The role that changed Emma Stone’s life: “Infused so much spirit into my life”
Few actors have gone through a career ark quite as dramatic as Emma Stone. Once typecast continually as, in her words, “different versions of myself, teary cry smile and all”, she has gone on to be a two-time ‘Best Actress’ Academy Award winner and art-house darling. Most recently, she has become a close collaborator with enfant terrible of the Greek weird wave, Yorgos Lanthimos, but even he had initially turned down working with her on his film The Lobster.
So, what prompted the shift in her career? For Stone, there’s a stand-out performance that allowed her to unlock different skills and facets of herself as an actor: her portrayal of Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes. While she had starred in and won ‘Best Actress’ for La La Land a year prior, the role of Mia was a role still much closer to Stone’s own life than tennis pro, Billie Jean King.
The film explores the 1973 tennis match between Billy Jean King and Bobbie Riggs. It not only charts King’s career but also her marriage issues, marking a departure from the types of roles Stone had been taking. “I tend to keep myself prisoner in mistakes I’ve made… I’m really lucky I have a great manager. They’ve always been very encouraging about taking chances,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. For her, King was a way to step outside herself and her comfort zone.
“Now that I am able to see how rewarding it is to lose yourself in someone else’s experience,” Stone continued. She ratified the notion that playing unique characters removed from one’s own personality is the pathway to finding a more artistically integrious career: “To find these people that are nothing like you and let their traits infuse your life — I mean, playing Billie Jean King has truly changed my life.” In many ways, it did. Stone turned to a more diverse cast of characters and marked a turn to more independent movie roles in the seven years since she starred in three films by Yorgos Lanthimos, with a fourth on the way. And she’s won another Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’.
It also seems that playing more complex characters like King has become important to Stone, showing her different perspectives on life an learning from them. “[Bille Jean King] has infused so much into my spirit, it’s incredibly exciting.” She has grown, and so, to have the kinds of characters that she plays, helping to demonstrate her range and capabilities as an actor.
Interestingly, portraying a turning point in Billy Jean King’s career marked a change in her own. Both established themselves as greats in their field – at least time will tell for Stone. Speaking to the retired King, Stone realised that she had the gift of hindsight and was now living the life that she wanted. So, too, Stone is now trying to live her life, taking the parts she is actually interested in and not simply those that fit her presumed ability.
