Image source, Getty Images
- Author, Annabel Rackham
- Role, Culture reporter
Emma Stone has revealed that she’d actually prefer if we didn’t call her that – because it isn’t her real name.
She said she would like people to use the name she was born with, adding: “That would be so nice. I would like to be Emily.”
Stone says she chose to change her name because Emily “was taken” by someone else in her actor’s union before her.
Image source, Getty Images
But she said during an interview, to promote her new film The Curse, that she “freaked out a couple of years ago,” about not using her real first name.
“For some reason, I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore”.
She said her co-star in the film, Nathan Fielder, “calls me Em, which is easier”, and he added: “That’s a way of bridging it.”
Back in 2018, the actress said the reason she chose the name Emma was due to her favourite Spice Girl, Baby Spice – or – Emma Bunton.
Stone isn’t the only one to change their name because someone in the acting world was already using it.
Actor and former Doctor Who star David Tennant changed his stage name at 16 years old, as someone in his actor’s union already had his real name – David McDonald.
He got the name after flipping through a music magazine and seeing Pet Shop Boys’ frontman Neil Tennant featured in it.
Meanwhile the US singer The Weeknd changed his name by dropping the “e” as there was a Canadian band already called The Weekend, and he wanted to avoid any “copyright issues”.
US actress and director Elizabeth Banks also had to change her name as there was already an Elizabeth Mitchell – her real name – registered with the Screen Actors Guild.
She’s reported to have said: “So I made a list and then alphabetised it, and Banks was the first one on the list. And I called SAG and they said it was available, so I said, ‘I’ll take it!’ I just wanted it over with!”
