STONE. Portrays Gwen Stacy in “Spider-Man” reboot.RUBEN V. NEPALES
LOS ANGELES— “That’s right,” Emma Stone said and broke into her throaty laughter when a reporter quipped that her Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield, “could use a few more pounds.” “I know,” she said. “He’s a skinny one.”
But Emma, who plays Gwen Stacy to Andrew’s Peter Parker in director Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man,” is proud of the actor’s take on the web-slinging hero. “Andrew dug to the absolute depths,” she said. The two are also a couple in real life—they began dating as they shot this movie.
“He’s a brilliant actor,” commented Emma. “He was really interested in the beginning of the story and what it’s like for a boy to be orphaned and how you feel when you grow up with your father leaving you, what that does to a boy, the kind of walls that go up, the guardedness and what heroic qualities come to the forefront.”
On how similar or different Andrew and Tobey Maguire’s interpretations of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s orphaned protagonist are, Emma pointed out, “They’re completely different. I was a huge fan of Tobey Maguire in his movies—pretty much every movie he’s done— but Andrew’s performance is an incredibly different version of Spider-Man. It’s as if he and Tobey are not playing the same character.”
Emma said that what surprised her about being in a big-budgeted production like “Amazing…” was how intimate an experience it can also be. “It’s only now that it really hits me—the size of this movie. It’s overwhelming. But, the intimacy was what surprised me. You realize that no matter what the budget is, your process is the same.”
As for her character, Emma explained who came first in Peter Parker’s life. “Gwen came before Mary Jane in the comic books,” she said. “Gwen’s untimely doom happened in the ’70s. Gwen and Mary Jane were in each other’s orbit. They all went to the same school.” Laughing, she dished, “Mary Jane and Gwen didn’t like each other very much.”
Presence
Teased by a reporter if she’s accommodating a male presence in the new LA digs she was decorating, Emma chuckled and remarked, “Let’s not talk about that.” On furnishing her LA home (she also has a place in New York), she admitted, “I’m still learning as I go. I used to buy stuff from Ikea, so I am just learning what the deal is with interior decorating.”
On her sexy voice, Emma revealed, “I try to have some vocal control, because I needed to go to speech therapy as a kid. I have calluses on my vocal cords, which is why my voice sounds like this. I try to have support and breath control. That’s important for me going forward, because I would like to be able to sing.”
At 14, the Arizona-born Emma famously made a PowerPoint presentation, set to a Madonna song, that she showed to her parents. She wanted to convince them to allow her to move to LA and try her luck in Hollywood. Now 23, Emma said she’s basically the same as that teenager. “I was pretty similar to how I am now, but I always had a responsibility thing. I never wanted to let anybody down, especially my parents, because I did move out so young. They basically said—I am going to say a bad word—‘If you screw up, you’re coming home so fast that your head will spin.’ They were talking in terms of if I became irresponsible or made dumb decisions. So, I always had that, which is similar to Gwen wanting to be responsible to her parents.”
Crazy time
With a smile, Emma volunteered, “That said, when I was 17, that was my dumb, wild year, which consisted of going out to places when I was under 21, sneaking in and drinking Red Bull all night, because I don’t drink. So, that was my crazy time.”
Looking ahead, the raspy-voiced star said, “I want a lot of expansion. I want more input. I’d like to learn more. I’d like to take more classes, because I was home schooled. I have no college experience and no steady job. There’s real desire in me to learn languages and subjects that I didn’t learn.”
She added, “As far as work goes, there’s a big desire in me to dig deeper and explore. When I was younger, I didn’t have experiences I could draw from. Now, with these years, there’s a fair amount to draw from. I’d like the catharsis of tackling roles that can get those feelings out!”
Would she consider playing female superhero like Spider-Woman? “No,” came her quick answer. “I’ve broken so many bones. I hurt myself by accident frequently. In ‘Zombieland,’ I tore my muscles on the second day of filming, while I was trying to run.”
Again breaking into that throaty laughter, Emma exclaimed, “But, if they asked me to dance, I’m right there! Any time!”
E-mail rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.