Emma Stone’s real name is Emily, and her friends call her Emily all the time now. “Emma” is simply her stage name, to adhere to union rules (there was already an Emily Stone with a SAG card, apparently). I bring up Stone’s name change because she covers the September issue of Vogue, and pretty much everyone quoted in this piece refers to her by her real name. It’s nice, it feels like she’s reclaiming her real identity. Stone covers Vogue to promote her latest project with director Yorgos Lanthimos: Bugonia. This is the film where her head was shaved mid-production, on camera. A huge chunk of the interview is about that! But we also got a confirmation of Stone’s daughter’s name. Some highlights:

Marrying Dave McCary: A lifelong Saturday Night Live obsessive and a five-time host, Stone would meet and begin dating Dave McCary, an SNL writer-director. The pair, who are now producing partners, would confirm their engagement in 2019. The following year, Stone would marry into the Studio 8H mafia, wearing a dress designed by her close friend (and Louis Vuitton women’s artistic director) Nicolas Ghesquière—plus a black eye she gave herself after yanking a handle off a refrigerator door. “Truly a cosmic joke,” Stone says. “Whose refrigerator handle breaks off while opening it?”

Her daughter: In March 2021, Stone and McCary welcomed a child, Louise Jean, her middle name shared with her mother.

Shaving her head: “No better feeling in the world,” she says of the cut, which, in case you’re mulling it, deployed a 1.5-millimeter blade. “The first shower when you’ve shaved your head? Oh my God, it’s amazing.” Stone had no hesitation—and she did get to shave Lanthimos’s head first—but admits that, right before, she burst into tears in her trailer.

She wore wigs and hats to hide her shaved head in public: “I was bummed I wasn’t going out with it. Just straight-up bald. I think that would have been fun.”

On ‘Poor Things’: “When it was going out into the world, I was like, I have no idea what people are going to say about this. I started to get scared, but then I was like: There’s nothing you can do. Yorgos and I have talked a lot about this. There’s no reason to be prescriptive to an audience about what it should like and not like. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. If it’s not for you, that’s okay.”

Taking on weird, unconventional roles: “The more challenging it gets, the more I like it. If you’re not growing or pushing yourself to different places—and I feel it’s the same for most people in almost any job—you get stagnant. I’m drawn to material that asks more questions than gives you answers… I think critical thinking is the most valuable resource that a person can have, and I like that feeling of being asked to answer things for myself.”

Her low-key life: She famously avoids posting on social media—you won’t find her chugging out TikToks—and is far more likely to be making pumpkin oatmeal cookies or watching Bluey with Louise Jean, who’s now four. “There’s nothing I feel luckier about,” she says of her daughter. “She’s the greatest gift of my life, for sure.”

[From Vogue]

While I follow Stone’s career, she rarely says much about her personal life and her family, and I’ve just gotten used to not paying much attention. All of which to say, I forgot that she has a daughter and I really didn’t know the kid’s name. Louise Jean is nice – you never hear of anyone naming their daughter Louise anymore, but it’s a nice name. It’s also an inversion of the narrator’s name in To Kill a Mockingbird – Scout’s real name was Jean Louise Finch. As for the head shaving… I can see how she loved it and enjoyed the freedom of it. Plus, she has the face for a pixie cut, so there was literally zero awkwardness as she grew it out.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of Vogue.