Poor Things won the Venice Film Festival and is now in cinemas. An interview with the director about the agony of watching your films.

To call Yorgos Lanthimos the best Greek director of our time would be an understatement. With “Kinetta,” “Dogtooth,” and “Alpis,” the Athens-born artist helped usher in a new wave of Greek cinema at the turn of the millennium: experimental films that questioned language, power, and social order. He has lived in London for eleven years, and now films in English and stars in his films with Hollywood stars. In the meeting during the Venice Film Festival, he sends letters to Emma Stone, who plays Bella Baxter, a woman who gets a new life through an experiment, in the new film “Bad Things.” The film is a visual and acting adventure that rightfully won the Golden Lion award.

Mr. Lanthimos, your film Poor Things is based on the novel by Scottish science fiction author Alasdair Grey. When did you first read the book?