Emma Stone brings her 'Easy A' game in latest success

Emma Stone is on a roll.

The actress, who turns 22 in November, made her big-screen debut in "Superbad" only four years ago and quickly turned that into showy supporting roles in "The Rocker," "The House Bunny," "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" and "Zombieland."

With "Easy A," opening tomorrow, she carries her first film and does it with the type of style and sass fans have come to expect.

The teen comedy's plot is about a high-schooler who makes up a story about sleeping with a guy and quickly becomes the school slut, but in its subplot, Stone's character, Olive, is reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter," hence the easy "A," in school.

So did Stone read Hawthorne?

No.

Did she see any of the "Scarlet Letter" movies?

"I didn't do either," she joked on the phone from Greenwood, Miss. "It's unbelievable how unprepared I was." Stone's in Greenwood to film "The Help," based on the best-selling novel - the next step in her meteoric career.

"When you're in the moment [going from job to job], you don't really step back and examine it," she said. "I know things will change so I'm saving my money like a lunatic and understand that I better appreciate it now.

"And I am."

She's also managed to keep a level head and stay out of trouble (unlike, say, another redheaded actress).

"I don't think people are very interested in me," Stone said. "I don't do much interesting."

Except work.

Next year Stone will be seen in "Crazy Stupid Love" and heard in the animated prehistoric comedy "The Croods" besides being seen and heard in "The Help."

What does make the young actress interesting is how well-rounded she is in classic movies (and how good her taste is). Her favorite movie is Charlie Chaplin's 1931 silent masterpiece "City Lights" (her parents screened it for her and friends at a surprise birthday party) and other films in her favorite five include Woody Allen's "Manhattan," Sidney Lumet's futuristic TV satire "Network" (written by Paddy Chayefsky), Hal Ashby's "Harold and Maude," and the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford thriller "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

As religious fundamentalists take a bit of a skewering in "Easy A," is Stone expecting her first backlash? "I wouldn't be surprised," she said. "But the movie's not mocking Christians - just the particular Christians in this group at this school."

But it's really about the "extremism of high school life."