A Quick Look at the Stars: Emma Stone, the Funny Red-Headed Blonde

by Conan Simmons – December 2, 2020 – 6:48 pm

Hailing from Arizona, Emma Stone made her feature film debut in Judd Apatow’s hit 2007 comedy ‘Suberbad’ alongside fellow comedic actors Jonah Hill and Michael Cera. A natural blonde, Emma Stone dyed her hair red for the role maintaining the color change over the course of the early years of her career as her star began to rise.

Emma kept with comedies and in 2008 had notable supporting roles in the music comedy ‘The Rocker’ starring an ensemble of comedians and the Anna Faris starring vehicle, ‘The House Bunny’ alongside Colin Hanks and Kat Dennings.

Making an impact with her performance as Wichita in 2009’s very funny hit horror comedy, ‘Zombieland’ starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin and Bill Murray, it would be the next year, in 2010, when she would establish her place as a leading lady of comedy when her starring role in ‘Easy A’ earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Leading Actress.

Pairing with Ryan Gosling for the first time in 2011’s ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love.’, Emma Stone quickly followed it with another hit film, ‘The Help’ that same year. Starring with Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis, the serious subject matter of the film gave a small opportunity for Emma Stone to showcase her dramatic skills outside of comedy.

In 2012 Emma Stone reverted back to her natural blonde hair for her role as iconic blonde comic book character, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s first girlfriend in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ adapted from the Marvel comic books. During this time Emma Stone and her costar in the film, Andrew Garfield had a public romance that lasted until 2015.

Going back to being a redhead for her second pairing with Ryan Gosling in the 2013 crime film, ‘Gangster Squad’ Emma Stone was able to hold her own in the serious film noir based on the true story of the LAPD’s efforts to bring down crime boss Mickey Cohen in the 1950’s. The film also starred Josh Brolin and Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen.

The lackluster performance of ‘Gangster Squad’ at the box office was made up for later that year when Emma Stone provided her voice to the animated box office hit ‘The Croods’ along with Nicolas Cage.

Finishing off her role as the ill-fated Gwen Stacy in the 2014 sequel ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’, and returning once more to her natural blonde hair, audiences will never know if she would have appeared in a third installment of the franchise. The infamous Sony Hack carried out by North Korea at the end of 2014 sent the Sony studio into turmoil. The added lackluster performance of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ at the box office spelled ultimate doom for the franchise, which would be recast and rebooted in connection with Disney/Marvel’s hugely successful Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.

Fortunately for Emma Stone, she had appeared in another hit movie that year and began solidifying her status as one of Hollywood’s brightest stars.

The Oscar winning Best Picture of 2014, ‘Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)’ starring Michael Keaton and directed by Alejandro Inarritu saw Emma Stone as the drug addicted daughter of Michael Keaton’s struggling film actor vying for a comeback in the comedy hit. For her performance in the movie Emma Stone was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and nominated in the same category at both the Golden Globes and the BAFTA’s.

Now a stalwart actress of comedy Emma Stone worked with one of the genre’s biggest directors, Woody Allen, starring alongside Colin Firth in 2014’s ‘Magic in the Moonlight’ and working with Allen again starring with Joaquin Phoenix in 2015’s ‘Irrational Man’.

2015 also saw Emma Stone take some of the heaviest criticism of her career when she took the role of the character Allison Ng, a half-Chinese half-Hawaiian, in director Cameron Crowe’s romance film ‘Aloha’. There was loud public outcry over the casting with many pointing out the long history of Hollywood’s whitewashing characters of color. The film was a box office failure but Emma Stone bounced right back the following year.

Finding a pep in her step, Emma Stone danced her way to Oscar gold for Best Leading Actress in the musical romance ‘La La Land’, her third pairing with Ryan Gosling. By this time the duo’s onscreen chemistry was eagerly anticipated by audiences turning ‘La La Land’ into a rare musical hit at the box office. Directed by Damian Chazelle, it tells the story of an aspiring actress and an aspiring jazz musician who meet and fall in love on the fringes of showbiz in an idyllic Los Angeles. Emma Stone not only won the Oscar for her role, she also won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA making a sweep of the major awards for that year. ‘La La Land’ would become controversially famous at the Oscars when it was announced by mistake as the winner for Best Picture overshadowing the real winner for the prize, ‘Moonlight’.

Riding on the wave of award winning success Emma Stone took on the role of real life tennis star Billie Jean King for the biopic comedy ‘Battle of the Sexes’. Steve Carell costarred as farcical chauvinist Bobby Riggs. Emma Stone earned her fourth Golden Globe nomination for her work.

Continuing her dominating presence on the awards circuit Emma Stone was once again nominated for the Oscar, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in the 2018 film ‘The Favourite’. Directed by Greek Weird Wave filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos the film is an oddball telling of royal court intrigue featuring Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult and Olivia Coleman in her Oscar winning role as Queen Anne.

Turning her attention behind the camera Emma Stone executive produced the science fiction mini-series ‘Maniac’ for the streaming service Netflix in 2018. The series starred herself alongside her ‘Superbad’ costar, Jonah Hill and her ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ costar, Sally Field.

The last couple of years has brought Emma Stone to revisiting some of her iconic roles starting with the 2019 sequel, ‘Zombieland: Double Tap’ in which she reprised her character of Wichita. And just this past weekend the animated sequel, ‘The Croods: A New Age’ hit theaters (where it could) and now reigns number one at the box office, the biggest hit for a new release since the global coronavirus pandemic.

Next up for Emma Stone is the Disney prequel ‘Cruella’ in which she plays the eponymous character made famous in the 1961 Disney animated film, ‘101 Dalmatians’ that was recreated in the 1996 live action remake starring Glenn Close in the role of the villainous Cruella de Vil. Set to release in 2021 ‘Cruella’ is a live action film expected to be a prequel to the 1996 film version of ‘101 Dalmatians’.