of filth, but I keep my clothes on' and they liked that.
"I said, 'I'm going to be clothed the whole film, no one else will be'. They came to the premiere in New York, so we were watching it together and I put a friend of mine between us, I didn't want to be right next to them.
"My buddy Dave was between me and my mum just so I could have a little barrier of safety, just for integrity's sake, but they were laughing a lot."
Related: Emma Stone explains how Poor Things has changed her as a person
Describing his character's psyche in a bit more detail, Youssef said that Max is "an outsider".
He added: "He's obviously the poor student. The dynamic with all the other students, it's kind of like that higher institution thing where a lot of people are born into it and then some people claw their way in. I felt like that was him."
But Youssef noted that Max has a "desire to control that a lot of the men in the film have" and he feels many men also have in real life, but also "is the embodiment of the part of you that gets to choose to let that go".
Poor Things will be released in UK cinemas on Friday, January 12. It is already out in US cinemas.
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