Emma Stone used to go by a completely different name when she was first starting out in Hollywood.
The “La La Land” actress — born Emily Stone — revealed on Wednesday’s episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that she used the moniker Riley for several months.
“I actually adopted a stage name for, I would say, like six months,” she shared. “Because the Screen Actors Guild, it’s like the Business Bureau. You can only have one person with that name.”
Stone, 36, recalled how there was already someone named Emma Stone who was registered with SAG.
“I was 16, and I decided I wanted to be Riley for like six months,” she continued. “So I was Riley Stone, which is a beautiful name.”
While Stone initially liked the new title, she eventually found that Riley was too dissimilar from her actual identity.
“I did an episode, like a guest part, on ‘Malcolm in the Middle,’ and they kept going like, ‘Riley! Riley!’ And I had no idea who they were talking to. Truly,” she recalled.
“And I was like, ‘I cannot be Riley.’ Like, it’s such a… It came out of nowhere. I was just like, ‘Cool name. I’ll just be Riley,’” she added.
Stone said that she eventually changed her name back to Emma because it was “close enough” to Emily.
In 2018, Stone revealed that she picked the name Emma because she loved Spice Girls member Emma Bunton.
“So 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, so that’s really messed up,” Stone joked on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” at the time.
“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.”
Last year, Stone admitted that she would like to be referred to by her birth name — but later clarified that she was fine being called Emma.
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