Emma Stone's devoted fans may know her birth name as Emily, but a recent revelation on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert revealed that "Emma" was not her first choice for a stage name. As the Bugonia star sat with the host on Wednesday's episode, Colbert inquired if there were any other names vying for the spotlight alongside Emma.
"Not only was it in competition," Stone replied, "but I actually adopted a stage name for, I would say, like six months. Because the Screen Actors Guild, it's like the Business Bureau. You can only have one person with that name."
As Stone prepared to join the actors' union, she learned that she had to come up with a new name as there was already someone named Emily Stone registered in the union. "I was 16, and I decided I wanted to be Riley for like six months. So I was Riley Stone, which is a beautiful name," she explained.
However, Stone quickly realized that Riley was not the right stage name for her. "I did an episode, like a guest part, on Malcolm in the Middle, and they kept going like, 'Riley! Riley!' And I had no idea who they were talking to. Truly. And I was like, 'I cannot be Riley,'" she recalled. "It came out of nowhere. I was just like, 'Cool name. I'll just be Riley.'"
In the end, Stone settled on Emma as her stage name due to its similarity to Emily. She previously opened up about her decision to go by Emma while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in April 2024. When asked if her co-stars called her Emily, she said, "When I get to know them, people that I work with do. It's just because my name was taken [by another actress in SAG]."
She also shared that she "freaked out a couple of years ago" about people not calling her by her real name. "For some reason, I was like, 'I can't do it anymore. Just call me Emily,'" she said. When asked how she would react to a fan calling her Emily instead of Emma, Stone replied, "That would be so nice. I would like to be Emily."
Stone made headlines for her name during the 2024 Cannes Film Festival when a clip went viral of a reporter referring to her as Emily during a panel for the film Kinds of Kindness. "That’s my name!" she happily told director Yorgos Lanthimos at the time.
