La La Land star Emma Stone has opened up on her history of anxiety and panic attacks, and the “meltdown” she suffered while working on the film Birdman in 2014.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Stone said that she was prone to “debilitating shyness” growing up, and that her main outlet was acting and doing improv comedy in after-school program.
“It’s just the way I’m wired,” she told the publication. “I think my parents saw that acting was the thing that made me fulfilled and happy.”
After her breakthrough role in 2007’s Superbad, Stone said that she had to relocate from Hollywood to New York, because of the stress brought on by living in Los Angeles.
“I started to feel overwhelmed by the energy of Hollywood,” she said. “I would go places, and all anybody could talk about was the entertainment industry. I just felt too surrounded by that.”
Even there, she still felt ill-at-ease, and with the increased fame and notoriety that came after her starring role in Easy A, she felt a loss of anonymity.
“It was like being seven years old again,” Stone said of that period, “it terrified me.”
The filming of the Oscar bait-y Birdman also proved to be a fraught time for the actress. “The tightrope walk of that movie, the pacing and timing – I lost my mind a bit,” she said. “I just got to a point where I snapped.”
These days, Stone says that the interview process is still something that makes her anxious, and she has to consciously sit down and prepare beforehand. She explained:
“Before any interview, I have to sit with myself for five minutes and breathe and get centred because I get so nervous. Interviews are kind of like therapy, except all your answers are being written down and printed. I always want to be on the other side of it. I don’t want to be deconstructed for millions. I’d rather do the deconstructing.”
Stone is up for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in La La Land. The Oscars take place on February 22 in Los Angeles.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter.
Photo: Getty.
