Emma Stone revealed she prefers her real name over her stage name.
The two-time Oscar winner, who broke her silence on the rumors she was offended by Jimmy Kimmel at the Academy Awards, got candid about the moniker dilemma during an interview with her Curse costar Nathan Fielder for The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday.
As the conversation unfolded, Nathan repeatedly referred to Emma as ‘Emily,’ her birth name, prompting the outlet to ask whether anyone else in the industry addressed her by that name.
‘When I get to know them, people that I work with do,’ the star said, before admitting she changed her name because another actress named Emily Stone was already a member of SAG-AFTRA.
‘Then I freaked out a couple of years ago,’ Emma continued. ‘For some reason, I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore. Just call me Emily.”
She was also asked whether she’d correct a fan who called her ‘Emily’ instead of ‘Emma’.
The star replied, ‘No. That would be so nice. I would like to be Emily.’
Back in 2018, Emma revealed her reasoning behind choosing the name Emma, citing it as a tribute to the Spice Girls.
‘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,’ she said during an 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.’
In the same interview, Emma cleared the air on the speculation that she called Jimmy Kimmel a ‘p***k’ over a quip at her expense at the Oscar ceremony.
The star set social media alight when Kimmel said: ‘Those were all the parts of Poor Things we’re allowed to show on TV’ – referencing Emma’s sex scenes.
Stone’s reaction appeared displeased; she grimaced and turned to her husband Dave McCary to share a remark.
However, speaking to THR, Stone refuted having made the comment and clarified that she wasn’t bothered by the joke.
She said: No! I didn’t call him a p***k… What did I say? I didn’t call him a p***k. I wasn’t upset with him at all. I’ll have to look that up.
‘I’m near-unoffendable.’