Emma Stone is arguably one of the more in-demand and well-known actresses of our times, on par with Jennifer Lawrence and others of her ilk. You’d think that at this point in her career, directors working with her at this stage would take what she had to say seriously. I am very sorry to report that you are wrong.
In an interview with Rolling Stone’s Jonah Weiner, the actress recounts how she got to where she is today and shares a charming tidbit about the experience of being a woman in Hollywood and how directors and her (male) co-stars often disregard her ideas, her input and her freaking improvised jokes.
“There are times in the past, making a movie, when I’ve been told that I’m hindering the process by bringing up an opinion or an idea,” she said. Funny how that works –Emma Stone is a fully-realized person with ideas and opinions and experiences that could be of benefit to the people she’s working with and yet, when she deigns to offer those opinions, they’re brushed aside. Curious.
It’d be easy to chalk that up to directors being directors – you know, auteurs or whatever – but she followed that up by saying that sometimes on set, she’d improvise jokes and lines that got laughs, but were ultimately given to her male co-stars.
“I hesitate to make it about being a woman, but there have been times when I’ve improvised, they’ve laughed at my joke and then given it to my male co-star. Given my joke away. Or it’s been me saying, ‘I really don’t think this line is gonna work,’ and being told, ‘Just say it, just say it, if it doesn’t work we’ll cut it out’ – and they didn’t cut it out, and it really didn’t work!’”
Isn’t it bonkers to think that Emma Stone, an actress who has been working for quite some time, would know if a line was or wasn’t going to work? Wouldn’t you think that making a movie is a collaborative effort, not an autocracy?
If you’re irritated but resigned at this display and also searching high and wide for the receipts, sorry. Stone went “off-the-record before elaborating further.” What a shame.
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