Emma Stone’s favourite actor of all time: “That raspy, throaty quality”
Right now, there is perhaps no greater hark back to the golden age of cinema than Emma Stone.
Not because she seems to be trapped in a range of musical rom-coms that profit off her looks more than her talent, but because she seems to be an icon in the making. Through a range of incredible performances that have allowed her to expand her acting vocabulary to the point of bursting, Stone is now legitimately in with a chance of beating Katharine Hepburn’s long-held Oscar-winning record. But, it seems things are always meant to go this way.
From a young age, Emma Stone expressed an intense interest in acting, doing whatever she could to immerse herself in the world of the creative arts. Citing performing as a significant factor in easing her childhood struggles with anxiety, Stone made her first stage appearance when she was 11 in a production of The Wind in the Willows. From there, she continued participating in other shows, frequently performing at Phoenix’s Valley Youth Theatre.
The budding star realised that she needed to move to California in order to pursue a successful career, soon relocating with her mother. “I went up for every single show on the Disney Channel and auditioned to play the daughter on every single sitcom,” she once explained during an interview with People. “I ended up getting none.”
Despite her lack of initial success, Stone eventually bagged her first film role in 2007’s Superbad, a box office smash which later won her a Young Hollywood Award for ‘Exciting New Face’. More supporting roles followed Superbad, although most of these films were received poorly. Luckily, a leading role in the teen comedy Easy A earned Stone greater recognition, winning her an MTV Movie Award for ‘Best Comedic Performance’.
The actor soon earned more parts in acclaimed films like The Help, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Birdman, with the latter winning ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy Awards. She even earned an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for Birdman, just four years after her Easy A breakthrough.
Stone’s star power only increased when she starred opposite Ryan Gosling in La La Land in 2016, which won her the Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’. The following year, she was named the world’s highest-paid actress and appearances in successes such as Battle of the Sexes, The Favourite, and Cruella have firmly established Stone as one of the most significant actors of her generation.
Of course, all good actors cite other stars who’ve come before them as major sources of inspiration. For Stone, it’s classic Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall. The actor has long since been revered as one of the most iconic faces of the age, quickly taking on a new life as a face of Hollywood. Her relationship with Humphrey Bogart only cemented that further, but Bacall possessed a calming, cool exterior that has made her itno a timeless performer.
She was one of the most revered actors of her time, making her film debut at age 19 in To Have and Have Not. Bacall starred in many successful pictures, such as The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, North West Frontier and Murder on the Orient Express. As her career progressed into her later years, she appeared in Prêt-à-Porter, Misery, Birth, Dogville and Howl’s Moving Castle.
Just like Stone, Bacall was known for her raspy voice. Stone shared (via Cineplex), “I’m a big fan of Lauren Bacall. Maybe because everyone was smoking more heavily then, but that raspy, throaty quality seems to be much more prevalent in those ’40s movies. Mine was from colic when I was a baby.”
Stone even paid homage to Bacall in Crazy, Stupid, Love, with her character quoting the actor’s High Point coffee commercials from the 1980s. She does her best impression of Bacall, quipping, “I love curling up with a rich cup of coffee. You think coffee and sleep don’t mix? Well they do if it’s High Point!”
An accurate impression of a golden age icon will stand Emma Stone in good stead should she ever get the chance to collect a fourth acting Oscar.
Check out the clip below.
