Emma Stone Was Surprised to Hear Andrew Garfield’s English Accent After ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’
Emma Stone worked with her ex-boyfriend Andrew Garfield in the successful Amazing Spider-Man film. But when filming wrapped, Stone asserted that she was shocked to hear what Garfield really sounded like.
Emma Stone was shocked by Andrew Garfield’s English accent
Portraying Peter Parker meant Garfield had to put on an American accent for the film. Although he was born in Los Angeles, California, Garfield was raised primarily in the U.K.
For the sake of doing Spider-Man justice, Garfield spent a significant time using his American accent. After the movie was finished, Garfield surprised his Amazing Spider-Man co-star when he spoke naturally.
“Once the movie was over, I was surprised to hear his completely British accent, because on set, obviously, we were speaking in American accents, so in between takes he was pretty American,” Stone once told Shortlist (via FemaleFirst).
This wasn’t the only time Garfield stunned a co-star with his Peter Parker accent. Not too long ago, Garfield would reprise his role as Spider-Man in the Marvel feature Spider-Man: No Way Home. The film saw him teaming up with Zendaya, who was caught off guard by his natural accent.
“Maybe my memory deceives me, but I want to say we were on the set for Spider-Man, and I kept forgetting that you were English, because you spoke in your American accent the whole time and I was like, ‘Oh s***,’” Zendaya once told Garfield on Variety’s Actors on Actors.
Garfield would share that maintaining his accent was a method for not losing his character.
“With an accent for me, I just don’t want to confuse my body and I don’t want to confuse someone else’s system. It’s just simpler,” he said.
How Andrew Garfield felt about Emma Stone trying to imitate his accent
Stone once confided she was playing around with her own accent as well. The La La Land star had been practicing using her own English accent, which Garfield himself was aware of.
“I’ve been working on it,” she said in a 2012 MTV News interview. “I do it all the time, I’ve been working on it all the time, and it’s so annoying.”
Garfield was willing to offer his own critique on Stone’s accent.
“It’s not bad, I know. I would never say this to her face, but it’s not bad,” he said. “I always try and discourage whenever she does it, but between you and I — and obviously the people who watch this interview — she can do it pretty well,” he said.
Although Stone did it for fun, at the time she quipped that she was even interested in doing a British accent on a movie.
“I’ve never done it [in a film], and now all I want to do is a British accent,” she said.
Emma Stone had to perfect her British accent for ‘The Favourite’
Stone would end up actually having to use an English accent for her 2018 movie The Favourite. The project was a period piece about 18th century England, which meant that Stone had to brush up on her accent. To perfect it, Stone spent a lot of time studying other English actors.
“So I sort of started listening to some more modern accents, like Carey Mulligan’s accent. She has a deep voice and I love her, so it was easy to watch her interviews,” Stone told Louder Than War. “I’m not trying to talk like her, it’s just keeping her depth and the cadence.”
But she asserted that a lot of her practice came from actually talking with her English accent on in her everyday life.
“For the most part, I just tried to put my hat on and try to go into Ubers and taxis and try to speak the accent,” she said.
