Emma Stone Confesses Andrew Garfield Is "So Special to Me" and Admits She Passed on Female Ghostbusters Movie

"I understand the interest in it completely, because I've had it, too," she tells WSJ. Magazine of her love life

By Zach Johnson Jun 17, 2015 2:38 PMTags
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By now, the entire world knows that Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield are back on. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 co-stars have a brown paper bag to thank for that.

In early April, sources said the two were taking a break. But just a few weeks later, Stone emerged from their shared stylist's office carrying a bag labeled with Garfield's name. Was that her way of addressing the split rumors? As she says in the July/August issue WSJ. Magazine, "See, I never talk about this stuff for this exact reason—because it's all so speculative and baseless. Once you start responding—once you're like, 'No, that's not true'—then they're like, 'Well, if we push enough, we'll get a comment, so let's see what else we can make up.' I understand the interest in it completely, because I've had it, too. But it's so special to me that it never feels good to talk about, so I just continually don't talk about it."

Stone could have turned the bag around to avoid the speculation. "When I picked up the bag, I was like, 'This is kind of funny if there are any [paparazzi] out there,'" she says. "There's probably some rebelliousness that comes out in me after all these stories and people texting you for weeks about something that, for the most part, is not true. But even when it's false, I would rather just let it be false."

The 26-year-old Irrational Man actress puts a premium on her privacy, which was invaded after her phone number and email address were published on WikiLeaks stemming from the Sony Pictures hack.

That said, Stone admits she might have overacted. "I did one of the worst things ever, which was react really quickly. I was getting all these emails and texts from people I didn't know—'Hi, I'm Joe from the U.K. I like your movies'—and I was so overwhelmed that I went to my inbox and I deleted all my emails. In about a 30-second span, I hit 'Select All' and 'Delete Forever,' and thousands of emails—like six years of emails—are now gone forever. I was just so freaked out that someone was in there...It was horrible."

"I cried for like an hour," the Aloha actress confesses. "Most of the emails I'm mourning I can still talk to the person and get them back. But there's others where the person is actually gone. It really sucks."

Understandably, Stone would prefer talk about her career than her love life.

"There's this insane thing that happens where you get to a point where you start not just doing things because you're lucky to have gotten the job, but you actually start making choices," the actress admits.

"But recently I'm starting to enjoy having experiences that I wouldn't allow myself to have in real life—like Sally [in Cabaret] onstage, and the kind of mental breakdown she goes through. To do that in front of an audience was super liberating. I'm interested in things that are really scary and ambitious lately. Obviously Birdman was like that. And then doing the play, I was like, 'This feels like it could totally go wrong every single day.' And something about that feels vital," she says. "Is that a stupid thing to say?"

Stone passed on the chance to appear in Paul Feig's all-female Ghostbusters film, starring Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig. "The script was really funny. It just didn't feel like the right time for me. A franchise is a big commitment—it's a whole thing," says Stone, who starred in two Spider-Man movies. "I think maybe I need a minute before I dive back into that water."

Perhaps she'll play a villain someday.

"That would be amazing," she says. "I would love that."

WSJ. Magazine's July/August issue is on newsstands June 27.