Summary

• Emma Stone opens up about preferring to be called Emily in a recent interview alongside Nathan Fielder.
• Originally credited as Emily Stone in an unsold pilot and Riley for a short time, she ended up choosing Emma.
• Despite her preference for Emily, she has become known worldwide by her stage name, Emma Stone.

2023's Poor Things. Also in 2023, Stone teamed up with comedian Nathan Fielder for a genre-bending series, The Curse, for which she is courting Emmy buzz for her performance as a co-host of an HGTV show.

During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter alongside Fielder, Stone opened up about how she prefers to be called by her name, Emily. It was Fielder who first mentioned that her real name is Emily, and she only goes by Emma professionally. Though Stone isn't too strict about what people call her, she says she would like to be called Emily. Read the full exchange involving Fielder and Stone below:

Fielder: Before we continue, I’d like to say something. Her name’s Emily, but she goes by Emma professionally. So when there’s people that don’t know her, I end up saying Emma. But I’m going to just say Emily from here on.

Stone: You can say Emma. You can say anything... When I get to know them, people that I work with [call me Emily]. It’s just because my name was taken [by another actress in SAG]. Then I freaked out a couple of years ago. For some reason, I was like, “I can’t do it anymore. Just call me Emily.” Nathan calls me Em, which is easier.

Fielder: That’s a way of bridging it.

Stone: I would like to be Emily.

The Story Behind Emma Stone's Name

Her Real Name Was Taken In SAG

She chose the similarly sounding name, Emma, in honor of Emma Bunton, more famously known as Baby Spice from the Spice Girls.

The actress was born Emily Jean Stone in Arizona in 1988 and began acting as a child in theater productions. As a teenager, she moved to Los Angeles and started getting some on-screen roles, including an unsold pilot of In Search of the New Partridge Family, in which she was credited under her real name, Emily Stone. When it came time for her to for the Screen Actors Guild, she realized that her real name, Emily Stone, was already taken, so she chose "Riley" instead, though she only used the name for about six months.

She starred in one episode of the NBC show Medium in which she was credited as "Riley Stone." However, after doing a guest spot on Malcolm in the Middle, she realized she wasn't responding to the name Riley, so she ultimately decided she couldn't use it. Therefore, she chose the similarly sounding name, Emma, in honor of Emma Bunton, more famously known as Baby Spice from the Spice Girls. She also considered using "Emily J. Stone" to differentiate herself, similar to how Michael J. Fox added an initial to his name.

Stone choosing the name Emma was always a decision made out of necessity, and not preference. However, after an illustrious career that spans multiple decades and includes two Academy Awards, the name has certainly stuck, and the actress is now widely known under her stage name, Emma Stone, even though those closest to her call her Emily. While she would also like fans to address her as Emily, it might be difficult to shed her stage name from the past 20 years.

What's Next For Emma Stone?

Kinds of Kindness, Eddington & More

Fresh off another banner year in her career, Emma Stone won her second Oscar for her transformative and fearless performance in Poor Things, and will likely receive her first Emmy nomination for The Curse. Shortly after Poor Things, Stone already has another collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos lined up with Kinds of Kindness, which is set for a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May and a theatrical release on June 21.

Emma Stone has a full schedule that will keep her busy for the next few years.

The Kinds of Kindness trailer revealed very little about the plot, though the film follows three separate stories about a woman trying to find an individual fated to become a prodigious spiritual leader, a policeman whose wife has returned after missing at sea, and a man without agency who tries to take control of his own life. As a triptych fable set in the modern day, Kinds of Kindness will differ drastically from Poor Things, a period costume drama with elements of steampunk, though the film mostly defies genres.

If Kinds of Kindness continues the trend after Lanthimos and Stone's first two collaborations, The Favourite and Poor Things, the actress should receive another Oscar nomination for her performance, which would be the fifth of her career. There are also reports that Stone is in talks with Lanthimos to reunite for his remake of Save the Green Planet, which would be the fourth feature film collaboration between the actress and director.

Outside of her collaborations with Lanthimos, Stone is starring in Ari Aster's next movie, Eddington, alongside a star-studded cast that includes Joaquin Phoenix, Austin Butler, and Pedro Pascal. The project is currently filming and reportedly "follows a small-town New Mexico sheriff with higher aspirations," though a release date has yet to be set. Given Aster's past work, Eddington should be no less than a unique blend of various genres, and the director should certainly extract an unforgettable performance from Stone in the process.

Also ahead for Stone is Cruella 2, which has been in development since a few weeks after the first film's release in 2021. In early 2024, Stone said the sequel is a "work in progress" and will start shooting "hopefully sooner, rather than later." Overall, Emma Stone has a full schedule that will keep her busy for the next few years.

Poor Things is streaming on Hulu and The Curse is streaming on Paramount+.

Source: THR