Emma Stone has become part of the new faces of young actors that have emerged in comedy over the past few years. Her breakthrough role was as Jonah Hill’s character’s Seth’s love interest Jules in the hit comedy Superbad.
Stone has gone on to do other comedies like The Rocker, The House Bunny, and The Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past. Now, the 20 year-old actress steps up her game as her latest comedy Zombieland is a hybrid with the horror genre.
In the film, she plays survivor-turned-zombie assassin Wichita. We asked Emma how the balance between comedy and deadly seriousness, a tricky proposition for a horror movie, managed to be accomplish for this film.
“Well, the script kind of accomplished that for us in maintaining the tone,” Stone believes, “Just what we were talking about was going to stay in that realm. My character really is not quite as funny as Woody [Harrelson’s] and Jesse [Eisenberg’s], so it really wasn’t too heavy on the comedy for me, I didn’t feel like. So I never was like trying to keep it light because she’s a con-artist and she’s a badass and she’s not jokey, so it wasn’t too tough for my perspective.”
Co-starring with Stone is child actor Abigail Breslin, who impressed audiences with the critically acclaimed Little Miss Sunshine, who plays fellow zombie assassin Little Rock. We asked Emma whether she sought guidance from her or the other cast in being a badass with a gun for this film.
“Nah, Abigail had to impart stuff to me,” she claims, “We were so much less badass than Abigail. She’s incredible, so she taught me more than I taught her, I’m sure.”
We wondered whether that meant Breslin was a better shot than the rest of the cast.
“She’s a better everything,” Stone replies.
Another thing Stone touched on with us was how first-time director Reuben Fleischer let the cast improvise for much of the film, even letting Abigail incorporate her love of Hannah Montana into the film.
“She loves Hannah Montana,” Emma reveals, “And the director was like, just talk about Hannah Montana because we all had to listen to him talk about Hannah Montana on set.”
“And he’s like just talk to her about Hannah Montana and ask her questions and get a response,” she continues, “It was the funniest. So they don’t recognize her when the wig’s on, but when it’s off, it’s like she’s normal. And she’s like, yeah.”
Another co-star Emma praised is Woody Harrelson, despite claiming she never saw a single thing with him onscreen.
“I love Woody just as a human being, but I, got to be honest with you, had not really seen anything Woody had done, now I have,” Stone claims, “So it not really made me a fangirl geek-out on him, which was good. It made me relate to him like a human being and not like, Oh, my God. You’re Mickey. So it was a good thing at the end of the day.”
“Now, I’m like, hey, Woody! Just kidding,” she continues, “Woody was always really great with me. From my experience, he was always laid back and I just had so much fun with him. Yeah, he’s just such a fun guy and just what you’d expect, just like Woody.”
Finally, we asked Stone why she believes zombie stories in horror film have such a long, lasting place in the world of horror films.
“Well, it’s conceivable. It’s a conceivable concept,” Emma answers, “Wars are not dead, so that could actually happen and that’s terrifying. And what other reason do you have to kill another human being unless they had become a zombie and they are trying to eat your flesh, right? I mean, it’s a little terrifying. I mean, vampires aren’t going to exist, werewolves probably don’t exist, and zombies really could conceivably exist.”
