Emma Stone nearly starred on Friday Night Lights — and she’s still not over it.
“When I was auditioning in L.A. when I was 15, I got a couple [of] callbacks for Friday Night Lights for Coach Taylor’s daughter,” Stone, 35, said on the Thursday, June 20, episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I was totally devastated that it didn’t work out.”
She continued, “It would have been so crazy if I met Jesse [Plemons] back then, but then we met 20 years later on [Kinds of Kindness].”
Stone and Plemons, 36, costar in the upcoming film Kinds of Kindness, about a man trying to break away from his “predetermined path” while another searches for a person with a special ability. Years ago, Plemons got his acting start playing Landry Clarke on FNL. The show, inspired by H.G. Bissinger’s 1990 book and 2004 movie of the same name, followed a high school football team in Dillon, Texas, led by Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler).
Onscreen, Coach Taylor was married to Tami Taylor (Connie Britton) and they were parents to daughter Julie. While the role of Julie nearly went to Stone, actress Aimee Teegarden eventually nabbed the part. FNL aired for five seasons from 2006 to 2011.
“[Friday Night Lights] played such an important part of my life and was such a huge part of my life for so long,” Teegarden, 34, exclusively told Us Weekly in March, noting she still keeps in touch with her costars. “I see castmates every now and then at different events or things like that or just catching up. It was really great seeing them and just catching up. They [all[ have full-on kids and wives and things like that!”
While Stone didn’t make it to Dillon, Texas, she landed her big break in 2007 when she starred in the films Superbad and The House Bunny.
“When I was lucky, there were, like, five auditions a week — that’s when you’re really lucky,” Stone previously told Us in 2017 of her early years in Hollywood. “I think the worst part is when I wasn’t getting any auditions because that sort of ignorable feeling is somehow more brutal than being rejected.”
Stone has since won two Academy Awards for her respective roles in La La Land and Poor Things.
“I really just want to thank my family,” she gushed at the Oscars in March, when she won Best Actress for her performance in Poor Things. “My mom, my brother Spencer, my dad, my husband, Dave [McCary], I love you so much. And most importantly, my daughter who is going to be 3 in three days and has turned our lives technicolor. I love you bigger than the whole sky, my girl.”
