Emma Stone originally dropped out of Cabaret because she worried the schedule would "kill her".
The 25-year-old actress will be taking on the role of Sally Bowles in the Broadway revival of the classic show, helmed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, once Michelle Williams departs early next month. Emma was the original choice for the production and at first agreed, but then bowed out as she felt she couldn't juggle it with her other projects.
She had been working on Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 at the time, along with several other ventures.
“It was painful... I’d said goodbye to the idea of ever playing Sally on Broadway, and it upset me; it really upset me,” she sighed to the New York Times.
“There was one day on the schedule where I would land from Tokyo in the morning and have enough time to make it to perform in that afternoon’s matinee. I realised that this schedule would turn the dream of playing Sally into a kind of nightmare. It felt like forcing something that wouldn’t fit. But I was telling myself I can do this, and everyone wanted to make it work, and it’s hard to say no when people are being so accommodating. But part of me also thought, ‘It’s going to kill me.’ ”
A past experience also made her hesitant to take on the job. Her leading role in 2010 comedy Easy A propelled Emma into the spotlight, and she remembers how difficult it was to balance the filming with looking after her mom, who was suffering from breast cancer.
“I desperately wanted to do Easy A, but my mom was also really, really sick and I couldn’t go home to Arizona during the two-month shoot,” she recalled. “I was 20 years old, working on this project I loved but not sleeping and just working flat out. It was a really difficult time.”
Emma can be seen in the Broadway production of Cabaret, alongside Alan Cumming as the Emcee, from November 11 to February 1 2015.
