On with the Show

She’s gone from Hollywood unknown to Oscar nominee—but can Emma Stone sing and dance her way through an old-fashioned movie musical? Get ready for La La Land, the biggest leap of Stone’s high-flying career. Jason Gay reports.

- Jason Gay

Before Emma Stone became, you know, Emma Stone, she was Emily Stone, a teenage would-be actress from Scottsdale, Arizona, who moved to Hollywood with her mom and lived in a two-bedroom apartment right near the Farmers’ Market. She kept a John Lennon poster on her wall, burned incense (“I was sixteen,” she protests), drove a red Volkswagen Beetle to auditions, and, in an oft-recited but irresistible biographical detail, worked behind the counter at Three Dog Bakery—mm-hmm, a bakery selling dog treats.

Stone was one of thousands of young fresh faces who arrive every year in Los Angeles carrying the hopeful but brutally difficult dream of Making It in Show Business, and you can find all that collected ambition inspiring or melancholic or a little bit of both. I should point out that none of this is ancient history to Stone, who turns 28 in November and can still tick off the Three Dog Bakery’s top sellers.

“Pup Tarts,” she says. “Pop Tarts, but for dogs. And Pupcakes. Then there was a kind of dog Oreo made with carob and honey. A mom would come in and buy them for her kid because she thought dog Oreos were healthier.”