Emma Stone was once told to “keep smacking” her co-star during a rather violent – and very raunchy – scene.
Back in 2010, Emma found her feet in Hollywood when she starred in Easy A, playing a clean-cut high school student who aims to improve her reputation using the rumour mill. Emma played Olive, while her co-star Dan Byrd portrayed her best friend Brandon.
Olive ends up lying that she lost her virginity, and tries to convince everyone she’s had sex with her best friend – who was getting bullied over his sexuality. So the pair decided to pretend to get it on, with some simulated violence and slapping sounds substituting for the real thing.
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But it turns out that ‘fake’ violence wasn’t so simulated after all – and Emma was actually hitting Dan. Director Will Gluck revealed: “Emma smacked Dan many times, and initially, as I recall, Emma didn’t want to smack him hard. And Dan is just such a trooper, telling her, ‘You have to keep smacking me, you have to keep smacking me!’
(Image: Sony)
“And if you watch the movie, those are real smacks… But the only way that works is if they committed. And that was really fun.”
It’s not the only time Emma has had to resort to violence for a film. During filming for the movie And in 2023, she smacked Spider Man star Willem Dafoe “around 20 times” to make one scene look more genuine – even though his face was off-camera at the time.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos – who is also directing Emma’s upcoming erotic drama Poor Things – said: “That’s what you want from actors – to want to be part of it in any way.” Emma said of Willem: “There’s this instinct to perform that many actors have — the ‘Look at me, look at me!’ kind of performer. He’s the opposite of that.”
(Image: Sony)
Emma has opened up about filming Poor Things with Yorgos, in which she plays the recently resurrected Bella Baxter, going on a journey of self-discovery… and having lots of sex. She said that while some scenes were inevitably “embarrassing”, nothing was off-limits.
Opening up with fellow A-lister and close friend Bradley Cooper for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Emma confessed: “That rehearsal process was so helpful because we all got to know each other so well. All you do in a rehearsal with Yorgos is like, mess around.
“You play theatre games, it’s not literal at all – you’re not reading the scenes and working out how they’re going to go. It’s very playful – you’re a human noodle or you’re doing log rolls or whatever. Really fun things where you kind of embarrass yourself.”
(Image: Variety via Getty Images)
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Bradley asked her: “Does [director] Yorgos do it with you?” as Emma responded: “Sometimes he does it with you. Sometimes he just laughs through the whole thing.”
She added: “Everybody feels silly and like a troupe. Because of that process… by the time you’re on set for the first day, we’ve already had dinner every night, we’ve already been all over each other in rehearsals and have made fun of each other and been embarrassed.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
