Emma Stone

Emma Stone

Emma Stone portrayed Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Significant roles

• Laurie Partridge in The New Partridge Family (2005)
• Violet Trimble / Violet Ashton in Drive (2007)
• Jules in Superbad (2007)
• Amelia in The Rocker (2008)
• Natalie in The House Bunny (2008)
• Abby in Paper Man (2009)
• Allison Vandermeesh in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
• Wichita in Zombieland (2009)
• Mazie in Marmaduke (2010)
• Olive in Easy A (2010)
• Skeeter in The Help (2011)
• Hannah (Nana) in Crazy Stupid Love (2011)
• Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan in The Help (2011)
• Grace Faraday in Gangster Squad (2013)
• Sam Thomson in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
• Allison Ng in Aloha (2015)
• Jill Pollard in Irrational Man (2015)
• Claudia Cantrell in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
• Mia Dolan in La La Land (2016)
• Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes (2017)
• Abigail Masham in The Favourite (2018)

Quotes

• "I’m so excited, it’s going to be a crazy re-imagining and it’s going to be a lot of fun. It starts soon so I’m really looking forward to it."
• “In about two weeks I start training and then I’ll be out in LA, about a month from now, to start, so it’s really exciting,” “In about two weeks I start training and then I’ll be out in LA, about a month from now, to start, so it’s really exciting.”
• “Andrew – he’s great. He’s really great… He’s gonna be a great Peter Parker”
• "Today I went and did hair tests, because I have blonde hair now since Gwen has blonde hair. My natural hair is blonde, so it's kind of nice. I looked in the mirror and said, "Oh my god, it's me again, it's been so long!" We're finalizing the visual stuff. And I think we'll start actually rehearsing, because we start shooting in two weeks. Andrew and I went and learned about science yesterday. Gwen really likes science, so we learned about science. I was home-schooled, so I never went to chemistry class in a traditional setting like Gwen is into. That was really beneficial."
• "There are a lot of changes happening on a day to day basis. There's a lot of open dialogue about where we're going with this and how Peter and Gwen are going to come together and what makes the most sense for the story we're telling. It's an ever-changing thing. We're still in that development period. It's so fantastic. My background is in improv and things like that, so this kind of ever-changing nature is ideal for me."
• "I had no idea how out of shape I was," "I was Cheez Whiz and TV [before], didn't play sports in high school and have no hand-eye coordination," "no idea how tough".
• "There’s a few Spider-Men, so I may have to keep it for a couple of years."
• "The other day, after work, I was supposed to work out with our trainer and Andrew said 'Would it be ok if I worked out with you guys?' I was like 'No, that would not be ok'. He said 'Why? It’ll be a bonding experience'."
• "I said 'Because you can lift a car and I am a weakling beyond belief'. We’re on two completely different ends of the spectrum."
• "He's incredibly talented and intelligent and intuitive. It means so much to him to be playing this part and just get to walk in Peter Parker's shoes. He's really just giving it his all and I've never seen anything like it. He's one of the best, not just Spider-Men, but actors I've ever met . . . A lot of times you dream about things and they pale in comparison when you actually do them, but it's better."
• "There’s so much I’m interested in that I didn’t discover in high school. For The Amazing Spider-Man, because Gwen is a scientist, we went to a lab in San Diego, and we were learning about biology. And I’m fascinated! Because I never went to biology class in high school. [Laughs.]"
• "It's different than anything else I’ve done. There’s a lot of blue screen. The other day I was reacting to a thing that wasn’t there. It’s like being a kid in a refrigerator box."
• "We leave tomorrow for New York, we're doing exteriors in New York for a couple of weeks, so it'll be done in mid-May, so, yeah, it was only a six-month shoot."
• "[Garfield] is so much fun, He's the coolest, the best. He's going to be amazing. I mean, he has to be—after all, it is called The Amazing Spider-Man."
• "I've seen nothing, I promise. I've seen small action sequences for the 3-D, and it looked terrible," she joked. "I really haven't seen [anything]."
• "I read a pretty comprehensive Death of the Stacys book ... and it's a really amazing book to learn the story of Captain Stacy and Gwen Stacy," "And I've read a various amount of comics."
• "We actually just wrapped. [I'd] probably [tell myself to] watch 'Rear Window' and watch Jimmy Stewart react for an entire movie, and figure out if you're able to do that same thing. Reacting to nothing is tougher than you think. I've never had to do that before. Usually you're sort of ping-ponging with people."
• "It's difficult for me, but maybe that's just me!"
• "Just because the scale is so large, doing Spider-Man is more daunting than I realized in the beginning, I've tried not to think about it too much - especially while we were shooting - but when you're sitting on these giant blue screens with all these rigs, it's the opposite of an environment like [former film] Superbad. It's odd, but it's very exciting."
• "Spider-Man has this built-in fan base, where people already know the story and are going in with their own opinions and expectations, so you're either going to live up to them or let people down, but it's really all about passion, and I love passionate people."
• "Not to freak anybody out, but she’s maybe a little bit different in the movie than she is in the comics, maybe," We were lucky we got to rehearse. Most of my scenes are with Andrew [Garfield], so Andrew and I would rehearse with Marc Webb the director a fair amount. I read a comprehensive book on the Stacys, and a few of the comics."
• "I’ve seen the trailer, I thought it was pretty cool but maybe I’m a little bit biased, contractually. I’m pretty excited about it and I think they’re going to be showing a little footage from the movie at Comic-Con."
• "When I auditioned for it, I didn't get the full script, I only got scenes between Gwen and Peter and I screen-tested with Andrew. I heard about Spider-Man and I didn't think it was something I would want to be a part of. I just thought that probably isn't right for me. Then I had the scenes and realised that this was a really interesting fantastic relationship between two people and that I was being really close-minded. I liked all the Spider-Man movies and I've liked so many superhero movies that I don't know why I had that kind of mentality about it. Then I went in and auditioned with Andrew and started learning more about Gwen Stacy and her history and just fell in love with the character and with the fans, too. I started reading forums and getting involved more in the comic book universe and it just became something I really wanted to be a part of, just because of all those elements."
• "Well of course the characters themselves are incredible different and there seems to be a different fan base between Spider-Man fans and fans of The Help. There are conventions for Spider-Man fans and there aren't for The Help fans, although I would love to see a convention of The Help fans. It could be like the big Lebowski Fest. But they're two tonally different worlds to me even though they both had such a rabid following. There's a difference just in terms of bringing the material to life. There are different incarnations of Gwen Stacy and of Peter Parker throughout comic book history, all these different storylines to pull from depending on what kind of script you're going to patch together. With The Help, it was such a distinct story that kind of needed to be matched line for line in a way. It felt different just in terms of becoming part of it and the way the material was adapted. But I'm so excited to be part of a movie with a built-in fan base in that way. You go to Comic-Con and there's so much passion in one room. Everybody's so passionate about these characters and how they've affected their own loves. It's a really cool thing as an actor to know that you're part of something that's so much bigger than you. You're not creating it from the ground up, you're trying to fill the shoes of someone that's been around a lot longer than you. It's really exciting. I love that aspect of it."
• "Well, Gwen's story happened before Mary Jane's, and I think that coming back to their roots, it was interesting to explore the woman who came before Mary Jane. I think she's such a definitive part of Peter Parker's relationship with Mary Jane ultimately, who is literally the polar opposite in personality of Gwen Stacy. I think just building that into Pter's life and seeing that story from the very beginning was really interesting. And of course Gwen's story is so beautiful and important to that story of Spider-Man that I think they wanted to come from that angle at this time."
• "I think that a huge part of what he brought to Spider-Man was the true core of the relationship, and how even though this is a boy that's been bitten by a spider and given super powers, he is a very human teenage boy that just happens to be under these circumstances. He's lost his uncle and he's falling in love for the first time and he's going through som incredibly human experiences while not quite being human himself anymore. And I think that Marc's vision was just that it's a very huge world that we're operating in but the story itself is in a room between people. There are elements of Spider-Man all throughout that; big sequences and scenes with action and violence, but I think Marc really cared so much about the heart of the story and the humanity in his relationships."
• "I think that a big part of the heart of this story is romance, but there's also the story of an orphan boy who's searching for his father and searching for his place in the world. I think that's a big element in this movie from the very beginning, him feeling instantly like an outcast because he was left as a chile. He still was put into a different set of arms [with Uncle Ben and Aunt May] and he's cognizant of that and you can see that in the movie. But it's not like it happened when he couldn't remember it. I think that's a pretty major element, too...coming to terms with who you are and what you're responsible for, even if people walked away from you."
• "I think his deep love and appreciation for Spider-Man were pretty apparent throughout the entire process of the movie. I think it's really awesome to have such a huge Spider-Man fan play Spider-Man because he was so protective of all the elements of Peter Parker's nature. It's a really nice thing to watch someone who's read all the comics and dreamt of being this person since he was four years old bring that dream to fruition. I think he's such an excellent actor and such a great person that I feel so pround of him and what he did in the movie."
• "I think we all were biting our nails for that moment because we knew like maybe an hour before that he was going to do that because they had to bring him out early through a different way. It was really last minute, and he was like, "This is what I'm doing, by the way," and it was so heartfelt, so honest, and couldn't be more indacitive of the way he played the character. It was just all heart and I thought it was fantastic. I loved it."
• "t was Marc's approach...at the end of the day you're sitting on the floor looking into they eyes of another actor and it's just like real life. I feel the heart if really remained, and it didn't ever feel bigger than us in that way. It fely like a human story. I like that. That surprised me because I thought it was going to feel so daunting every day, with wires and harnesses and green screens and it was a pleasant surprise.'"
• "Is that going to happen?! If any kids get an action figure of me and act like I did with action figures then it's going to be a highly inappropriate situation."
• "[asked if Gwen will live in the franchise] I hope not. I think that's a hugely important part of her story and of this incarnation of Spider-Man. I think that was very important to everybody. I think there's a certain expectation and then there's a certain awareness of mortality that Gwen has already, so I think that it was important to...just because her father was in the face of death everyday and so is Peter, so I think death always surrounds her. I think it's a really important element to her character. I mean, she, as fans know, is kind of most famous for how she departs. So that's a weird thing to play, knowing about such an iconic part of her existence."
• "I was in the closet and the Lizard is talking to me when I'm hiding,and the actual lines for the Lizard are, like, 'I can smell your perfume' and they were playing over the loud speaker for me. But I asked Rhys to record something that would just really, truly terrify me. Not as Gwen, but me as Emma. He said some horrifying, horrifying things. It was awful, and he was so incredible to do it, but everyone on set was like, 'I'm going to have nightmares.' It was like being in a horror movie...He terrified the crap out of me…which was so amazing of him to do."
• "[Fans ask] about whether or not the films are going to stay true to her story. Which I'm hoping they are... Essentially the argument is that Spider-Man kills her by accident. So the person she loves is the person who kills her, which is the most horrifying thing. Apparently people unsubscribed to the comic book when that happened because they were just so flipped-out over it. But, of course, I want to stay true to that."
• "I'm in it, Andrew is in it. They just cast Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn, who is such a great actor, I think that will be wonderful. And Shaeline Woodley as Mary Jane, who's also wonderful. So there's all that, and the script is very, very good. I'm very much looking forward to it."
• "I'm very happy the way our first one was received so well. It'll be cool on the next one to see how Gwen and Peter bridge that distance that was between us at the end of it. I think it all unfolds pretty neat. And I hope they continue letting Gwen be heroic. I think they might!"
• "Essentially the argument is that Spider-Man kills her by accident, so the person she loves is the person who kills her, which is the most horrifying thing. Apparently people unsubscribed to the comic book when that happened because they were just so flipped-out over it. But, of course, I want to stay true to that."
• "They’re struggling with some things. There’s a lot of tension there’s a lot going on."
• "Not many. I can think of one important instance. She saves him more than he saves her. She's incredibly helpful to Spider-Man... He's the muscle, she's the brains."
• "I don't get to do too many crazy stunts. She gets herself in the middle of stuff, that's for sure! I do get webbed to a car. There's shit like that."
• "Basically they’re going to see the continuation of the Spider Man story, which is the hero’s journey, and he’s up against a whole new squadron of villains and he’s struggling with promises he’s made in the last movie and the consequences of making those and what it’s like to be in love with somebody who you promised to not see anymore. I think the intention the whole time has been to tell Gwen’s story has closely to the comic as possible."
• "We wanted to modernize her — she’s independent, and she has a lot of her own goals. I think her heroic impulse is pretty strong because of her father. And she’s got a great mind. So she’s going to school for medicine, and she wants to save people just as much as Peter without being bitten by a radioactive spider. She's proactive, and never a damsel in distress."
• "Their relationship is very grounded, very human, and I think that’s important… Gwen is probably the most human component outside of Aunt May."
• "here was actually kind of a beautiful scene with Gwen and Mary Jane that we shot, where Gwen is going to say goodbye, and Mary Jane’s on the porch, and they talk to each other, and Gwen says, ‘Will you give him this message for me?’ And the last line was, she says, ‘oh, I didn’t say my name, by the way — I’m MJ,’ and I say, ‘I’m Gwen,” and I’m about to go to London, and I say, ‘I’m really glad I got to meet you, MJ.’ And then I leave for London, which makes me want to cry even now. It was beautiful, it was really beautiful."
• "I knew from the very beginning what the intention was for Gwen's arc."
• "I'm excited to see what happens with Mary Jane."

Trivia

• Emma Stone is the sister of Spencer Stone.
• Emma was dating her co-star Andrew Garfield.
• Emma has co-starred with many people who starred or worked on a Marvel fim. In Easy A, she co-starred with Thomas Hayden Church (Sandman) and Stanley Tucci (Erkstine). In The House Bunny, she co-starred with Kat Dennings (Darcy Lewis). In Ghost of Girlfriends Past, she co-starred with Jennifer Garner (Elektra). In Birdman she co-starred with Michael Keaton (Vulture). In Aloha she co-starred with Bradley Cooper (Rocket Raccoon)
• Emma stated that Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique in X-Men: First Class) inspired her to play Gwen Stacy.