The one movie scene that encouraged Emma Stone to become an actor
Even though she’s only in her mid-30s, Emma Stone has already achieved more in her career than most actors could hope to dream of, and she gives off the impression that she’s only just getting started.
As well as being named the single highest-paid female actor on the planet in 2017, Stone has also been anointed as one of the most influential people in the world, and that doesn’t even begin to cover her on-camera accomplishments.
An Academy Award winner for ‘Best Actress’, her status as the star and producer of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things has brought her up to five nominations in total, while her trophy cabinet also includes two Golden Globes, a pair of Baftas, a trio of Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Critics’ Choice Awards.
Despite her clear talent for powerhouse dramatic performances, though, Stone’s first love has always been comedy. Beyond her first-ever feature film credit coming on Superbad, the early years of her filmography were defined by vehicles designed to have audiences rolling in the aisles, whether it was The Rocker and The House Bunny or Easy A and Zombieland.
With that in mind, a single scene from a comedic classic lighting the fuse that would eventually send Stone down the road towards the performing arts is entirely fitting, with John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles burned into her brain as the moment that convinced her becoming an actor was the only thing she wanted to do with her life.
Steve Martin telling John Candy he talks too much is hardly groundbreaking in microcosm, but as it applies to Stone, it was life-changing. “You go from laughing hilariously at Steve Martin to your heart breaking for John Candy in that one scene,” she said to Entertainment Weekly. “And that was, I think, the first time that I saw that you could do both.”
Stone’s love for Planes, Trains and Automobiles runs so deep that she can recite the entirety of a foul-mouthed monologue at will, as she once displayed on television. When Martin’s Neal Page loses his cool and embarks on an epic rant pointed in the direction of Edie McClurg’s car rental agent, it’s close to 80 seconds of inspired comedy genius that drops no less than 18 F-bombs, and that scene is the reason why the film was slapped with an R-rating.
It was also one of the major reasons why Martin was so keen to star, but little did he know that four decades later, his crackling chemistry with Candy would inspire one of Hollywood’s most prominent stars to follow her dreams and reach the very top of the industry, with Stone never forgetting what sparked her imagination in the first place.
