Emma Stone nailed her “Crazy, Stupid, Love” audition by roasting Ryan Gosling

Kathleen PerriconeThu, July 30, 2026 at 1:15 AM UTC

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Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ (2011)Credit: Ben Glass/Warner Bros.Key Points -

Emma Stone was the last actress to audition with Ryan Gosling for Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011).

The 21-year-old nailed it when she roasted Gosling for flubbing a line.

“We were all just like, ‘Okay, that’s it. That’s the person,’” recalled co-director Glenn Ficarra.

Auditioning with Ryan Gosling might make even the most seasoned Hollywood actress blush, but not 21-year-old Emma Stone.

During pre-production for the 2011 rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love, a handful of hopefuls tried out for the part of Hannah Weaver, the eldest daughter of Cal (Steve Carell) and Emily (Julianne Moore) who falls in love with womanizer Jacob (Gosling).

“A lot of them were really good, but then once Ryan stepped into the room, they sort of were a little shaken,” co-director Glenn Ficarra told PEOPLE for the film’s 15th anniversary. The charming leading man “wasn’t trying to do anything,” noted Ficarra. “He was just being himself.”

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ (2011)Credit: Ben Glass/Warner Bros.

Stone walked in at the end of the long day of auditions and flipped the script on Gosling, who was just coming off his acclaimed performance in Blue Valentine.

When he flubbed a line during their session, Stone didn’t miss a beat. “‘Oh, you’re killing this. You’re doing great,’” she teased, as Ficarra recalled. “We were all just like, ‘Okay, that’s it. That’s the person.’ And we wanted to work with her desperately. Even in the small stuff she was doing, she’s so brilliant.”

The pair’s early chemistry carried over through filming, particularly during their bedroom scene, which quickly unravels once Hannah gets distracted by Jacob’s memory foam pillows. With the mood officially killed, the two instead spend the night chatting about random things, like his obsession with the Home Shopping Network.

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The scene, edited as a montage of their conversations, “was a really improvised thing that I think only me and John [Requa, co-director] really understood what we were doing there,” Ficarra told PEOPLE. “And just sat there with the cameras rolling for hours and letting them just run. Many of those lines in that scene are stuff they were doing around the set. They were just watching YouTube and seeing things, and then Emma would do an impersonation.”

“Everybody was just like, ‘I don’t know what you guys are doing,’” Ficarra continued, “but we were just trying to get them to be Ryan and Emma and not their characters and just relax a little bit. When we went into the editing room to see the first cut of that scene, and it’s basically what’s in the movie. We didn’t really have to change it.”

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Five years after Crazy, Stupid, Love, the two reunited for La La Land, a celebrated masterpiece that earned Stone her first Oscar for Best Actress — and Gosling his second nomination for Best Actor.

But their success did not surprise Requa. “People oftentimes say, ‘You’re good at finding actors.’ We always like to say, it’s like saying the sun is bright,” he told PEOPLE. “They were just amazing. It was easy. They were just brilliant and it was obvious.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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