Emma Stone (Scottsdale, Arizona, 1988) has beautiful, large violet eyes, adorned by the frank smile, with an ironic touch, of someone who is willing to have a good time in life.
We met the actress in Paris, in the midst of the debut of 'Magic in the Moonlight', a film that will hit our screens in December and represents a new leap in her brilliant career and her first work at orders from Woody Allen. Stone plays an American pizpireta on the glamorous shores of the French Riviera in the 1930s. She plays a supposed psychic with paranormal powers who has conquered the area's upper class.
A mature Colin Firth, the magician who proclaims himself to be the great unmasker of charlatans and scoundrels, will fall at her feet. Furthermore, we will soon see her in 'Birdman', by Alejandro González Iñárritu, one of the most anticipated films of the season, and many will recognize her as Gwen Stacy, Spiderman's eternal girlfriend in her new incarnation as Andrew Garfiel, Emma's boyfriend in the real life.
She is at the top. Although she caused a resounding stir when she declared that she had suffered panic attacks as a child and has been honest on several occasions about her anxiety and insecurity, she is also that strong girl who, at the age of 15, convinced her parents to allow her to move to Los Angeles to start a career as an actress. She did it with a 'PowerPoint' and it was successful.
Goodbye to the cold of Arizona (where she says the only thing to do in the summer was watching movies) and welcome to the California sun. Of course, her mother went with her. Of course, 10 years later it can be said that her PowerPoint was very well thought out. Sometimes those who deserve it are lucky. The interview code requires sticking to the film, but we tried to scratch a little of it.
In 'Magic in the Light of the Moon' you play a psychic, do you believe in the supernatural?
In intuition, but I don't know to what extent it can extend to the supernatural. Colin (Firth) does, I've heard he goes chasing ghosts. The most interested anyway is Woody Allen, he has already written four films about it!
Woody Allen is famous because he doesn't give actors the entire scripts, just his part. How did you handle these conditions?
Now it is normal for there to be secrecy. The amount of technology we carry around makes it very easy to filter things. Later, during filming, the script becomes a guide, for him the important thing is that it sounds natural. If you recite it exactly as it is written it seems false, so he corrects you: "I wrote it wrong, it's my fault, say it however you want!"
Was he very strict with you?
Woody Allen looks a lot like the image we have of him. It's a lot of fun, without even trying, because it's very Chaplinesque looking. His figure is so recognizable that it is curious to be with him. Above all, he is a committed artist, a person who knows his craft well and is very concerned that what he wants to tell reaches the public.
Your character is a girl of modest class who prospers among the rich of the Côte d'Azur. What do you think of her ambition?
She has talent and uses it. She may not have paranormal powers, but she is a conqueror and a wonderful actress, and her mother knows it. Her father abandons them and they are left quite helpless, so they decide that it is the way to make a living. She uses that great intuition to survive, there is no evil in her, she is a fighter.
The film is skeptical about paranormal phenomena, but it certainly believes in the magic of love. Is it the only thing that escapes rationality?
It certainly puts our convictions in check, because it is something irrational, invisible, that is beyond our control. There is another faith that is less talked about, that which is deposited in reason. Love reminds us that a part of life is outside of it. It is, definitely, the magical part of existence.
