‘Paper Man’ Co-Star Emma Stone on Playing Skeeter Phelan in ‘The Help’

By Michelle Kung

Life if sweet, if extraordinarily full, for Emma Stone. The actress, 21, best known for films such as 2007’s “Superbad” and last year’s “Zombieland,” is in high demand in Hollywood, having completed work on the coming features “Easy A” and “Marmaduke,” and heading off in a week to an as-yet-untitled comedy with Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling. She’s also been cast in an adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s bestseller “The Help.”

Speakeasy caught up with the actress during a promotional tour for the drama “Paper Man,” which comes out next Friday. Written and directed by Kieran Mulroney and Michele Mulroney, the indie stars Jeff Daniels as Richard, a middle-aged novelist cursed with both writer’s block and an imaginary friend known as Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds). Stone plays Abby, whom Richard hires to be his babysitter following a move to Long Island.

The Wall Street Journal: You moved to New York from L.A. last September. Are you happy with your decision?

Emma Stone: I needed a change of pace, and I don’t know that I’m ever going to go back. I knew I couldn’t move until I had met all the casting directors in L.A.. But even after I moved, I found myself flying back at least once a month, which is kind of weird, because I’m now staying in hotels in a place where I used to live.

“Paper Man” was shot in New York during the the winter of 2008. Is that really you in the scene where you’re jumping into the ocean in Montauk?

I distinctly remember that I shot that scene on or just after November 12 and the temperature was in the 30s that day. It was the second or third day of filming. They actually had a stunt double for me, the same woman who was my stunt double on “Zombieland,” but I ended up just doing it myself. It was important for me to feel that cold, because that’s what the character was experiencing.

Can adults and teenagers really be friends, like Richard and Abby in the film?

Absolutely. While shooting the film, I found out Kieran based his story on J.D. Salinger. After [Salinger] became a hermit, he would still go to local high school basketball games and let students interview him for the school paper, and he befriended them. Such friendships really can happen, but I’m not so naive as not to acknowledge there’s also a lot of scary stuff that exists in the world.

At the end of June’s you’re starting work on an adaptation of “The Help,” in which you play a wannabe writer in ’60s-era Jackson, Miss. How are you preparing for your first “period” piece?

I’m going to start working with a dialect coach starts very soon, because there’s always a fear, with Southern accents, that it can turn very twangy. I’ve also just ordered a bunch of books and DVDs. I’ve just ordered a Martin Luther King Jr. biography to read, a book on Jim Crow laws, and am catching on up all the classic Mississippi movies, such as “Mississippi Burning” and the 1978 TV miniseries “King.”  Even “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”