Emma Stone: ‘The greatest thing is to be present for your own life’

It’s hard not to like Emma Stone. If only because she comes up with such fun ways to deal with “stalker-azzi” — she recently photo-bombed a fan who was trying to take a sneak pic of her and her beau Andrew Garfield having dinner at a restaurant. “That was kind of cheeky … it’s probably not a very nice thing to do, but I’m glad it’s out there,” she said later on the show Hollywood Sessions.

We also love that she doesn’t feel the need for social media (“I used to have (an account, but) it seems like everyone’s cultivating their lives on Instagram or on different forms of social media”). And the way she can take on the media with grace (“They ask … what’s the one thing that I can’t leave my house without. I’m always like, ‘My clothes!’”)

But more than that, we love what she has churned out, with performances in movies such as Superbad; Zombieland; Easy A; Crazy, Stupid, Love; and even The Amazing Spider-Man. And she has had a decent showing on stage too, making her Broadway debut as Sally Bowles in Cabaret (Sienna Miller takes over from her next month).

And let’s not forget her current cinematic incarnation in the black comedy Birdman. Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, it stars Michael Keaton as Riggan, an actor who once played the titular comic book superhero and is trying to reignite his flagging career by staging a Broadway show. Edward Norton is bad boy Mike Shiner, who battles Riggan for control of the play. But Stone admirably holds her own as Sam, Riggan’s troubled daughter, who has recently been in rehab and not only has to deal with her overambitious father, but the actions of Shiner too.

“Michael (is) just unbelievable and so subtle; and (his performance) just unfolds so beautifully. Edward, I’ve known for a long time, because he’s married to Shauna (Robertson), who produced Superbad, which was the first movie I did. So I met him when I was 17 and then made out with him at 25, which is very odd! (laughs) It was so great to work with him because he’s just completely brilliant and I’ve been a fan of his for so long. I’m incredibly lucky.”

What drew Stone to the film was the way in which it expanded the more she went into it. “You can take the script one way at first, and then I started realising: It just grows deeper and deeper, and more and more heart-breaking, and more relatable, more hilarious and devastating. That sort of unfolded with time. It’s incredibly moving and hilarious on first read, but, my god, it just expands and expands.”

There was also a bit of a learning curve, because Birdman was filmed in sequence and instead of making many cuts, director Inarritu would often do long takes to capture each scene. All of which was exhilarating and frightening for the actress. “It really was, because you would rehearse so much and you would get it into your head so much, that eventually it became second nature to move in these meticulous ways and you could actually let go and be free,” she explained. “That scene in the bowels of the theatre where I bring Ed’s character and he gets naked, that whole shot was eight minutes long and we did it over and over and over. You don’t want to be the person that ***** it up. Then when you get past that (fear) and it’s all in a groove, it’s the most exhilarating thing in the world. It’s like Cirque du Soleil: It’s this perfectly choreographed machine that’s actually alive and breathing because of the attention that was paid.”

Stone also got into the groove with Inarritu’s idea to get the actors to feel like they were performing in a live band. “It felt like that. In order to play well live, you have to have that rehearsal. You have to know the song, and then you have to know the song so well that you can be free and riff on the song. That’s sort of what it felt like — that’s where the exhilaration came in. It was fantastic, awful, brutal and terrifying. All the best things are all over the map. I think Alejandro wants challenges more than anybody I’ve met. I think he is addicted to challenge.”

Challenge, for Stone, is something that she is beginning to embrace. “I think for a long time I was very scared to really, really push myself or be that open and vulnerable. That might just have to do with where I was as a person, but (Inarritu’s) addiction to challenge is very contagious,” she said. “When you’re in that environment and he’s saying, ‘No!’ when you feel like you’ve been honest; then you realise that he can see right through you and he has a hair-trigger response to falsity. You realise that even though it’s kind of excruciating if you’re doing it for the first time, it’s that kind of vulnerability that’s the entire point of being a creative person. I think I really am fully beginning to understand that.”

One such challenge was taking up the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret, if only for a limited run. “I saw (Cabaret) in ’98 and that was what kind of catapulted me into doing theatre while I was growing up, because I wanted to play Sally so badly. I’m not really a singer, but I think I just relate to Sally in so many ways. I had talked to (director) Rob Marshall about it years ago and I was in the midst of my auditions for Cabaret during Birdman. I was going to go on last year, but I wasn’t able to (because of) the Spider-Man press, so they let me come in for three months, which is a dream come true. I’m (in it) for the fear and the joy of the whole thing.”

Nevertheless, despite her career clearly going very well, Stone said she would like to step back and enjoy the moment once in a while. “The greatest thing in the world is just to be present for your own life,” she elaborated. “That really struck me: That line in the movie where Riggan was talking about video-taping Sam’s birthday because he wasn’t even present in his own life. That hit me hard because sometimes the nature of things, all this moving around, the jet lag, not living in your own home, being on location and seeing these people you’ve always admired … So much is happening and it’s so overwhelming.”

She continued: “Sometimes in order just to do your job ... to work for the day, requires not being fully present, I guess. Does that make sense? That’s what I tell myself, but I’m sure if I was ‘present’, it would be much better. I hope I’m able to be present for many moments. CHRISTOPHER TOH, INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT COURTESY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

Birdman opens in cinemas next week.