Emma Stone fans know that her real first name is Emily, but she recently revealed that “Emma” wasn’t her first choice for a stage name.
While appearing on Wednesday’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, host Stephen Colbert asked the Bugonia star, if there were any other names “in competition” with Emma.
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“Not only was it in competition, but I actually adopted a stage name for, I would say, like six months. Because the Screen Actors Guild, it’s like the Business Bureau. You can only have one person with that name,” Stone said.
When Stone went to join the actors guild, she learned she had to come up with a stage name because there was already someone named Emily Stone registered in the union.
“I was 16, and I decided I wanted to be Riley for like six months. So I was Riley Stone, which is a beautiful name,” she explained.
However, Stone said she quickly learned that Riley was not the right stage name for her. “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. And I was like, ‘I cannot be Riley,’” she recalled. “It came out of nowhere. I was just like, ‘Cool name. I’ll just be Riley.’”
“So I then changed it to Emma because it’s close enough to Emily,” Stone said of how she ultimately decided on her stage name.
Stone previously opened up about her decision to professionally go by Emma while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in April 2024. After she was asked if her co-stars call her Emily, she said, “When I get to know them, people that I work with do. It’s just because my name was taken [by another actress in SAG].”
She then recalled that she “freaked out a couple of years ago” about people not calling her by her real name. “For some reason, I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore. Just call me Emily,’” she said.
Stone also reflected on how she would react to having a fan call her Emily instead of Emma. “That would be so nice. I would like to be Emily,” she said.
Stone made headlines for her name during the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, when a clip went viral of a reporter referring to her as Emily during a panel for the film Kinds of Kindness. “That’s my name!” she happily told director Yorgos Lanthimos at the time.
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