At the young age of 35, Emma Stone has achieved what women in the entertainment industry dream of. She recently won the Best Actress Award (Poor Things, 2023) making it the second time she’s won such award, the previous being La La Land (2016).
She is now a common household name due to all her screen time in great movies.
In the past, women have been mistreated in the film industry.
They have had to endure inequality when it comes to pay, and some directors or even some actors, have been known to mistreat actresses on set. The unfortunate events centered around Harvey Weinstein displayed to the world what women in the industry have been dealing with for decades.
A study conducted by Luis Amaral, a physicist professor at Northwestern University, shows exactly how women affect the big screen.
After analyzing 26,000 movies, spanning from 1910 to 2010, data says that there were plenty of roles for women in movies from 1910 to 1920, but after that, roles disappeared. This is partially due to World War 1 and the US expanding it’s military by issuing a draft for all men aged 21-45.
Thirty years later, in 1950, roles for women started appearing again, and this number kept increasing steadily until this year.
The treatment of women in the movie industry has been getting better with time, but some aspects, such as salary, could still use improvement.
Emma Stone’s big breakthrough in her career was in her movie Easy A (2010). She plays a good girl teenager who tells a scandalous lie that accidentally gets out.
The lie spreads throughout the school and everyone starts knowing her; but, for all the wrong reasons.
Stone was 20-years-old when filming this movie and put so much pressure on herself that in one interview, she admitted she’d never actually seen the movie.
Let’s hope her self-esteem got better over the years because her acting definitely did not get worse. Two years later, she was cast as Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012).
She played the role beautifully until her character got killed off in the second movie.
The movie La La Land (2016), starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, was released in December 2016.
This movie is a major musical film and throughout the movie, the music just gets better and better.
All of the movie’s songs can be found on Spotify.
The song “City of Stars” has been streamed 248,580,612 times; “Mia & Sebastion’s Theme” 180,591,760 times; and “Another Day of Sun” was streamed 179,869,545 times.
The music, choreography, and acting all combine to make this amazing movie.
The movie did so well in the upcoming year, that Emma Stone was named the highest-paid actress of 2017 for making $26 million.
This film raised expectations for future musical movies, like Aladdin (2019) and West Side Story (2021).
In 2021, the movie Cruella was released and caused an uproar around the world.
It was a funny, twisted movie about a girl who lost her mother and is trying to survive by stealing with her friends.
She dreams of being a fashion designer and eventually works at the best fashion organization in London.
Later in the movie, we find out that her boss knew her mom and some big plot twists keep audiences on the edge of their seats.
It’s success was proven by its numbers – the movie made more than $220 million at the global box office.
The sequel was promptly announced weeks later.
She continues making history with her new Academy Award for Poor Things (2023).
As soon as the movie begins, it’s clear to see that it’s unlike other movies of this day and age. The movie starts peculiarly, not only with storyline, but color, too.
It begins in black and white.
Another thing you see early on is why Emma Stone won an Oscar for this movie. From start to finish, her acting is incredible in this movie.
This movie is about a woman who committed suicide and was found by a “mad” surgeon who revived her by taking the brain of her baby (she was pregnant), and replacing her brain with it.
Her speech, skills, and behavior can be seen improving throughout the movie to signify the development of the brain.
We also follow the story of her love life.
The surgeon who saved her recruited a man to record the woman’s behavior because this was an experiment for him. As they spend more time together, they both realize they like each other.
However, the man who writes up their wedding contract is also intrigued by her and asks her to run away with him for an “adventure.”
Sometime later, things go awry between them, and a couple of plot twists later, you reach the end of a unique and idiosyncratic film.
The director of this movie, Yorgos Lanthimos, has been working on this project (on and off) since 2009. This movie is based on a book from 1992 by Alasdair Gray.
In 2009, Lanthimos met with Gray, he was attaining the rights to Poor Things. Gray had already heard of Lanthimos through his movie Dogmouth (2009).
Gray said, “I think you’re very talented, young man.”
The movie got put on hold until 2018 when Lanthimos was filming The Favorite (2018). He revisited Poor Things and shared the idea with Emma Stone, who acted in The Favorite.
When The Favorite blew up successfully, Lanthimos paid his sole attention to Poor Things.
Stone even said that during the pandemic, since they couldn’t do anything else, they were sitting at home calling and casting people.
Stone’s passion for acting is a testament to her talent and she’s already smashed the glass ceiling for female actor’s in her young career with no signs of slowing down.
