image source, Getty Images
- author, Annabelle Rackham
- role, culture reporter
Emma Stone has revealed that she actually shouldn’t have called her that because it’s not her real name.
She said she would like people to use her birth name, adding: “That would be great. I’d like to be Emily.”
Ms Stone said she decided to change her name because Emily had been “taken” by someone else in her former actors’ union.
image source, Getty Images
But she said in an interview to promote her new film, The Curse, that she “startled out a few years ago” by not using her real name.
“For some reason, I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
She said her co-star in the movie, Nathan Fielder, “calls me Em. It’s easier that way,” and he added, “That’s how we build bridges.”
In 2018, the actress said she chose the name Emma because of her favorite Spice Girl, Baby Spice, or Emma Bunton.
Stone wasn’t the only one to change his name, as someone in the acting world was already using that name.
Actor and former Doctor Who star David Tennant changed his stage name at the age of 16 because someone at the Actors Guild was already using his real name, David MacDonald.
He came up with the name after flipping through a music magazine and seeing Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant featured.
Meanwhile, American singer The Weeknd changed his name by dropping the “e” because there was already a band named The Weeknd in Canada and he wanted to avoid “copyright issues.”
American actress and director Elizabeth Banks also had to change her name because she was already registered with the Screen Actors Guild under her real name Elizabeth Mitchell.
She is reported to have said: “So I made a list and put it in alphabetical order, and Banks was first on the list. Then I called SAG and they said it was available, so I said, ‘I’ll take it!’ I just wanted it to be over! ”
