Emma Stone knows her comedy history. In 2015, on a special celebrating 40 years of Saturday Night Live, Stone delivered a spot-on impression of Gilda Radner’s beloved character Roseanne Roseannadanna. Turns out that’s not the only comedy classic she can pull off flawlessly. Stone recently appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she revealed a heretofore-unknown talent: she has a certain monologue from Planes, Trains & Automobiles down pat.
There’s a scene in the middle of the movie in which Steve Martin’s character, having already been through a series of travel-related snafus, berates a car rental employee, played by Edie McClurg. The scene is a master class in comedic tension, with Martin’s slow burn boiling over into something utterly searing. Essentially, it’s two very funny people playing two people who don’t like each other one bit, and every second of it is hilarious.
And Stone has the whole thing memorized, it turns out.
Later, on Twitter, Martin noted his approval. “I’m….honored?” he said in a tweet responding to a video capturing Stone’s monologue.
Besides being decidedly entertaining, the video is also a reminder of Stone’s versatility. I don’t think I’d have predicted that Stone could deliver this monologue so well, and yet here we are. Though, in retrospect, this command of tone might be one of the reasons Stone thrived in the limited series Maniac, which leapt gleefully from genre to genre over the course of its run. It’s an impressive and unexpected foray into comedy history.
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