Emma Stone and Jonah Hill had to share a passionate yet clumsy kissing scene in the film Superbad. So to make sure everything went according to plan, the actor turned to alcohol for help.
Hill had already been in movies prior to his starring role in Superbad. Some of his credits before the 2007 hit comedy included The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Click, and Accepted. Stone, however, had no feature film credits prior to her role in Superbad. She earned the role after a lengthy audition process that included Hill.
“I actually read that role at a table read when they were trying to get financing. It was a Saturday, and Jonah was there, but he was reading miscellaneous male roles,” Stone once told Backstage. “Afterwards I was getting food at the back, and one of the writers, Evan Goldberg, said, ‘You’re exactly what I had in mind for Jules. You really look like her.’ Six months later, the movie was green-lit and they had me come in and audition with Jonah. It was a long process but I wanted to do it so badly. I laughed out loud on every single page, and that never happens.”
Hill and Stone would share a lot of screen-time together, with the Oscar-winner portraying his high school crush. The two would eventually engage in a kissing scene gone wrong, but Hill wanted to add some more authenticity to the moment.
“I hate watching films where someone’s supposed to be drunk and you can tell that they’re not. In Superbad I was really concerned about the scene where I had to kiss Emma Stone and end up headbutting her. I wanted it to feel real, so I got a bottle of vodka and just starting hammering it,” he once said according to Contact Music.
Years later, both Hill and Stone looked back fondly at Superbad. Stone not only enjoyed her time on the film’s set, but credited the movie for launching her film career. Meanwhile, Hill also remembered having a good time with Stone.
But his experience with the Cruella star was the exact opposite he had with his other co-star Christopher Mintz-Plasse. In an interview with Vanity Fair (via USA Today), Hill discussed his mixed feelings towards the actor.
“Chris was really, really amazing off the bat,” Hill said. “And I think he was really annoying to me at that time.”
It didn’t help that Mintz-Plasse would sometimes joke about Hill during the audition, which further ruffled Hill’s feathers.
“Jonah immediately hated him,” Rogen recalled. “He was like, ‘That was [messing] with my rhythm. I couldn’t perform with that guy.’”
But Judd Apatow, who helped produce the film, confided that Plasse’s contentious relationship with Hill was exactly why the duo worked on-screen.
Stone and Hill would reunite several years later for the Netflix feature Maniac. But Stone commented that it wasn’t as big of a reunion as some might’ve thought. She revealed the pair were still friends even after their work in Superbad.
“We’ve always stayed in touch, so it wasn’t really like, ‘Oh my god, we haven’t seen each other for a decade and now we’re getting to know each other again!’ But it was amazing to spend so much time in a row together,” Stone said according to Yahoo.
Hill agreed, but added that it was still nice to collaborate with the Cruella star on a film set after so many years.
“Yeah, it was just condensed. Working with people in our business, if you love them, is great because it’s like a really concentrated amount of time. We’re always in different places making stuff, so it was great,” he said.
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