Meet Emma Stone, Best Actress Oscar winner, left college for acting, worked at bakery, now world's highest-paid actress

After an actor reaches the top position, wins several accolades, their struggle often goes unnoticed. One such actress who struggled with anxiety at the age of 7, left her studies to pursue acting, and later after facing several rejections in the beginning, she became the world's highest-paid actress. 

The actress we are talking about has proved her mental with her variety of performances in the film industry and has won multiple Oscars. She is none other than Emma Stone, who recently won an Oscar for Best Actress for her film Poor Things. 

Emma Stone was born in Scottsdale, Arizona, She lived on the grounds of the Camelback Inn resort from ages 12 to 15. As a child, the actress suffered panic attacks and anxiety which she says caused a decline in her social skills. Since the age of 4, the actress wanted to act and at the age of 11, she finally made her debut in a stage production of The Wind in the Willows, playing Otter.

Emma was homeschooled for 2 years, during which time she appeared in 16 productions at Phoenix's Valley Youth Theatre—including The Princess and the Pea, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Emma attended Xavier College Preparatory, an all-girl Catholic high school, as a freshman, but dropped out after one semester to become an actress. 

Recalling her struggling days, Emma revealed in an interview that she gave several auditions but was rejected and said, "I went up for every single show on the Disney Channel and auditioned to play the daughter on every single sitcom, I ended up getting none." Between auditions for roles, she enrolled in online high-school classes and worked part-time at a dog-treat bakery.

After her share of struggles, the actress impressed the audience with her movies like  Zombieland, Easy A, which won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Friends With Benefits, The Help, The Amazing Spider-Man and more. 

The actress has won 2 Best Actress Oscars for La La Land (2016) and Poor Things (2023). According to Forbes, Emma Stone was the highest-paid actress in the world in 2017. The actress charged $26 million for her role in La La Land. In the film, she portrayed aspiring actress and barista Mia in the movie, which went on to gross $445.3 million worldwide on a $30 million production budget. 

Emma Stone's acceptance speech

The actress got emotional after winning her second Oscar for Best Actress and said, "The other night I was panicking, as you can kind of see happens a lot, that maybe something like this could happen. Yorgos [Lanthimos, Poor Things’ director] said to me, ‘Please take yourself out of it,’ and he was right because it’s not about me. It’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. And that is the best part about making movies, is all of us together. And I am so deeply honored to share this with every cast member, with every crew member, with every single person who poured their love and their care and their brilliance into the making of this film." 

She added, "I really just want to thank my family, my mom, my brother, Spencer, my dad, my husband, Dave. I love you so much. And most importantly, my daughter, who’s gonna be three in three days and has turned our lives technicolor. I love you bigger than the whole sky, my girl. So thank you so much. Don’t look at the back of my dress. Thank you.”