"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

Emma Stone has become one of Hollywood’s go-to young actresses in the past few years. She made her breakthrough in the comedy Superbad, then scored hits with films like Zombieland, Easy A, Crazy, Stupid Love, and The Help.

Now the 23 year-old plays Gwen Stacy, the love interest of the titular hero in The Amazing Spider-Man. Stone talks about what first drew her to the role.

“At first I had met Laura Ziskin really early on, maybe two weeks after it was announced for Mary Jane,” she says, “I’d always wanted to play Mary Jane. I thought Mary Jane was so great. And then a couple of months went by and they called me again and said, ‘We’d like you to audition, but the part’s Gwen Stacy.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know who Gwen Stacy is,’ because I hadn’t read the comic books growing up. And so I looked into the story of Gwen and I just feel in love with Gwen’s story because it is so incredibly epic and tragic and incredible in the way that it affects Peter going forward with Mary Jane, who is another character that I love.”

“So I took the opportunity to audition and met Andrew at the audition, and got to act with him for the first time,” Emma continues, “He is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with, and I instantly knew how much I could learn from him. That really, really drew me to that challenge. Rising to meet him every day was something really exciting and was a huge growing and learning experience for me. So it was a combination of things.”

Emma was asked whether the fact that Gwen Stacy is not a damsel in distress made the role more appealing to her.

“I was cast before I read the script,” she says, “I read the sides and Alvin Sargent had written the sides, who is a genius, so he’s not too shabby of a writer.”

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

She felt that way in the sides, “There was a heartbreaking scene, there was an exchange with them that was really sweet, there was a dinner table scene that was all in there when I read the sides”

“I instantly knew it was something very different,” Stone adds, “Obviously, he’s such a brilliant writer that he can. I was like, ‘God, this is written by him. This is a well-written scene.’ I really, really liked her from the sides.”

Stone talks about what she thinks make Spider-Man appealing from a female perspective.

“He’s the only teenage superhero, which is major because a lot of times when people start reading comic books, you are a kid or a teenager,” Emma says, “He’s the most identifiable instantly, you can relate to him. Not to mention that he’s bullied, which is huge for a girl or a boy, I think. Everyone has experienced something along those lines. And the fact that he is bitten by a spider and his wish fulfillment comes true that he’s able to fight back to the bullies that he wasn’t able to before is symbolism for kids. They have so much power within them to seek out, to stand up for themselves, to stay unique and to stay true to who they are as Peter does, you know?”

“He finds those heroic elements within him, with or without his powers,” she adds, “Which in this movie, I think, is what instigates Gwen and Peter’s first interactions, when he’s standing up for a kid who’s being bullied and takes the fall for a kid who is being humiliated in front of a group of people. He’s displaying those heroic qualities long before he becomes an actual superhero. I think that’s probably why it’s so resonant and has been for 50 years, and will continue to be, even down to Barack Obama, having him as his inspiration in pop culture.”

Emma talks about how much of herself she injected into

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

Gwen Stacy for the film.

“Well, the costumes were done by Kym Barrett who’s fantastic,” Stone says, “We worked together kind of to make sure that Gwen felt like Gwen, but also made sense in the real world. I’ll say I’m a lot less voluptuous than Gwen, unfortunately, so it didn’t really go to those heights. But, you know, the signature headband and the thigh-highs and the coats and all of that was important to stay present. The makeup, Ve Neill is incredible and with the hair and makeup we tried to obtain that as well but keep her realistic, and still keep her earthbound. I’m by no means a supermodel or an unobtainable-looking person, so that element of Gwen was a bit different than the comic books in some ways because she was such a beauty queen in the comic books. I’m a lot more next door than she might be.”

“In terms of her as a character, it was just kind of a hodgepodge of different versions of Gwen,” she continues, “I know she’s not very hippie-ish in this, and I don’t think she’ll ever be birthing Norman Osborn’s twins. I don’t think that’s going to be happen, or moving to London or anything like that. We tried to keep some of that moxie in there, and some of that self-assuredness. She’s the daughter of a police chief, she’s the oldest daughter so there’s that responsibility thing that kicks in when she thinks her father eventually could die every day. I think it’s important that she kind of took on that energy of being in charge of her family, like she could be. She could be there should something happen to him and is unwittingly drawn to a man who could be in the same position, an Electra complex going on.”

Stone talks about Gwen’s interest in science in The Amazing Spider-Man and whether she herself is interested in it.

“That’s a great question because I was

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

home-schooled and I hadn’t really been exposed to things like that,” she says, “My aunt and uncle are both scientists that worked for Merck and they had a hand in creating a cervical cancer vaccine. And they’re incredibly intelligent with fantastic minds. I’d always been fascinated by what they did and I myself, this will actually sound a little bit strange to you, but I had really, really bad acne a couple of years ago, really bad. It was during a really stressful time period and so I started going online and trying to figure out what causes this sort of thing, and your cortisone production and how those things change in your body, and how things like Accutane work. They took us to these labs and this is the first time in my life that I’ve really been very angry about not going to college because I went to these labs and I was fascinated. I knew what they were talking about and we looked at biophotonics and what happens when cortisone fires off in your brain. The same thing that causes acne can cause diabetes, and they’re proving that stress is a link.”

“I was learning about regeneration and we were injecting axolotls and seeing how they removed their arms and studying the regeneration,” Emma adds, “We looked at stem cells that they’ve wired to beat like a human heart because they’re finding ways to do this. I was fascinated! I was like, ‘What do I need to do to intern?’ ‘You need to be a college graduate.’ And I was like, ‘But I know what you’re talking about! I get it! I can learn!’ It made me so upset. It’s like joining the Peace Corps, you have to be a college graduate. I was like, ‘F–! It sucks! I can learn, I can learn, I swear!’ And so now I’ve gone on my tangent about the word ‘smart’, which has really been bothering

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

me over the past year. I don’t like the word smart anymore, because what does ‘smart’ mean? Does it mean that you’re able to learn or does it mean that you graduated college? I didn’t graduate college and that doesn’t mean that I’m not smart. So I really, really got so interested in biology. That was one of the most exciting parts of this process was learning about medicine and regeneration and stem cells. All of it just expanded my mind in so many ways so now I’m going to take a biology class.”

Emma was asked what some of her favorite improvisational moments in the film.

“I guess some of my favorite improv moments were the hallway scene,” she answers, “Which was written but there were a lot of moments where we got to add into the scene where we’re like asking each other out but not.”

“And then there was that incredibly hammy bit when they let me go off to keep Denis [Leary] out of my room,” Stone continues, “So, I, of course, when you give me an inch, it’s not good. So I was like, ‘What’s the one thing that would keep a dad out of his teenage daughter’s room?’ Anything related to hormones I knew in an instant from my own life experience, ‘Okay, all right, I’ll let you go.’”

Stone was asked why she thinks Peter Parker was attracted to Gwen Stacy in the film.

“I think that elements of Gwen and Gwen’s family life are something that Peter didn’t necessarily have, which is a sense of stability,” she says, “I know Aunt May and Uncle Ben are a very stable environment for him, but he has abandonment issues. I mean, he was left when he was 5 so he doesn’t feel like he can be totally honest with Aunt May and Uncle Ben because they never really discuss the subject. You see that when Uncle Ben comes in and he’s like, ‘Sorry we

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

don’t talk about this.’ He doesn’t feel comfortable expressing the pain to them.”

“I think that he sees someone steady in Gwen, and someone who can understand what it’s like to lose a father on a daily basis as you see in that bedroom scene,” Emma adds, “She doesn’t know if he’s going to come home every day, so she feels that sense of abandonment as well. I think they are so different but they also relate on love of learning and things like that. I think he sees something in Gwen and becomes a confidante that he can trust.”

Emma also talks about how she approached the love story in the film.

“Well, in Superbad and Easy A, actually, any movie that I’ve done, there hasn’t been a love story like this,” Stone believes, “In Superbad, it was sad but it was kind of a totally different thing. ‘Oh, he’s cute.’ And in Easy A, it’s like with Woodchuck Todd, he’s cute but she’s just kind of like…They are focused on their own story, really, and in most of the movies that I’ve been a part of. This kind of swept me off my feet because she’s truly in love with him.”

“I think the approach was I wanted again to experience that feeling of first love before you know what it’s like to get your heart completely shattered,” she adds, “That life or death love where you’re like, ‘I know what love is!’ Except for in this circumstance it actually is life or death. So, I wanted to feel that again. I wanted to unlearn and go from the very beginning of, ‘Oh my god, there’s an attraction to another human being in a way I’ve never felt before. What is this?’ You know, that uncomfortable ackkk. I wanted to feel that again so it was a matter of unlearning, of really becoming 17 again and just letting yourself be 17 in this moment. It’s fun, you

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

guys should try it. It’s really cool. It’s pretty cool to feel that way again.”

Emma was asked what it was like doing a film like The Amazing Spider-Man with special effects and 3D utilized.

“My character wasn’t as involved in the effects,” she says, “My storyline for me was very human, so it actually didn’t feel all that different other than the days where I had to swing – which was fun and hard. The days on a blue screen which, when you’re acting with another person, you could be in a car or a box and it just tests your imagine that way. And in terms of shooting in 3D, the only thing that was different was it takes a little bit longer because you’re syncing two cameras.”

“The camera is huge and reflective, so it’s like acting with a mirror right next to you which is very bizarre,” Stone continues, “If you ever had a conversation with a mirror next to you, you keep catching yourself and it’s just awful. You do get used to it and it’s a little bit better. But it was nice to know that even shooting a movie like this, you’re approaching the character in the same way. And you’re trying to tell the truth, you know, all the time about who that person is and what they’re feeling. So it’s comforting to know that in any circumstance, no matter what the budget or size, that remains the same, this feels different, the press feels different. That’s where it really strikes you that you’re in Spider-Man.”

Stone was asked whether she felt any pressure to try and live up to the memorable upside-down kiss in the original Spider-Man film between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.

“I know,” Emma says, “Obviously there’s no comparison there. Of course I thought about it because I just did. I thought about the kiss but I just trusted them to write it. It was just what

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

they wrote. We just kind of went with what they wrote.”

Emma was asked to explain the chemistry between her and Andrew Garfield, who plays the titular hero.

“Can one explain chemistry?” she replies, “It’s hard to because with any actor or any person in life that I’ve had chemistry with, it’s hard to pin down what exactly it is. That’s why they do chemistry tests for movies.”

“Even if you’re not playing love interests, even if you’re playing parents or best friends, sometimes it just clicks or it doesn’t and it doesn’t matter how good the actors may be,” Stone continues, “So it really is indefinable. It really is exactly what they call it. It’s something else entirely. It’s just some soul thing.”

Stone talks about what director Marc Webb, who previously is known for directing (500) Days of Summer, brought to the film.

“I think that Marc clearly, I mean, for (500) Days of Summer you can tell that Marc cares about love and he cares about humanity, and that was incredibly important for this movie,” Emma says, “He prioritized the relationships just as much as the action. I know he had a million voices in his ear because a movie like this there’s a lot of opinions all the time on everything.”

“And he would come in on Sundays to work on the scenes with us and break them down and build them all the way back up until we had the same scene that was written on the page but we had analyzed it to death,” she adds, “He was incredibly, incredibly kind and willing to work on that relationship. For my experience, I was very grateful that he came from that background.”

Emma was asked if she was actually rigged up for one scene or was CGI used.

“We swung,” Stone replies, “We were swinging!”

Stone was asked if she was afraid of heights.

“No, that was awesome,” Emma answers, “Thankfully, I’m not afraid of heights, that would have been

"A Stone's Throw Away from Super Stardom!"

horrific. That would have been awful actually because you’re so out of control. No, I loved it, other than the bruising. I loved it. Harnesses bruise, you guys. Yikes!”