Emma Stone names the greatest scene in cinema history: “Some roles are destined for certain actors”
While there’s no such thing as a scene that can be definitively named as cinema’s greatest ever and the idealised embodiment of what happens when an actor and their character are perfectly aligned, Emma Stone knows what it takes to deliver a standout performance.
Few people would have watched her feature debut in Superbad and guessed that in less than two decades, she’d be a two-time Academy Award winner and five-time nominee, widely accepted as one of their generation’s finest talents and among the most gifted actors in the industry, but she is.
Stone joined an elite club when Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things saw her become just the eighth woman to win a pair of acting Oscars before turning 36 years old, and it’s undeniable that she’s well on her way to legendary status when Jodie Foster, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland are part of it too.
With that in mind, when she comments on a specific scene that she believes encapsulates everything great about not just acting but the movie business in general, it holds plenty of water. When asked by Entertainment Weekly to name the sequence that defines great acting in her mind, there was only one answer.
“Peter Finch in Network,” she said. “The scene where he’s in the raincoat, and he comes storming in and gives that speech on camera. That is great acting. He just was that part. That’s one of those things where you realise that some roles are destined for certain actors. He was meant to play Howard Beale.”
It’s one of the most iconic and influential monologues of all time, and that scene alone is more than enough to make Finch a deserving winner of the Oscar for ‘Best Actor’, which was handed out posthumously after he died just two months after Network was released and a matter of weeks before his name was read aloud in front of those in attendance and watching at home.
Sidney Lumet’s satirical drama is a classic in every sense of the word and a masterpiece that reflected the seismic shifts the onset of ‘New Hollywood’ had wrought across the business, but Finch’s incendiary speech remains its most memorable scene and the first thing that comes to mind whenever anyone thinks about Network.
For Stone, it set a benchmark that no performance or isolated moment will ever be able to top. If someone with two Oscars and potentially more to come says it’s the pinnacle of the profession, then it’s difficult for anyone who doesn’t have a trophy cabinet overflowing with Tinseltown’s most prestigious accolades to say different.
It’s a hell of a monologue, and one that’s no doubt been imitated by countless aspiring stars in their homes and at casting calls in the hopes they can even achieve a fraction of its greatness.
