Emma Stone

Emily Jean "Emma" Stone (born November 6, 1988) is an American actress and model. She made her feature film debut in Superbad (2007). She has co-starred in The House Bunny (2008), Zombieland (2009), and Paper Man (2009). In 2010, Stone made her leading debut in Easy A, for which she received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Other notable roles have included Hannah Weaver in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan in The Help (2011), Gwen Stacy in the Amazing Spider-Man film series (2012, 2014), and the voice of Eep in the animated film The Croods (2013). In 2014 Stone reprised her role as Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and co-starred in Magic in the Moonlight and Birdman. On November 11, 2014, Stone made her Broadway debut taking over the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret from Michelle Williams. Early life Stone was born in Scottsdale, Arizona, to Jeff Stone, a founder and CEO of a general-contracting company, and Krista (née Yeager), a homemaker. Her parents are co-owners of the Camelback Golf Club, and Stone lived on the grounds of the Camelback Inn resort from the age of twelve. She has a brother, Spencer, who is two years younger. Stone's paternal grandfather, Conrad Ostberg Stone, was of Swedish descent, and his family's original surname "Sten" was anglicized to "Stone" when immigrating to the U.S. through Ellis Island. Her other ancestry is Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, Scottish, and Irish. Stone attended Sequoya Elementary School and then Cocopah Middle School for the sixth grade. She was homeschooled for two years, during which time she appeared in sixteen productions at Valley Youth Theatre, including The Princess and the Pea, Alice in Wonderland, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and performed with the theater's improv comedy troupe. Her parents also sent her for private lessons with a local acting coach who had worked at the William Morris Agency in the 1970s and still had Hollywood connections. Stone attended Xavier College Preparatory, an all-girl Catholic high school, as a freshman for one semester. Despite this, she was raised as a Lutheran. She gave a PowerPoint presentation to her parents, set to the Madonna song "Hollywood", to convince them to let her move to California for an acting career. In January 2004, at the age of fifteen, she moved with her mother to an apartment in Los Angeles and began homeschooling again. Stone is naturally blonde. She won her first role as a teenager after dyeing her hair dark brown. Then Judd Apatow, the producer of Superbad, had Stone dye her hair from dark brown to red for her role in the film. She returned to blonde for her role in The Amazing Spider-Man. C​areer There was already a listing for an "Emily Stone" when Stone registered for the Screen Actors Guild, so she chose "Emma" as her stage name. Her family and friends call her Emily. She first chose "Riley Stone" as her stage name, but after guest-starring on Malcolm in the Middle, she decided that she was more comfortable with "Emma", a nickname that her mother had given her. Stone's low-pitched husky voice is a result of having baby colic, a condition of chronic crying as an infant, resulting in the development of nodules. She has calluses on her vocal cords as an adult. Stone made her television debut as Laurie Partridge on the VH1 talent competition reality show In Search of the New Partridge Family (2004). The resulting show, retitled The New Partridge Family (2005), only produced an unsold pilot. Afterwards, Stone guest-starred in a number of television series including Medium, Malcolm in the Middle and Lucky Louie. She auditioned to star in the NBC science fiction drama Heroes as Claire Bennet, and overheard in the casting room "On a scale of 1 to 10, you are an 11" – but the casting directors were referring to Hayden Panettiere, who was cast instead. Stone called this experience "rock bottom". In April 2007, she starred in the Fox action drama Drive created by Tim Minear and Ben Queen, as Violet Trimble, but the show was canceled after seven episodes. Stone made her feature film debut in the comedy Superbad (2007) with Michael Cera and Jonah Hill, directed by Greg Mottola as Jules, the love interest of Seth (Hill). The following year, she co-starred with Rainn Wilson and Teddy Geiger in the comedy The Rocker (2008), directed by Peter Catteneo, where she played Amelia Stone, the bass guitarist in a band featuring Geiger. She learned to play bass for the role. Later that year, Stone co-starred with Anna Faris, Colin Hanks and Kat Dennings in the romantic comedy The House Bunny, directed by Fred Wolf where she played Natalie, the president of a sorority and sang on a single from the film, "I Know What Boys Like", a cover version of the 1982 song by The Waitresses. Breakthrough Stone co-starred with Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas in the romantic comedy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), a takeoff of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, directed by Mark Waters, where she played Allison Vandermeersh, "The Ghost of Girlfriends Past", who haunts Conor Mead (McConaughey), a womanizing photographer who does not believe in true love. She co-starred with Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Abigail Breslin in the horror comedy Zombieland directed by Ruben Fleischer, where she played Wichita, a survivor and con artist from Wichita, Kansas, traveling across the U.S. with her younger sister Little Rock (Breslin). Eventually, she reveals that her real name is "Krista", which is coincidentally the name of Stone's real life mother. The project began shooting in Atlanta in February 2009. In 2010, Stone made her leading debut in the comedy Easy A directed by Will Gluck, as Olive Penderghast, a high school student who scandalizes her teachers and in particular, her more conservatively religious classmates after a false rumor circulates that she is sexually promiscuous. The script was written by Bert V. Royal and contrasts the historical romance novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and its heroine, Hester Prynne, to the life of Prynne in the film versions. Stone read the script before the project was optioned for production, and kept an eye on it along with her manager until preparations were made. About what attracted her to the script, she said, "It’s so different and unique from anything I’d read before." And that it was "funny and sweet". When Stone discovered that the film had gone into production, she met with Gluck to express her enthusiasm about the project. A few months later, the audition process started and Stone met with Gluck again to be one of the first actresses to audition. Stone was nominated for the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for her role. Personal life Stone moved from Los Angeles to Greenwich Village, New York City in 2009. Stone's mother Krista was diagnosed with breast cancer and won her battle in 2008. To celebrate her mother being two years cancer free in 2010, Stone wrote a letter to Paul McCartney asking him to draw two birds' feet because "Blackbird" is her mother's favorite song. He did so, and Stone and her mother received matching wrist tattoos. Since then Stone has done extensive work with Revlon and Stand Up to Cancer to help fight women's cancer. In mid-2011, Stone began dating her The Amazing Spider-Man co-star Andrew Garfield.