Equally adept at comedy, drama, and anything and everything in between, Emma Stone's range has made her one of the greatest actors of her generation. The career that she has built has been hard one, with Stone defying typecasting at every turn, going through a metamorphose from plucky girl next door to Oscar-winning leading lady.
For Stone, acting is something she has wanted to do since she was 4 years old. Born and raised in Arizona, she made her debut in a theater production of The Wind in the Willows when she was 11 years old. Her film debut came in 2007, when Greg Mottola cast her in the teen comedy, Superbad. Since then, she has worked with such filmmakers as Damien Chazelle, Cameron Crowe, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
Stone received her first Oscar nomination in 2015 for her supporting performance in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Two years later, she returned to the Oscars as the star of La La Land and won Best Actress in a Leading Role.
"I realize that a moment like this is a huge confluence of luck and opportunity," Stone said onstage at the 89th Oscars. "I still have a lot of growing and learning and work to do, and this guy is a really beautiful symbol to continue on that journey. And I am so grateful for that."
Stone won her second Oscar for her turn as Bella Baxter in Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things. "The other night I was panicking — as you can kind of see, it happens a lot — that maybe something like this could happen," she said while accepting her Best Actress win at the 96th Oscars. "And Yorgos said to me, 'Please take yourself out of it.'"
"He was right," Stone continued. "Because it's not about me. It's about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its part. That is the best part about making movies, is all of us together."
Here, A.frame is looking back on the best of the actress' filmography.
Stone made her feature debut in this hit comedy, impressing audiences with her comedic timing and knack for physical comedy. Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Superbad stars Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as Seth and Evan, best friends who are hoping to have some fun at a house party before their upcoming high school graduation. Adopting her distinctive redheaded look for the first time, Stone plays Jules, whose party inspires the bizarre and hilarious day-long beer run that Seth and Evan embark upon.
Stone's first starring vehicle was this adaptation of The Scarlet Letter as a modern teen comedy. Directed by Will Gluck, Easy A casts the actress as Olive Penderghast, a teenage outcast who suddenly finds herself at the center of her high school's rumor mill. Stone embodies Olive as the quintessential teen hero: She's charming and cool — but not too cool. She hates the popular kids but wants to be one anyway. She's relatable.
Appropriately, Stone's performance catapulted her to the A-list. Easy A won the actress her first awards: Best Comedic Performance at the MTV Movie Award and Choice Movie Actress: Romantic Comedy at the .Teen Choice Awards
Kathryn Stockett's bestselling novel got the big-screen treatment courtesy of writer-director Tate Taylor. The feel-good drama about life among domestic workers during the Civil Rights Movement features an ensemble cast led by Stone, who plays Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, an aspiring journalist who sets out to interview the Black maids working in her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi.
The cast also includes Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, Sissy Spacek, Bryce Dallas Howard, Cicely Tyson, Allison Janney, and Octavia Spencer, the latter of whom won Best Supporting Actress for her turn in the movie. Meanwhile, the entire cast, Stone included, won that year's SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
In this instant-classic modern rom-com, Stone plays Hannah, a recent college grad and the one who got away for playboy Jacob (Ryan Gosling, in their first onscreen collaboration). Hannah is also, it's eventually revealed, the daughter of Cal (Steve Carell), who Jacob is mentoring in how to pick up women. Hijinks ensue. Stone is perfectly suited to writer Dan Fogelman's snappy script, and she and Gosling have the movie's most memorable moment: The scene where they drunkenly reenact the lift from Dirty Dancing.
Following Tobey Maguire's tenure as the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, the franchise was rebooted with Andrew Garfield starring as the web-slinger. Instead of pairing him with Mary Jane Watson, Garfield's Peter Parker had Stone's Gwen Stacy as a love interest. His crush on Gwen is part of the reason Peter sneaks into Oscorp, where she is an intern, in the first place — which is where he is, of course, bitted by a radioactive spider.
The Amazing Spider-Man and its follow up, 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, may be the only modern superhero movies remembered more for the chemistry between the two leads than for any of the superheroices.
Stone received her first Oscar nomination (for Best Actress in a Supporting Role) for her performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Best Picture-winning black comedy. Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a washed-up Hollywood actor best known for playing a superhero named Birdman. Stone plays his daughter, Sam, a recovering drug addict who is working as her dad's assistant. Shot as if in one single take, Birdman takes viewers on a swirling journey through Riggan's day as he attempts to make a comeback in the theater and reconnect with his daughter.
At the 87 Oscars, Birdman won Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, while Iñárritu won Best Directing and Emmanuel Lubezki won Best Cinematography.
Stone won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her transcendent performance as Mia, an aspiring thespian hoping to catch her big break in the City of Angels. When she crosses paths with jazz pianist Sebastian (Gosling), they strike up a bittersweet romance in director Damien Chazelle's musical romance. A lifelong fan of musicals, Stone channeled her own acting and singing abilities that she honed on Broadway to play Mia.
La La Land received a total of 14 nominations at the 89th Oscars, tying All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997) for most nominations ever. It ultimately won a total of six Oscars, including Best Directing, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song for the ballad, "City of Stars."
Stone's third Oscar nomination came for her hilariously acidic turn in Yorgos Lanthimos' period comedy. Stone, the lone American in the cast, co-stars as Abigail, the ambitious and scheming new arrival in the court of Queen Anne (played by Olivia Colman). In order to win favor with the capricious queen, Abigail use all of her wiles and womanly ways to depose Anne's current favorite, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz).
At the 91st Oscars, The Favourite earned 10 nominations, including Best Picture. Colman won Best Actress and in her acceptance speech thanked, "Emily and Rachel, the two loveliest women in the world to fall in love with and to go to work with every day. I mean, you can imagine, it wasn't a hardship."
One of Disney's most iconic villains gets a origin story in this punk rock prequel to 101 Dalmations. Stone plays Estella, a fashion-obsessed grifter who finds her way into the inner circle of the powerful but ruthless haute couture designer, Baroness (Emma Thompson). As Estrella works her way up the style echelon of '70s London, she schemes to take the Baroness down once and for all — and finally live up to her wicked nickname, Cruella.
For her one-of-a-kind costumes, Jenny Beavan won the Oscar for Best Costume Design. Stone, meanwhile, has signed on to reprise her role in a sequel that will continue the saga of Cruella de Vil.
Poor Things marks Stone's third collaboration with Lanthimos, following The Favourite and a short film, Bleat. Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, the mad comedy centers on Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman who throws herself off a bridge in order to escape her unhappy marriage. Unbeknownst to even her, she is reanimated by a brilliant but unorthodox scientist (Willem Dafoe) who swaps out her brain for that of her unborn baby. A full-grown woman with the mind of a newborn, Bella sets off into the world on a surreal odyssey of self-actualization.
Stone won Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance. Poor Things also won Oscars for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Production Design.
"This role is unlike anything I've ever done before or anything I'll ever get to do again," Stone told A.frame about playing Bella. "In a sense, it was all new to me. It was such a joy to embody her and live as this person who goes about life without any shame or fear. It was the joy of a lifetime to get to play her."
