- Hayden Panettiere, Heroes, TV, 2006-2010. It was, said Emma, her rock bottom moment in LA.“I could hear that, in the other room, a girl had just gone in and they were saying, ‘You are our pick … On a scale of 1 to 10 you’re an 11.’ I went home and just had this meltdown.” She had quit school to try her luck in LAand was soon working… at a dog bakery. And studying at an online class. By the summer of 2011, she was in three big movies –The Help, Friends with Benefits and Crazy, Stupid, Love – and Panettiere was not.
- Megan Fox, Transformers, 2006. Both Emma and Amanda Seyfried auditioned for the role of Mikeala Banes – named after (less pretty) director Michael Bay.
- Scout Taylor-Compton, Halloween, 2007. Yet another re-hash of John Carpenter’s classic. Stone and two Danielles – Harris and Panabaker – auditioned asLaurie Strode in director Rob Zombie’s version. Carpenter gave Rob his blessing. “Make it your own.”
- Amber Heard, Zombieland, 2008. First booked for the girl named 406, Stone was promoted to Wichita (the heroes were Columbus and Tallahassee!) in the funny road movie full of zombies. Chicago criic Roger Ebert likened them to “the Energizer Bunnies of corpses, existing primarily to be splattered.”
- Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer’s Body, 2008. “Man, we read so many amazing actors,” director Karyn Kusama recalled in Variety, September 2019; Including Amanda Bynes, Lizzy Caplan, Emma Stone “But there was just something about Amanda. She had this complete wide-eyed wonder about the world in her audition and it traveled through her whole performance.” “Jennifer was always Megan Fox,” added scenarist Diablo Cody. And Megan was extremnely unhappy about horror film’s marketing being hinged on: Megan Fox is sexy, come see this movie. “And the movie wasn’t about that. The movie was actually about mis-marketing, about people focusing on something and missing the point, about sexualizing somebody who doesn’t want to be sexualized, about all of these other things, about powerlessness as young girls and women. Nobody was ready to hear that.”
- Kristen Bell, Burlesque, 2009. Jessica Biel and Lindsay Lohan were also seen for Cher’s first (and last) musical. But Emma was the top star Christina Aguilera’s first and only choice to play Nikki.
- Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland, 2009. “Tim Burton’s a crusher,”Stone recalled. “Oh, my God… not getting a Tim Burton movie is really devastating. This is a pretty esoteric conversation. Working at all is fantastic.”
- Jamie Chung, Sucker Punch, 2010. Emma and India’s Freida Pinto were p for the scantily-clad Amber, mental asylum inmate, dancer and hooker… (It’s that kinda movie). Auteur Zack Synder’s “swords-and-corsets fantasy” (Washington Post) follows Emily Browning’s Baby Doll in three differing worlds, er, levels of consciousness. Yeah, that kinda movie. Emma peferred Easy A with Stanley Tucci.
- Brie Larson, 21 Jump Street, 2011. Seen for tthe female lead in the movie version of Johnny Depp’s 1980s’ TV series – until stuck (!) on The Amazing Spider-Man. No matter, because the important roles belonged to Schmidt and Jenko – Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, as surprisingly good as the film. . Larson was known as Toni Collette’s rebellious daughter in United States of Tara, TV, 2009-2012. And won the 2016 Best Actress Oscar for Room.
- Ambyr Childers, The Master, 2011. To her own surprise, the lovely blonde daytime soap quenn of All My Children (she was Colby Chandler for 139 episodes, 2006-2008) beat off such stellar opposition as Emma, Jennifer Lawrence, Amanda Seyfried and Deborah Ann Woll to become Elizabeth Dodd, daughter of the titular Philip Seymour Hoffman, head of a religioso cult called Scient… er, The Cause…in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first outing since his 2007 double-Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood.
- Mia Wasikowska, Crimson Peak, 2013. When Emma had go leave Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s movie, Mia strolled in – just as Benedict Cumberbatch was substituted by Tom Hiddleston.
- Elizabeth Banks, The Lego Movie, 2013. The original idea of auteurs Phil Lord and Christopher Miller was Amy partnering Robert Downey Jr. Finally, Emma played Lucy aka Wyldstyle. It was her voicing debut – same for Alison Brie, Morgan Freeman, Chris Pratt, Cobie Smulders, Channing Tatum and Billy Dee Williams. Emma won Woody Allen’’s Magic in the Moonlight, instead.
- Emily Blunt, Into The Woods, 2013.
- Margot Robbie, Focus, 2014. First, Stone and Kristen Stewart passed, then, Jessica Biel, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Olivia Munn, Rosamund Pike and Michelle Williams were assessed for Jess, the beauty being coached in grifting techniques by an adoring Will Smith. Robbie was on holiday on a Croatian island when called to an New York audition. She packed in 20 minutes, and by catamaran, bus, two planes (waiting six hours for each), losing her luggage at JFK and wearing only denim shorts, shirt and no make-up, she got to the audition on time. Smith did not. “Hey, I was coming from Queens.” “Yeah?” snapped Robbie, “Well, I just came from an island off Croatia and I’m here on time.” She reckoned that outburst won her the movie.
- Margot Robbie, The Legend of Tarzan, 2014. Far too busy with Woody Allen, Cameron Crowe and Ryan Gosling to be Jane on the vine . Loin-clothes were tested, on six possible ape-men in them. But eleven women were seen to be Jane Porter, from the Irish Sarah Bolger, American Lucy Boynton, Australian Georgina Haig and British Gabriella Wilde to Lyndsy Fonseca, Lucy Hale (from Memphis and Scream 4), the way too busy Emma Stone and Harry Potter’s Emma Watson. Plus Eleanor Tomlinson, the sole redhead among the blondes, and Prince Harry’s ex-lover Cressida Bonas… Ultimately, Margot Robbie quit A Bigger Splash in Italy to go on-vine with Swedish hunk Alexander Skarsgård as the first 21st Century Tarzan… in a major flop when finally released in the summer of 2016.
- Laurie Holden, Dumb and Dumber To, 2014. As per usual, any sequel 20 years after the original always displays extreme desperation… Holden had also played an Adele in an earlier Jim Carrey film, The Majestic, 2001.
- Lily James, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 2014. Natalie Portman was set for the revisionist Elizabeth Bennet until delays clashed with her schedule. She remained on board as one of seven producers while Stone, Lily Collins, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, Blake Lively, Rooney Mara and Mia Wasikowska were rung up Jane Austen flagpoles. Stone had already made one trip to Zombieland, 2009, and passed on a second in June 2011.
- Phyllis Smith, Inside Out, 2014. As Pixar got inside the head of young Riley, we meet her five main emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust… and Stone was first lined up for Sadness. Smith hails from The Office – like Mindy Kling (Disgust), Bill Hader (Fear) and Rashida Jones (Cool Girl’s Emotions).
- Jamie Chung, Big Hero 6, 2014. “We didn’t set out to be superheroes. But sometimes life doesn’t go the way you planned.“ Rapper Awkwafiba, Gina Rodriguez, Jenny Slate and Emma Stone were up for Go Go Tamago in Disney’s first Marvel subject, winning the best animation Oscar. It unfurls in 2023 (we all know that computer battery number, right?) in San Fransokyo (‘Frisco rebuilt by the Japanese after an earthquake) and deals with a bunch of super-troupe behind the titular collective name… that no one actually uses.
- Kate McKinnon, Ghostbusters, 2015. Ghostbusters : Answer the Call, 2015. Or Ghostbusterettes… Finally, after a wait of 27 years, a third ’busters movie. This time, they’re all women. Pail Feig women like Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and… well, it was going to be Stone or Anna Faris, Jennifer Lawrence, Rebel Wilson. (Eliza Dushku, Anna Faris, Alyssa Milano were potential Girlbusters before the project became a reboot). “Ain’t no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts,” said an on-line video in the film – and zillions of Ghostfans across the planet. And try as it did (with too many Hot Shots! gags), the “comedy” failed rather than the ladiesStone passed. Two Amazing Spider-Man films were tentpoles enough. “The script was really funny. It just didn’t feel like the right time for me. A franchise is a big commitment… Maybe I need a minute before I dive back into that water.” Instead, she became Woody Allen’s new muse. Twice.
- Clara Delevingne, Suicide Squad, 2015. After 19 possible Deadshots and 14 Harley Quinns, director David Ayer searched through eleven young beauties for June Moone, aka Enchantress (the DC villain, not Marvel’s rival to Thor). The contenders were Stone, Troian Bellisario (tied to Pretty Little Liars) Emilia Clarke (nothing without her Game of Thrones’ dragons), Alexandra Daddario, Megan Fox, Brie Larson, Ellen Page, Krysten Ritter, Saoirse Ronan, Alicia Vikander, Shailene Woodley. And told the winning Delevingne to prepare for the role by stripping naked in the woods and walk in mud, preferably during a full moon. Takes all sorts. Film still flopped!
- Gina Rodriguez, Deepwater Horizon, 2015. Stone and Kristen Stewart were also seen for Andrea, in this reconstruction of the titular oil exploration platform explosion, killing eleven workers and causing history’s worst oil-spill on April 20, 2010. Stone passed as the script was far from finished at the time.
- Brie Larson, Battle of the Sexes, 2016. As schedules changed, Stone was in, out, then back in again as the world #2 tennis champion Billy Jean King, 29, walloping the braggadocious ass of a sexist, ageing ex-Wimbledon champ Bobby Riggs, 55, in three sets – 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 – at the Houston Astrodome, Texas, on September 20, 1973. Riggs avowedthat no woman could be his equal in tennis. He beat the then #1 woman player, Margaret Court leading to the $100,000 winner takes all battle watched by a global 90m viewers … already dramatised in ABC’s 2001 tele-film, When Billie Beat Bobby, with Holly Hunter and Ron Silver.
- Lily James, Baby Driver, 2016. Stone wanted to be in Ant-Man, 2014, because the UK’s Edgar Wright was directing. Except, he wasn’t in the end. Fired by Marvel, he moved on to his long gestating project and Stone again hoped to join the Atlanta party. Dates clashed and she missed one helluva ride! “A remorselessly entertaining, impeccably assembled action-musical in which cars and people defy the laws of physics and common sense,” said The Village Voice.In short, what Marvel hadn’t wanted. An Edgar Wright movie!!
- Emma Watson, Little Women, 2018. Bringing with her three stars from her difrecting debut, Lady Bird, 2017, Mumblecore actress-turned auteur Greta Gerwig saved the project from Sony’s Development Hell shelves. She lost one only from her dreamwish cast (Meryl Streep, Florence Pough, Timothée Chalamet, etc ) Like, for Meg March, if you can’t get Emma, you get Emma – ie Watson in place of the too busy Stone. (Stone had previously taken over from a similarly busy Watson in La La Land, 2015). Meg has been played bv everyone from Trini Alvarado and Meredith Baxter to Janet Leigh and, as the first Meg in 1916, Mary Lincoln.
- Kirsten Wigg, Wonder Woman 1984, 2018. Last seen ending WWI, Gal Gadot is now in ’84. So is Chris Pine”s Steve Trevor – to his surpsie, since he’s been dead these past 66 years! There’s even room for the first live-action appearance of mild gemologist Dr Barbara Ann Minerva who turnw in WW’s greatest adversary, Cheetah. Emma Stone turned her down and Kirsten Wiig became what Austin Chronicle critic Richard Whitaker called “the fanged, furrd and clawed” baddy lady. GG was paid $10m. Kirsten Wiig was not.
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Ant-Man and the Wasp, 2018. Evangeline Lilly reprised her 2014 Ant-Man role of Hope Van Dyne, and wanted Pfeiffer to be her mother – and predecessor as the Wasp – in this first sequel. Michael Douglas, who played Hope’s father, naturally suggested his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, while some Marvel suits voted for Douglas’ most infamous co-star, Sharon Stone. When the role had been in the first film, Ant-Men, 2014, Rashida Jones and Emma Stone had been nominated and Mary Elizabeth Winsatead tried to win the part.
- Margot Robbie, Babylon, 2021. The script – another look at Hollywood – was said Brad Pitt “really, really good.” And when Emma’s schedule ruled her out of Damien Chazelle’s movie, Pitt suggested his co-star from Tarantino’s look at Film City: Once Upon A Time …in Hollywood. Only this time their tale is set as the film business moved from silents to talkies, ruining various careers in the process.
- Anya Taylor-Joy, The Menu, 2022. Four years earlier, Emma had been part of the bizarre once-in-a-lifetime dinner created by a sad top chef Ralph Fiennes. But when knife came to fork, it was Anya (from Queen’s Gambit) causing trouble for all of his plans to give the rich (and restaurant critics!) what he feels they deserve. Oh, and food, too.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 29