Land of dreams

With award nominations and a hit new film, it really is Emma Stone’s time to shine. Susan Griffin catches up with the inspiring yet accessible actress, to discover what makes her tick: Emma Stone’s just spilt coffee on the lush carpet of the hotel suite. It’s a moment reminiscent of a scene in La La Land, where her character, aspiring actress Mia, is rushing from her job as a barista to make an audition and ends up with coffee all down her front. It’s this goofiness, both on and off screen, which is part of Stone’s great appeal, and what makes her so accessible. That said, her talent can never be questioned. She’s currently riding high with a Golden Globe win, a Bafta nomination and very likely an Oscar nod too for her role in the modern-day musical La La Land. The film, directed by Whiplash’s Damien Chazelle, has already proved a phenomenal critical and commercial success, but Stone says the “real test” is the fact her mum has declared it her number one choice from her daughter’s back catalogue. “And if it’s my mum’s favourite, it must be OK – she’s picky,” she says with a laugh, admitting she couldn’t have predicted the movie would garner such a reaction. “Reading the script, I definitely felt inspired and struck by it in that way. You always hope when you’re making a movie, or telling a story, that it will affect people in the way it affected you. “It’s very exciting, it’s wonderful,” adds the 28-year-old, whose red hair and wide green eyes are accentuated by her emerald ensemble. Set in the City of Angels, La La Land is the timeless tale of boymeets-girl, with Ryan Gosling playing the ‘boy’ in the equation; the ambitious but frustrated jazz pianist Sebastian. A love letter to Hollywood, it harks back to the song and dance triumphs of yesteryear and is beautifully poignant in its depiction of unabated dreams, and those moments in life where decisions set fate into motion. Stone, whose debut movie was 2007’s Superbad, before coming to prominence in 2010’s Easy A, admits she’s had something of a love-hate relationship with Tinseltown. “It’s an interesting place and definitely an interesting industry,” she remarks in her characteristic husky voice. “There are a lot of ups and downs and your experience with it ebbs and flows depending on the time period, but this film made me appreciate the parts of Los Angeles that I hadn’t really experienced in quite a while.” Early on in the process, Stone met with Chazelle, who talked her through his ideas for the musical numbers. “It was intoxicating,” recalls the actress, who hails from Arizona. “The idea of telling this really modern story of two struggling artists, but in a 1950s-style musical version of today’s Los Angeles, became something really exciting to me very quickly.” Her character’s yearning for something beyond the ordinary hit home too. “Mia’s driven by something that maybe she doesn’t completely understand. She wants to be an artist in a city of so many people who seem to be just like her. She feels there’s something special inside her, but she doesn’t quite know what it is,” explains Stone. The film marks the third time she and Gosling have collaborated, following 2011’s Crazy, Stupid, Love. and 2013’s Gangster Squad. “Honestly, it’s just easy to work with him,” she says of their palpable on-screen chemistry. “I don’t have any fun or exciting description of what that means, he just makes it fun.”