AT 26, all of Hollywood has fallen for Emma Stone but acting is her first love. 

She couldn’t be friendlier when you meet her, but Emma Stone has no desire to share details of her life on social media. 

“I try to be authentic to who I am when I’m being interviewed,” says the 26-year-old actress, “but I don’t feel the need to be on Twitter or Instagram or to give a snapshot of the shoes I bought today or what my dog is doing.” 

It’s mid-morning in Venice, so I don’t imagine Emma has had the chance to go shoe shopping yet.  She’s in a smart pair of high heels and a lovely dress but, given what she’s just said about social media, I don’t ask where they’re from and whether or not they’re high street or designer.  Not that Stone is cold.  Far from it.  She’s as warm as the Italian sun, but after eight years in the business, she has boundaries. 

I learn an equal amount from any experience, no matter how big the budget

Emma Stone

“I try to be as much myself as I possibly can be,” she clarifies in that gravelly voice of hers – which, for the record, she thinks she got from having colic as a child. “ It’s honestly a personal choice, just like it is in any capacity – whether you feel like sharing things with people you don’t know or not.  I don’t think it has anything to do with being an actor.” 

Being an actor is something the natural blonde, whose trademark red hair is a style choice, is rather good at.  Hilarious as a wayward teen in Easy A, riveting as an equal rights campaigner in The Help and a plucky sidekick to Andrew Garfield in two Spider-Man films, she finally landed her first Oscar nomination this year for Birdman. 

The film took the top prize and its maverick Mexican director Alejandro G Iñárritu also walked away with an Oscar.  Emma, meanwhile, lost the best supporting actress Oscar to Patricia Arquette, but she looked genuinely thrilled when the Boyhood star headed to the stage to collect the award. 

Does she care about the whole awards hoopla anyway? “ I care so much,” she laughs, rolling her huge green eyes. “ All the time.  It’s all I think about.”  She’s joking, of course, and adds, “It’s fun to watch people dressed up holding statues.” 

In any other year, Emma would have won the Oscar for her brilliant portrayal of Sam Thomson.  Sam is a recovering drug addict working as a grudging assistant for her father Riggan, played by Michael Keaton. 

In a nod to Keaton’s stint as Batman, Riggan used to headline his own superhero franchise and is now putting on a play in a bid to be taken seriously. 

WENN'I put a premium on things being fun'

Emma describes the character, who ironically rants about her father’s aversion to social media, as “seethingly angry and numbed-out in many ways” and pretty typical of today’s phone-addicted younger generation. 

“There’s that kind of glaze that the 22-years-old-and-under set have when they’ve lived their whole lives through a screen,” she explains. “ I thought there was something really fascinating about her because she’s the daughter of a famous person. 

That struggle is a very specific one and I’ve seen it – I’ve seen kids who are the now-grown or growing children of someone who is well known.” 

Without naming names, Emma talks about showbiz kids who aren’t close to their famous parents “because their parents prize public opinion rather than their relationship with their child” and explains why she found the character of Sam so compelling: “Yes, she’s just out of rehab and yes, she’s angry and kind of a mess, but there’s something heartbreaking about that. 

I found a lot of humanity in her and a lot of things I understood even without having an actor father myself.” 

Arizona-born Emily Jean Stone’s father Jeffrey ran his own contracting business and her mother Krista was a housewife who raised Emma and her two-years-younger brother Spencer.  Her parents were well-to-do (they were the owners of a golf club and, from the age of 12, Emma was raised in the grounds of the adjoining high-end resort and spa), so they could afford to have her home-schooled while the budding actress cut her teeth in youth theatre productions. 

They also forked out for private acting lessons and when, as legend has it, their daughter put on a PowerPoint presentation to the tune of Madonna’s song Hollywood to convince them she should move to Los Angeles, they didn’t just say yes – Emma’s mum also made the move with her as a show of support. 

Dyeing her blonde locks red, the quirky 19 year old was cast by producer Judd Apatow in the teen comedy Superbad, marking her as one to watch.  Hollywood was watching – she got supporting roles in The House Bunny and Zombieland before the lead in Easy

A announced the arrival of a major new star.  She’s been A-list ever since but Stone, who only went back to being a natural blonde to play Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, flits happily between leading lady and supporting player. 

“I learn an equal amount from any experience, no matter how big the budget is or how many people are working on the crew,” she says. “ I don’t think the size of a role is any major consideration.  It’s about what I can learn and what I can offer the project.  They’re the only real draws.” 

She can be funny or serious, glamorous or dowdy, sorted or messed-up, but admits: “God knows I’ve been in danger of being typecast, but I’ve never felt associated with one particular character over another.” 

When it came to her recent stint in Cabaret, where she was the iconic Sally Bowles in a New York revival of the musical, Emma confesses to being “completely terrified”.  It was her Broadway debut too, so no pressure there, but the reviews were rapturous and as she says: “Why do something if you’re not terrified?” 

She is certainly on a roll, having worked with Iñárritu on Birdman and Woody Allen for Magic In The Moonlight, which saw her starring opposite Colin Firth.  In the romantic comedy, he’s an illusionist hired to debunk Emma’s claims to be a genuine clairvoyant and, despite the fact he’s nearly three decades older, they fall in love. “ Honestly, it reminds me of My Fair Lady or Pygmalion. 

It’s like Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.  There’s a professorial relationship there and that’s how we viewed it all along.” ( She herself has been on-off with her Spider-Man co-star Andrew Garfield after three years together.) 

Woody isn’t known for giving his actors much direction, which must have been a shock after the meticulously planned Birdman.  She smiles. “ It’s funny because I’d heard that a lot about Woody, but I didn’t find it to be true.  I think he directed everybody in the movie. 

He is sneakily precise.  He’ll go, ‘I don’t care, rewrite all my words, just say whatever you want, do it, make it natural, add things, whatever.’  So you’ll do that then he’ll come in and go, ‘Let me do it,’ and he does it his way and you go, ‘All right, I’ll do that.’” 

Working alongside Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams in the forthcoming romcom Aloha and having just completed her second Woody Allen movie Irrational Man opposite Joaquin Phoenix, Emma’s at the top of her game but she has no intention of coasting. 

“There’s something culturally where we want things to come really easily and to not have to work too hard at things any more,” she explains. “ We want to find quick fixes to things, but the good stuff is hard and then it’s the most joy you could possibly imagine. 

“The more afraid you are, the more you open up and the more true vulnerability comes out.  I put a premium on things being fun, but then I realised that sometimes in life where you grow is not necessarily when it’s fun – it’s when it’s really hard.”