Emma Stone came to Cabaret with a heavy mind full of doubt, even though she already had the kind of career many people dream about. She won two Oscars, worldwide acclaim, and the praise of artists who could not quiet the voice inside her that kept pushing her to care too much about what others thought of her work.
The Moment Emma Stone Realised Something Had To Change
Emma Stone once spoke about how she let outside opinions seep in, saying, “I was letting a lot of outside opinion permeate me. I thought I needed to do certain things or be a certain way,” per Backstage.
The pressure of expectation can bend even the strongest spirit, and what the Bugonia star needed was a role that could remind her of who she really was, something she could throw herself into without hesitation, and most importantly, something that would silence every thought pulling her apart. That role arrived in the form of Cabaret.
Emma Stone explains how she was done with film at only 25 years old and how Carabet helped her love acting again. pic.twitter.com/QrbRXd8qyv
— best of emma stone (@badpostestone) February 6, 2024
The Cabaret Breakthrough That Reignited Emma Stone’s Love For Acting
Stone’s Broadway debut in 2014 as Sally Bowles was more than a performance. It was a return to the kind of love she felt as a child when she first saw Cabaret and fell for its world. She had told Rob Marshall how deeply she wanted to play Sally, a wish she carried for years. When Michelle Williams stepped down from the production Marshall created with Sam Mendes, Stone stepped in, and that step changed everything for her.
The role became a turning point that lifted her into an entirely new chapter, one that reminded her why acting mattered to her in the first place. She spoke about how the experience awakened something inside her, adding, “I started understanding, in a real way, it’s not about the outside-in, it really is about the inside-out. You realise that you have to love what you do more than you love what people say about what you do”.
emma stone as sally bowles in cabaret on broadway pic.twitter.com/UjlHxxnZEd
— louise (@stonedemms) September 29, 2021
The Power Of Sally Bowles & Why The Role Mattered
Cabaret remains Stone’s only stage credit to this day, and what an extraordinary one to have. Sally Bowles has been carried by legends such as Judi Dench and Liza Minnelli, a character born from Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, before finding life on stage in I Am a Camera and finally Cabaret. Sally’s story lives on because of the way it blends the personal with the political, a woman chasing fame in Weimar Germany while a dark future builds around her. She wants to be big so badly, even though her talent wavers, and that desire drives her forward.
It was that hunger and that desperate reach for something meaningful, which resonated deeply with Stone at a time when she questioned her own place. Her performance as Sally became the spark that brought her back to herself. It grounded her, guided her and helped shape the icon she would become.
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