Before becoming Mia in “La La Land“ and Bella Baxter in “Poor Things“, Emma Stone was a girl from Arizona who, at 15, persuaded her parents to let her move to Los Angeles. She was born on November 6, 1988, in Scottsdale, and turns 38 on November 6, 2026.
Her birth name is Emily Jean Stone. Her first more prominent steps in film came in the 2007 comedy “Superbad“, but her real breakthrough arrived with “Easy A“ three years later. In it, she plays a high school student whose life changes after an innocent lie about her personal life turns into a school-wide reputation.
From comedic roles to her first Oscar
Stone gradually moved beyond the confines of teen comedies. She appeared in “The Amazing Spider-Man“ and its sequel, co-starring with Andrew Garfield, and later took part in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Birdman“ and the historical drama “The Favourite“.
Her biggest success up to that point came with Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land“. For her role as Mia Dolan, a young actress trying to make it in Hollywood, Stone received the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2017. The film brought her together on screen with Ryan Gosling and turned its musical story about dreams, love and compromise into one of the decade’s most recognizable titles.
Bella Baxter and her second Oscar
In “Poor Things“, Stone took on a far more unusual role. Her character, Bella Baxter, is brought back to life by an eccentric scientist and undergoes an accelerated maturation unconstrained by social norms. For her performance, the actress won her second Oscar for Best Actress in 2024.
The film also marked the beginning of one of the most important professional partnerships of her career. Yorgos Lanthimos has directed Stone in “The Favourite“, “Kinds of Kindness“ and “Bugonia“, the latter being a black comedy about a chief executive who is abducted by two men convinced that she is an alien. “Yes, I’ll say it: I believe in aliens,“ Stone said during the film’s presentation in Venice.
The choice to be Emily
Behind Emma Stone’s public image lies her personal relationship with the name she was born with. In 2024, she shared that she prefers her colleagues and loved ones to call her Emily. That is the name she grew up with, while “Emma“ remains the name familiar to audiences from the cinema.
Her career already includes comedies, a musical, superhero films, historical dramas and experimental cinema. At 38, Stone continues to choose roles that take her away from the safe formula, while her latest collaboration with Lanthimos once again places her in a story where reality seems stranger than fiction.
Sources: vogue.com, apnews.com, theguardian.com