At the Festival de Cannes press conference on May 18, 2024, for her new movie “Kinds of Kindness,” Emma Stone clarified that she is proud to go by her birth name, Emily.
During the session, a reporter from Kazakhstan’s 98 Magazine addressed her as “Emily,” prompting director Yorgos Lanthimos to try to correct the journalist, thinking her name was “Emma.”
She then informed Lanthimos that “Emily” was correct, indicating her comfort and pride in her real name.
“My name is Emily, thank you,” the Oscar-winning actress said with a laugh. “Very nice.”
The reporter, after a brief interruption, continued questioning Emma Stone about her role in “Kinds of Kindness,” which premiered at Cannes on May 17th.
Stone, who collaborated again with Lanthimos after their work on “Poor Things” in 2023, was originally named Emily but changed it to Emma to avoid confusion with another actor.
She chose “Emma” as a tribute to her favorite Spice Girl, Emma Bunton.
“Growing up, I was super blonde, and my real name is Emily, but I wanted to be called Emma because of Baby Spice and guess what? Now I am,” Stone previously said during a 2018 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
“It wasn’t necessarily because of her but yes, in second grade, did I go up to the teacher on the first day and ask her to call me Emma? Yes, I did, and was it because of Emma Lee Bunton from the Spice Girls? Yes, it was.”
Emma Stone has used her stage name “Emma” throughout her career, but she recently expressed interest in returning to her birth name, Emily.
“When I get to know [individuals], people that I work with [call me Emily],” she told in April after her The Curse costar Nathan Fielder noted he calls her by her given name.
“It’s just because my name was taken. Then, I freaked out a couple of years ago.”
Stone added,
“For some reason, I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore. Just call me Emily.’ Nathan calls me Em, which is easier.”
Stone further noted that if a fan referred to her as Emily while asking for a selfie or an autograph, she would not correct them.
“That would be nice,” she mused. “I would like to be Emily.”
Fielder, 41, then joked that he would plan to “switch it up” between calling her Emma, Emily or Em.
