As Oscarwinner Emma Stone turns into the ultimate villain, Cruella De Vil, she opens up to Josh Smith about how she perfected that infamous cackle in the shower, how feeling anxious led to her putting herself in ‘self-imprisoned’ boxes and why she’s always drawn to the person in the room, “who really seems to detest me.” And that’s just a few reasons why you will be even more obsessed with Emma after reading the latest, ‘‘Josh Smith Meets…’ column.
Shutterstock
“I say, ‘imbecile,’ a lot. I am trying to remember them off hand now which, when you’ve only slept three hours, is a hard thing to do,” Emma Stone laughs as we discuss some of her iconic come-backs in her big screen return as Cruella. It seems the sleep deprivation from her two month old baby daughter, Louise Jean McCary, is getting to her – not that her high beat energy throughout our interview is giving her away, too much.
WATCH: Emma in our latest episode of GLAMOUR Unfiltered
Much has indeed changed for the 32 year-old since she last appeared on our screens as Queen Anne’s (played by Oscar-winning Olivia Coleman), ambitious lover in The Favourite two years ago. Last year she married comedian Dave McCary, then gave birth – both with her trademark secrecy that we are always here for – and now she is turning her ‘god I wish I was Emma Stone’s best friend for life,’ reputation on its head by playing the ultimate villain, Cruella De Vil in Disney’s new origin story, Cruella. The movie follows the chain of events that turns the budding fashion designer, Estella into Cruella De Vil and – plot spoiler – Emma is exceptional in serving us a bad-ass energy with a seasoning of evil that makes returning to the cinema more than worth it.
One thing that isn’t a secret is how much Emma relished playing a baddie as we chat away via Zoom from her Los Angeles home. “It was so cathartic,” she beams. “It’s incredible when you let any social thoughts drop out of your head, when you think no one has to like me and in fact think, ‘I’d prefer if they didn’t.’ I just want what I want. I am single-minded. It is not something that you can really live in, in real life, for very long at all but it’s just so phenomenal!”
Emma is every inch the exceptional battleaxe as she squares up to her on screen nemesis, Baroness von Hellman, played by Emma Thompson with a level of camp humour Dynasty icon, that Dame Joan Collins herself would be astounded at. “I know that she (Emma Thompson) was inspired by Joan Collins, big time,” Emma reveals as we discuss how she slayed that evil Cruella cackle that has given multiple generations nightmares.
“It was pretty funny to practice,” Emma says. “There was a lot of practicing in the shower, because it’s actually embarrassing to practice laughing in front of people. You can work on movement with people or you can work on the dialect with my dialect coach Neil Swain, but the laugh is a very vulnerable thing to do in front of anybody else, because if it’s wrong, you don’t want someone to go like, ‘That’s your Cruella laugh?’ It’s a process!”
“They sent out this press box for the Rag & Bone X Cruella line and they sent me a jacket,” she adds. “I wasn’t expecting this but I was at home the other night and I opened up the box. It had a sound box in it with my cackle from the movie and it scared the sh*t out of me! I genuinely jumped in the air at my own laugh coming out of a box. It was so scary because it was quiet in the house and I was terrified. Hearing my own voice come out of something was horrific.”
It’s nice to know even an Oscar winner hates hearing their own voice. “It’s the worst,” Emma screams. “When you hear a voicemail back or you send a voice note and you’re like, ‘Let me just listen to that back to make sure it sounded okay,’ and you’re like, ‘ugh, God! Is that what I sound like? It’s awful!’”
Cackles aside, the costumes in Cruella will have you jumping out of your skin, in a good way. Emma is quite literally, dressed to kill. And the full Cruella look is what Emma (in self -deprecating manner – a trait of hers I notice throughout our interview) says did most of the acting for her.
“Nadia Stacey did the hair and makeup and Jenny Beavan did the costumes and they were so brilliant – they’re just doing their art on you! You then look at the mirror and go, “I did none of this!” They do so much of your job for you that it was the greatest gift. You just sit still and then you are done. It’s almost not fair. They get all the credit for Cruella in a way!”
Emma’s transformation into Cruella is truly extraordinary. The character’s complex transition from orphan to fashion designer to villain and how she finds her power from nothing, is equally extraordinary to watch. With that in mind, I wonder what have been some turning points in Emma finding her own power?
“The biggest turning points have actually come from not utilizing it,” she replies. “Any version of failure in my life or things that have gone really wrong are because I didn’t speak up for myself or speak up for what I needed to do. I’ve been slapped in the face for that,” throwing her hands in the air, laughing, she continues, “I don’t mean physically! I mean in work or in relationships! Really in friendships, if you don’t say how you feel and then something goes amiss you really do learn pretty quickly, ‘I need to speak up in moments like this. People can’t read your mind.’ Things can go really off the rails if you assume that people are going to be able to read your mind so that’s a turning point in using your voice in a positive way, whether it’s with people you love or especially at work – that’s huge!”
When has she felt the most empowered, I wonder? “That’s a really good question. This year we started a production company,” Emma answers, referencing the company, Fruit Tree she started with her husband. “As an actor you really are a cog in the machine and rightfully so – that’s what you’re there to do – you’re there to fulfil someone else’s vision and so to get to produce as well and have your voice heard in a little bit of a different way and in a way, more, has been really empowering, exciting and not something that I really felt prepared to do for many years. I had a lot to learn and I still have so much to learn, but that’s been really an empowering feeling.”
Getty Images
Another theme of the movie is how the world fails to process or embrace Cruella’s individuality. I ask Emma, what her own turning points have been in embracing her true self. “At least at work, for an actor, you have two options,” she responds. “One is that you can try to fold into other people’s ideas of you, what you can play, what you look like, what you are supposed to be, or you have to carve some type of path that is your own and that might not be for everyone – [and be] someone that people aren’t that into. Certainly there’s probably quite a lot of people that are like, “She’s not for me, no thank you!” Which I get, because a lot of times I feel that way about me as well.” However, I think it’s fair to say you only have to ask around your friendship group to know that after roles in the likes of La La Land, Easy A and Crazy Stupid Love that Emma Stone is universally loved by pretty much everyone. You either want to be her or bring her into your friendship group – something I have always felt but feel much more passionately about as our chat ensues.
“There is that turning point that happens for every actor at some point,” she continues, “or for probably anyone in a creative pursuit where you’re like, ‘I can keep doing what I think will sell or I can do something that’s really challenging and scary to me and it might not work out, but I’m trying to carve that path.’ That happened five or six years ago for me and that was playing Sally Bowls in Cabaret on stage. I was like, ‘I don’t know that this is going to fit, that I’m going to be able to do this at all and this might be a real colossal failure,’ and it felt so exciting. I loved acting in a new way in everything I’ve done since because of that choice. From then on, it’s been the luck of getting to also choose what you want to do rather than being at the mercy of what comes your way. It’s a real gift I don’t take for granted and I don’t expect to last forever. I don’t expect that will always be my reality at all.” There goes the relatable ‘Emma Stone self-depreciation’, again.
It’s clear listening to Emma that she has been placed in multiple boxes, such is the plight of being a woman in the public eye. “If you’re not a straight white man, you’re put into a box,” she confirms. “If you’re anything other than that, you get put into boxes. You know what’s worse is not even the boxes that I feel other people have put me in, it’s the boxes I feel I’ve put myself in. That’s the harder thing to unpack for me, because from a young age, I thought I needed to be a particular way and I had just so much anxiety and I was so convinced that I needed to do everything right and I couldn’t… Can I say the f-word? Am I allowed to say the f-word with you,” she asks. “I couldn’t f**k up. I had a lot of perfectionism and ‘control stuff’ around it and from a young age, I put myself into boxes from being anxious. It really limited me for a long time and still does in some ways, just a fear to feel totally free.”
“That’s why just, for moments at a time, to play someone [Cruella] that does not care what people think. I do have a people pleasing thing. I’ve struggled with really being dependent on people liking me in the past and being so afraid if someone doesn’t. I’m so drawn to the one person in the room that really seems to detest me. I’m like, ‘Win them over, win them over. Oh my God, what are you doing? Hi, are you okay? Do you need anything?’ And Cruella is like, ‘what the f*ck, who cares?’”
“You know what’s the worst is when you don’t like someone but you’re obsessed with them not liking you. You’re like, ‘I don’t even like them and I hate that they don’t like me.’ It’s so dark! It’s just like, ‘grow up, who cares.’ Those are personality traits that I’ve held on to myself. That’s like self imprisonment and it sucks,” Emma concludes with one final relatable statement that makes her everyone’s best pal – even if she isn’t always her own.
Disney’s Cruella is available in cinemas and on Disney+ with Premier Access on May 28.