Emma Stone says the cast of 'La La Land' were like a team of "worker chickens".
The 27-year-old actress stars with Ryan Gosling, John Legend and J. K.
Simmons in the romantic musical comedy and Emma admits the cast
developed a wonderful bond.
Recently, Emma had listened to a TED Talk on Margaret Heffernan's 2015
presentation about chicken behaviour, which revealed the difference
between 'worker chickens' and 'super chickens' and she insists there
were no egotistic super chickens on the set of Damien Chazelle's movie.
Speaking to Backstage magazine, she said: "There are worker chickens and
super chickens. They did this study, and the worker chickens, by the
end of it, had gotten all this stuff done. But the super chickens, all
but three had pecked each other to death. I guess I relate to that in
the sense that it feels good for me to collaborate with people and be in
a community. It's hard for me to be, like, this sole person doing
something. [With] theatre or something like 'La La Land,' we all were
such a team the whole time.
"Is this a really weird roundabout discussion? I'm not a super chicken!"
Emma and Ryan had to perform several song and dance numbers for 'La La
Land' and despite their extensive stage and screen backgrounds the pair
had to be taught a lot of basic dance steps, but they had fun doing it.
She said: "Our first six weeks of rehearsal, our choreographer [Mandy
Moore] taught us tap and ballroom things that they would teach a
7-year-old who's taking tap for the first time. In getting to know what
our strengths and weaknesses were, she shaped and reshaped these dance
numbers to make sure that we could do them in a way that was, hopefully,
exciting but not embarrassing."