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Jesse Plemons ‘never expected’ to win Best Actor at Cannes Film Festival

Jesse Plemons did not attend the awards ceremony to collect his prize.

Jesse Plemons did not expect to win Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his work in Kinds of Kindness.

The Game Night actor flew back to America after the film’s Cannes premiere in May to continue filming the Netflix miniseries Zero Day in New York City and he learned he’d won an award during the closing ceremony when he landed back home in Los Angeles.

“I hadn’t seen my boys in almost five weeks, so I landed to the news,” he told Variety. “It’s hard to put into words, but an incredible honour that I never expected to receive. I mean, the fact that it’s this group of jury members from across the world, it was incredibly special.”

Plemons, who shares sons Ennis and James with his wife Kirsten Dunst, was then asked if they celebrated his win.

“We had family and friends come over, just hung out at the house and we went to dinner,” he replied.

With his win, Plemons and Dunst are now one of the rare acting couples with two Cannes awards between them, as the Spider-Man star won Best Actress for Melancholia in 2011.

In Kinds of Kindness, his first Yorgos Lanthimos film, Plemons play three different characters – a man whose life is entirely controlled by his boss, a man who is convinced his wife has changed following a disappearance, and a cult member searching for someone who can bring the dead back to life.

The actor is also set to collaborate with Lanthimos and his co-star Emma Stone once again on the alien conspiracy drama Bugonia, which will be released in November 2025.

Teasing the upcoming film, Plemons joked, “More good clean fun, ya know?”

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