Star on the rise: Emma Stone

By Sarah Sluis

Emma Stone has juicy roles in two films this summer (and a bit part in a third), and each one proves that she's a star on the rise. Yesterday I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love, which comes out on Friday. As a young law school grad looking for true love, Stone holds her own against an all-star cast that includes Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, and Ryan Gosling's abs. Stone has a Julia Roberts-level star magnetism that can only go up. In her other film, The Help, which comes out in a few weeks, Stone mixes comedy with more serious subject matter. Even in this different environment, her trademark mix of sarcasm, determination, and a self-effacing manner remain intact. So far, every role I've seen her in has been enriched by a current running through the personality that is oh-so-distinctly Stone.

Stone has mainly stayed in a sweet spot of comedy, with other roles in movies such as Easy A, Superbad, The House Bunny, and Zombieland. But now she's being tapped for Gangster Squad, a 1940s crime drama. The movie would re-team her not only with Gosling but also with her Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer. Unlike other stars in Hollywood with difficult reputations (Katherine Heigl, for example), Stone appears to create good working relationships. How else could it be so easy for her to be cast in her most serious film to date? Stone would play a woman torn between her love for the good cop (Gosling) and the gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn).

The surest sign of Stone's success is her casting as Spider-Man's love interest Gwen Stacey in The Amazing Spider-Man, which is coming out next summer. Appearing in an action tentpole is one checkmark on the path to being an A-list star. Other young ingnues like Bryce Dallas Howard and Kirsten Dunst have occupied that role in the past, when they too were stars on the rise. Stone's charming sarcasm has put her on my must-see list. Now let's hope she continues to find good roles that utilize her strengths--and no more superhero films after Spider-Man!