艾瑪·斯通的銀幕人生

Tucked into a corner booth at a seafood restaurant off the Pacific Coast Highway， Emma Stone listens attentively as a waiter with a 1）handlebar mustache describes the evening’s specials. Maybe it’s the candles， but Stone’s green eyes look even bigger than usual as she nods enthusiastically， 2）taking it all in. Then the waiter turns to leave， and the 26-year-old actress lets the facade drop.“I was concentrating so hard on making my face look like I was listening that I totally forgot to listen，” she confesses. “I wasn’t listening at all！”

We’ve just met， but this feels like a very Emma Stone moment. The 3）self-effacement， the 4）goofiness， the 5）slapstick laugh. Stone is a famous person who is very good at not seeming famous. It’s the kind of loose-limbed naturalism that has allowed America to fall for her， starting with her breakout role in 2007’s Superbad all the way to her Oscar-nominated turn in Birdman last year.

As a girl in Scottsdale， Arizona， 6）Emily Jean Stone was a spelling-bee champion with recurring 7）acne. She was anxious and suffered panic attacks. “It was really bad，” she says. “The first time I had a panic attack I was sitting in my friend’s house， and I thought the house was burning down. I called my mom and she brought me home， and for the next three years it just would not stop. I would go to the nurse at lunch most days and just wring my hands. I would ask my mom to tell me exactly how the day was going to be， then ask again 30 seconds later. I just needed to know that no one was going to die and nothing was going to change.”

Stone’s parents took her to a therapist， but what really helped was when she started acting at a local youth theater. The thing that would 8）induce anxiety in most people—performing onstage in front of hundreds of strangers—for her helped ease it. “There’s something about the immediacy of acting，” Stone says. “You can’t afford to think about a million other things. You have to think about the task at hand. Acting forces me to sort of be like a 9）Zen master： What is happening right in this moment？”

When she was 14， Stone created a PowerPoint presentation to try to persuade her parents to let her move to Hollywood. It worked： She got an apartment with her mom in L.A. and a job as a baker at a dogtreat bakery， and before long had graduated to playing the voice of a dog on a Disney Channel sitcom. Within a year she’d landed guest spots on Malcolm in the Middle and Louis C.K.’s short-lived HBO show， Lucky Louie， and then in 2006—which would have been her senior year of high school—she shot Superbad and was on her way.

Since then， Stone’s career can be divided into roughly three eras. First came her supporting years， playing the funny， cool girl third or fourth on the bill（The House Bunny， Zombieland）. Then her lead years， doing teen comedy （Easy A） and comedic drama （The Help）. Most recently came her comic-book period， playing Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel， as well as Michael Keaton’s recoveringaddict daughter in Birdman. When she was nominated for an Oscar alongside such 10）luminaries as Meryl Streep and Laura Dern， she claims she didn’t even bother writing a speech.

Though she’s a funny， gifted， award-winning actress whose face， Woody Allen told me， “is worth the price of admission，” Stone is not without her eccentricities. She buys ingredients to make her own skin-care products. She lurks on strangers’ blogs， usually mom blogs or ones about baking. She has no shortage of 11）pet peeves： animals dressed in outfits， people who send eight texts instead of one （“Just take a second！”）， classic names intentionally misspelled.

All of which makes her sort of a perfect fit for a Woody Allen movie. Stone has been a fan of Allen’s since she saw Annie Hall when she was 14. She used to go to the Café Carlyle in Manhattan to watch him play 12）clarinet； she even had a dog named Alvy， after Allen’s character in Annie Hall， Alvy Singer. She first met the director when he requested a meeting about his last movie， 2014’s Magic in the Moonlight. Allen says he’d seen her in “one of those young people’s movies” while exercising on his treadmill and thought， “My God， this girl is remarkable.”

“It’s terrifying，” she adds. “He doesn’t do table reads or any rehearsal. You can’t even ask questions about your character， because he’ll be like： ‘You know this is a movie， right？’ ” Says Allen： “I never talk to any of the actors in any of my movies about anything if I can avoid it.”

Irrational Man， their second film together， is a story about， as Stone’s costar Joaquin Phoenix says in a 13）voice-over at the beginning of the film，“morality， choice， the aesthetics of life， randomness and murder.” Stone plays Jill， an enthusiastic college student who embarks on an ill-fated and possibly dangerous affair with Phoenix’s character， an alcoholic philosophy professor. When Allen first began writing the film， he wasn’t thinking of Stone. “But once I was 10 pages in， I thought， Oh God， who else would play this so perfectly？ A beautiful young college student， an intellectual philosophy major？ Emma could phone this in and be great.”

“She can handle anything you throw at her，” says Will Gluck， who directed her in Easy A and Friends with Benefits. “She’s so good in everything，” agrees Allen. “I see a lot of the best traits of 14）Diane Keaton in her—Keaton was someone who could be in The Godfatherand and movies with Meryl Streep， but could also do comedy and sing and dance. I think Emma has the potential to be one of the biggest female stars for years.”

Next week Stone goes to Cannes for the premiere of Irrational Man， then to London for a few days with her mom. Then it’s back to L.A. to start work on La La Land， a contemporary musical about an aspiring actress and a jazz pianist， directed by Damien Chazelle （Whiplash） and co-starring her frequent on-screen partner Ryan Gosling（Gangster Squad； Crazy， Stupid， Love）. Stone will sing and dance in it； she’s already rehearsing the dance numbers. But she’s also trying to follow the advice of her good friend Bill Murray， who counseled her to keep some things—like singing—for herself.

“He told me to keep some things I love just for me，”Stone says. “The idea is to have some things that you don’t feel like you need to share with the world. To have some things that are only yours.” She smiles.

在太平洋海岸公路旁邊的一家海鮮餐廳里，艾瑪·斯通坐在一個不顯眼的角落位子上，她正在專心致志地聽留著八字胡的服務生介紹今晚的特色菜。斯通邊專心聽講邊熱情點頭，也許是蠟燭的原因，她的一雙綠眸顯得比平時更大。然后服務生轉身離開，這位26歲的女演員把正臉轉過來。“我太專注于讓自己的表情看起來像是在認真聽講，都忘記要聽了，”她坦誠道。“我完全沒有聽進去！”

我們才剛剛見面，但我感覺這是很能體現出艾瑪·斯通個人特色的一刻。謙遜低調，傻傻的個性，大大咧咧的笑容。斯通是一個十分擅長于讓自己看起來不像名人的名人。美國大眾喜歡的也正是她這種隨性自然的個性，從2007年她初涉銀幕，出演《太壞了》到去年出演《鳥人》并獲得奧斯卡提名。

艾米麗·吉恩·斯通成長在亞利桑那州的斯科茨代爾市，她是拼字比賽的冠軍，臉上長著反復發作的痤瘡。她神經緊張，患有恐慌癥。“這真的很糟糕，”她說道。“第一次恐慌癥發作時，我正坐在朋友的家里，我當時覺得房子要被燒毀了。我打電話給媽媽，她把我帶回家，在接下來的三年里這樣的情況一直持續不變。我幾乎每天都要在午餐時間去護士那里，手足無措。我會問媽媽每天的具體日程安排，然后30秒后又問一次。我只是要確認沒人會死去，沒什么事會發生改變。”

斯通的父母帶她去看了心理治療師，但真正對她有所幫助的是她在當地一家青少年劇院的表演經歷。這種會使一般人緊張的事——在數百名的陌生人面前登臺表演——卻能讓她緩解緊張的情緒。……