There’s an obvious reason why Emma Stone is quickly becoming the most in-demand comedic actress in Hollywood.
The 22-year-old Scottsdale, Ariz., native bursts into a room at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City in an emerald satin dress, holding a bottle Diet Dr Pepper (“It’s my weird vice lately,” she admits) and enthusiastically bids us a hearty “Heyyyyyyyyy!” with a comically grand flourish of her arms. Her charm is disarming.
But you’d also know that from watching her growing list of films, from her debut in Superbad to Zombieland, to her first starring role in last fall’s hit film Easy A. Stone at 22 is already high up on the Hollywood food chain. This summer alone she’s promoting three films: last week’s Friends with Benefits, this week’s Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Help, in which she once again has a starring role.
Stone’s enthusiasm during the Crazy, Stupid, Love junket is particularly impressive considering that doing press for the latter two films at once has caused her to log in enough air miles to make some kind of world record.
“This is day nine,” she explains as she begins to count off cities on her fingertips. “I was in L.A., then San Francisco, then Chicago, then Boston, then here. That’s been this week. Then I leave for L.A. on Wednesday and then San Diego and then back to L.A. and then to Jackson and then New York and then L.A. and then back to New York.”
But she doesn’t seem bothered by all the activity, even if she’s annoyed at herself from time to time.
“If you [already] hated the sound of your own voice, by the end, man, you really hate the sound of your own voice,” she says with an exaggerated eye roll. “And then you hate your opinions and your answers. That’s just been my general experience. I feel like I’m not really here right now. I feel like I’m hallucinating a little bit.”
Tired as she might be, by all appearances, Stone is still untainted by her growing fame.
“Every single person who has been in a circumstance like this is not still,” she observes. “You have to hold it lightly and realize that it will change. What’s important is that the people in your life — your family and friends — love you completely and entirely, that they’re always making fun of you and making you feel like a little bit of an idiot.”
